It Might Have Happened To You

ich it implies are as shallow as they are selfish. Central Europe wants to work. It is b

feed the nation and to make a profit for himself. He bases his calculations on the firm belief that a people, heretofore industrious, still retains the habit; al

culated on the results of the past nine months. As repayment and profit on his investment, he is given the option to purchase one-half of the 20 per cent, increased output at the inland price, i.e., the price that coal is selling for in Czechoslovakia. He makes his profit by exporting. The question immediately arises, why could not Czecho-Slovakia do the exporting and make the profit herself? The answer is that the partitioning of Austro-Hungary by the Peace Treaty and the consequent establi

the coal he intends to sell to Austria, just across the border, where the scarcity of every kind of fuel is causing a crisis. When he has done this, many

ual to indulge in this kind of commercial enterprise, it would equally pay the Allies. For, while this is no philanthropy, it attains the ends of philanthropy and has the added advantage that it is economically constructive. To state the case cynically, the politicians of the Allies can play the part of Good Samaritans and f

hey lie scattered about and consequently there is no movement. An example of this disorganization is near at hand. The peasants of a certain district of what is now Czecho-Slovakia, were accustomed to gain their bread by felling trees in the winter and floating them down the rivers in the summer to Hungary. In Hungary they sold their lo

omeone in Paris scