Food-regulators will be wroth, I suppose, if I should state that the consumption of life's necessities can be regulated and diminished for its own sake, and that high prices are not necessarily the only way of doing this. At the same time I must admit that prices are bound to rise when demand exceeds supply. In our system of economy that is a natural order of affairs. But this tendency, when not interfered with, would also result in a quick and adequate betterment in wages. In Central Europe, however, the cost of living was always about 50 per cent. ahead of the slow increase in earnings. That 50 per cent. was the increment which the government and its economic minions needed to keep the war going. What regulation of prices there was kept this in mind always. In order that every penny in the realm might be mobilized and then kept producing, no change in these tactics could be permitted.
The food shark and price-boosting middleman were essential in this scheme, and when these were dropped by the government, one by one, it was nothing but a case of:
The Moor has done his duty, the Moor can go.
Elimination of the middleman worked upward, much as does a disease that has its bed in the slums. When the consumer had been subjected to the limit of pressure, the retailer felt the heavy hand of the government.
It got to be the turn of the wholesaler and commission-man, and in October of 1916, the period of which I speak here, only the industrial and commercial kings and the banking monarchs were still in favor with the government. The speculators then operating were either the agents of these powers or closely affiliated with them.
In the fall of 1916 the war system of national economy had taken the shape it has to-day. Food had become the irreducible minimum. Not alone was the quantity on hand barely sufficient to feed the population, but its price could no longer be increased if the masses were not to starve for lack of money instead of lack of food. The daily bread was now a luxury. Men and women had to rise betimes and work late into the night if they wanted to eat at all.
Let me now speak of the sort of revision of economic regulations that was in vogue before the adoption of the new system.
That revision started with the farmer--the producer of food. Some requisitioning had been done on the farms for strictly military purposes. Horses and meat animals had been taken from the farmer for cash at the minimum prices established by the authorities. Forage and grain for the army had been commandeered in a like manner, and in a few cases wagons, plows, and other implements. Further than that (taking into account the minimum prices, which were in favor of the farmer and intended to stimulate production), the government had not actually interfered with the tiller of the soil. He had gone on as before, so far as a shortage of labor, draft animals, and fertilizers permitted. He had not prospered, of course, but on the whole he was better off than the urbanite and industrial worker, for the reason that he could still consume of his food as much as he liked. The government had, indeed, prescribed what percentage of his produce he was to turn over to the public, but often that interference went no further.
But in the growing and crop season of 1916 the several governments went on a new tack. Trained agriculturists, employees of the Food Commissions and Centrals, looked over the crops and estimated what the yield would be. From the total was then subtracted what the establishment of the farmer would need, and the rest had to be turned over to the Food Centrals at fixed dates.
The farmers did not take kindly to this. But there was no help. Failure to comply with orders meant a heavy fine, and hiding of food brought similar punishment and imprisonment besides.
With this done, the food authorities began to clear up a little more in the channels of distribution. The cereals were checked into the mills more carefully, and the smaller water-mills, which had in the past charged for their labor by retaining the bran and a little flour, were put on a cash basis. For every hundred pounds of grain they had to produce so many pounds of flour, together with by-products when these latter were allowed.
The flour was then shipped to a Food Central, and this would later issue it to the bakers, who had to turn out a fixed number of loaves. To each bakery had been assigned so many consumers, and the baker was now responsible that these got the bread which the law prescribed.
Potatoes and other foods were handled in much the same manner. The farmer had to deliver them to the Food Central in given quantities at fixed dates, and the Central turned them over to the retailers for sale to the public in prescribed allotments. Now and then small quantities of "unrestricted" potatoes would get to the consumer through the municipal markets. But people had to rise at three o'clock in the morning to get them. This meant, of course, that only those willing to lose hours of needed sleep for the sake of a little extra food got any of these potatoes.
The ways of the efficient food-regulator are dark and devious but positive in their aim.
The meat-supply was not further modified. The meatless days and exorbitant prices had made further regulation in that department unnecessary. Milk and fat, however, as well as eggs, were made the subject of further attention by the Food Commissions. All three of them were as essential to the masses as was bread, and for that reason they passed within the domain of the food zone--_Rayon_.
In their case, however, the authorities left the supply uncontrolled.
The farmer sold to the Food Central what milk, butter, lard, suet, tallow, vegetable-oil, and eggs he produced, and the Central passed them on to the retailers, who had to distribute them to a given number of consumers. The same was done in the case of sugar.
Such a scheme left many middlemen high and dry. Those who could not be of some service in the new system, or found it not worth while to be connected with it, took to other lines of industry.
The government had left a few such lines open. That, however, was not done in the interest of the middlemen. The better-paid working classes still had pennies that had to be garnered, and these pennies, now that food was surrounded by cast-iron regulations and laws, went into the many other channels of trade.
I made the acquaintance of a man who in the past had bought and sold on commission almost anything under the heading of food. Now it would be a car-load of flour, then several car-loads of potatoes, and when business in these lines was poor he would do a legal or illicit business in butter and eggs. Petroleum was a side line of his, and once he made a contract with the government for remounts. I don't think there was anything the man had not dealt in. But the same can be said of every one of the thousands that used to do business in the quiet corners of the Berlin and Vienna cafes.
I should mention here that the Central European commission-man does not generally hold forth in an office. The cafe is his place of business--not a bad idea, since those with whom he trades do the same.
There are certain cafes in Vienna, Berlin, and Budapest, and the other cities, that exist almost for that purpose. In any three of them one can buy and sell anything from a paper of pins to a stack of hay.
My acquaintance found that the new order of things in the food department left him nothing but the pleasant memory of the "wad" he had made under the old regime. He took to matches.
Matches were uncontrolled and rather scarce. Soon he had a corner in matches. He made contracts with the factories at a price he could not have paid without a large increase in the selling price of the article.
But he knew how to bring that condition about.
Before long the price of matches went up. They had been selling at about one-quarter cent American for a box of two hundred. The fancier article sold for a little more.
When the price was one cent a box, my acquaintance began to unload judiciously. Merchants did not want to be without matches again, and bought with a will. The speculator cleared one hundred and twenty thousand crowns on his first release, I was told. His average monthly profit after that was something like forty thousand crowns.
Somehow he managed to escape prosecution under the anti-high-profit decree then in force. No doubt that was due to his connections with the Vienna Bank Food Ring. At any rate, his name appeared as one of the large subscribers to the fifth Austrian war loan, and, needless to say, he paid his share of the war-profit tax.
In this case fractions of pennies were mobilized. I suppose almost anybody who can afford fuel can afford to light a fire with a match that costs the two-hundredth part of a cent. No doubt the government thought so. Why not relieve the population of that little accumulation of economic "fat"?
Another genius of that sort managed to get a corner in candles. How he managed to get his stock has never been clear to me, since the food authorities had long ago put a ban on the manufacture of candles. I understand that some animal fats, suet and tallow, are needed to make the paraffin "stand" up. Those animal fats were needed by the population in the form of food.
But the corner in candles was _un fait accompli_. The man was far-sighted. He held his wares until the government ordered lights out in the houses at eleven o'clock, and these candles were then welcome at any price, especially in such houses where the janitor would at the stroke of the hour throw off the trunk switch in the cellar.
Here was another chance to get pennies from the many who could afford to buy a candle once or twice a week. The government had no reason to interfere. Those pennies, left in the pockets of the populace, would have never formed part of a war loan or war-profit taxes.
Sewing-thread was the subject of another corner. In fact, all the little things people must have passed one by one into the control of some speculator.
Gentle criticism of that method of mulcting the public was made in the press that depended more than ever on advertising. But that fell on deaf ears. And usually a man had not to be a deep thinker to realize that the government must permit that sort of thing in order to find money for the prosecution of the war and the administration of the state. To serious complaint, the government would reply that it had done enough by regulating the food, and that further regulation would break down the economic machine. That was true, of course. To take another step was to fall into the arms of the Social Democrats, and that responsibility nobody expected the government to take.
The attitude of the public toward the governmentally decreed system of social economy is not the least interesting feature of it.
The authorities took good care to accompany every new regulation with the explanation that it had to be taken in the interest of the state and the armies in the field. If too much food was consumed in the interior, the men in the trenches would go hungry. That was a good argument, of course. Almost every family had some member of it in the army; that food was indeed scarce was known, and not to be content with what was issued was folly in the individual--at one time it was treason.
As an antidote against resentment at high prices, the government had provided the minimum-maximum price schedules, and occasionally some retailer or wholesaler was promptly dealt with by the court, whose president was then more interested in fining the man than in putting him in jail. The government needed the money and was not anxious to feed prisoners. If some favorite was hit by this, the authorities had the convenient excuse that it was "war."
It is difficult to see how the attitude of the several governments could have been different. The authorities of a state have no other power, strength, and resources than what the community places at their disposal wittingly or unwittingly. The war was here and had to be prosecuted in the best manner possible, and the operations incident to the struggle were so gigantic that every penny and fraction thereof had to be mobilized. There was no way out of this so long as the enemy was to be met and opposed. Even the more conservative faction of the Social Democrats realized that, and for the time being the "internationalist"
socialists had no argument they could advance against this, since elsewhere the "internationalists" had also taken to cover. The Liberals everywhere could demand fair treatment of the masses, but that they had been given by the government to the fullest extent possible under the circumstances. The exploitation of the public was general and no longer confined to any class, though it did not operate in all cases with the same rigor.
To have the laws hit all alike would have meant embracing the very theories of Karl Marx and his followers. Apart from the fact that the middle and upper classes were violently opposed to this, there was the question whether it would have been possible in that case to continue the war. The German, German-Austrian, and Hungarian public, however, wanted the war continued, even when the belt had been tightened to the last hole. What, under these circumstances, could be done by the several governments but extract from their respective people the very last cent?
Discussion of the policy was similar to a cat chasing its tail.
We may say the same of the motive actuating the authorities when in the fall of 1916 they established municipal meat markets where meat could be obtained by the poor at cost price and often below that. Whether that was done to alleviate hunger or keep the producer in good trim is a question which each must answer for himself. It all depends on the attitude one takes. The meat was sold by the municipality or the Food Commission direct, at prices from 15 to 25 per cent. below the day's quotation, and was a veritable godsend to the poor. Whether the difference in price represented humaneness on the part of the authorities or design would be hard to prove. Those I questioned invariably claimed that it was a kind interest in the masses which caused the government to help them in that manner. Had I been willing to do so I could have shown, of course, that the money spent in this sort of charity had originally been in the pockets of those who bought the cheaper meat.
But that is a chronic ailment of social economy, and I am not idealist enough to say how this ailment could be cured. In fact, I cannot see how it can be cured if society is not to sink into inertia, seeing that the scramble for a living is to most the only leaven that will count. That does not mean, however, that I believe in the maxim, "The devil take the hindmost"--a maxim which governed the distribution of life's necessities in Central Europe during the first two years of the war.
The zonification of the bread, milk, fats, and sugar supply, and the municipal meat markets began to show that either the government had come to fear the public or was now willing to co-operate with it more closely than it had done in the past. At any rate, this new and better policy had a distinctly humane aspect. Some of the food-lines disappeared, and with them departed much of that brutality which food control by the government had been associated with in the past. The food allowance was scant enough, but a good part of it was now assured. It could be claimed at any time of the day, and that very fact revived in many the self-respect which had suffered greatly by the eternal begging for food in the lines.
Having made a study of the psychology of the food-liner, I can realize what that meant. Of a sudden food riots ceased, and with them passed all danger of a revolution. I am convinced that in the winter of 1915-16 it was easier to start internal trouble in the Central states than it was a year later. A more or less impartial and fairly efficient system of food distribution had induced the majority to look at the shortage in eatables as something for which the government was not to blame. That, after all, was what the government wanted. Whether or no it worked consciously toward that end I am not prepared to say.
By that time, also, the insufferable small official had been curbed to quite an extent. As times grew harder, and the small increases in pay failed more and more to keep pace with the increase in the cost of living, that class became more and more impossible. Toward its superiors it showed more obsequiousness than before, because removal from office meant a stay at the front, and since things in life have the habit of balancing one another, the class became more rude and oppressive toward the public. Finally the government caused the small official to understand that this could not go on. He also learned in a small degree that bureaucratism is not necessarily the only purpose of the officeholder, though much progress in that direction was yet necessary.
It has often been my impression that government in Central Europe would be good if it were possible to put out of their misery the small officials--the element which snarls at the civilian when there is no occasion for it. It seems to me that the worst which the extremists in the Entente group have planned for the Central Powers is still too good for the martinet who holds forth in the Central European _Amtsstube_--_i. e._, government office. Law and order has no greater admirer than myself, but I resent having some former corporal take it for granted that I had never heard of such things until he happened along. Yet that is precisely what this class does. It has alienated hundreds of thousands of friends of the German people. It has stifled the social enlightenment and political liberty which was so strong in Central Europe in the first four decades of the nineteenth century.
It is not difficult to imagine what that class did to a population which had been reduced to subsisting at the public crib. The bread ticket was handed the applicant with a sort of by-the-grace-of-God mien, when rude words did not accompany it. The slightest contravention brought a flood of verbal abuse. Pilate never was so sure that he alone was right.
Between this official insolence, food shortage, and exploitation by the government and its economic minions, the Central European civilian had a merry time of it.
But, after all, no people has a better government than it deserves, just as it has no more food than it produces or is able to secure. The martinets did not mend their ways until women in the food-lines had clawed their faces and an overwhelming avalanche of complaints began to impress the higher officials. Conditions improved rapidly after that and stayed improved so long as the public was heard from. It may not be entirely coincidence that acceptable official manners and better distribution of food came at the same time. In that lies the promise that the days of the autocratic small official in Central Europe are numbered.
It was futile, however, to look for a general or deep-seated resentment against the government itself. Certain officials were hated. Before the war that would have made little difference to the bureaucratic clans, and even now they were often reluctant to sacrifice one of their ilk, but there was no longer any help for it. There was never a time when a change in the principle of government was considered as the means to effect a bettering of conditions. The Central European prefers monarchical to republican government. He is not inclined to do homage to a ruler who is a commoner--a tribute he still pays his government and its head.
In the monarchy the ruler occupies a position which the average republican cannot easily understand. In the constitutional monarchy, having a responsible ministry, the king is generally little better than what is known as a figurehead. He is hardly ever heard from, and when he is the cause of his appearance in the spotlight may be some act that has little or nothing to do with government itself. He may open some hospital or attend a maneuver or review of the fleet, or convene parliament with a speech prepared by the premier, and there his usefulness ends--seemingly. But that is not quite so. In such a realm the monarch stands entirely for that continuation of policy and principle which is necessary for the guidance of the state. He becomes the living embodiment of the constitution, as it were. He is the non-political guardian thereof. Political parties may come and go, but the king stays, seeing to it, theoretically at least, that the parliamentary majority which has put its men into the ministry does not violate the ground laws of the country.
In his capacities of King of Prussia and German Emperor, William II. has been more absolute than any of the other European monarchs, the Czar of Russia alone excepted. The two constitutions under which he rules, the Prussian and the German federative, give him a great deal of room in which to elbow around. When a Reichstag proved intractable he had but to dissolve it, and in the Prussian chambers of Lords and Deputies he was as nearly absolute as any man could be--provided always he did what was agreeable to the Junkers. They are a strong-minded crew in Prussia, and less inclined to be at the beck and call of their king than Germans generally are in the case of their Emperor. In Prussia the King is far more the servant of the state than the Kaiser is in Germany. But this is one of those little idiosyncrasies in government that can be found anywhere.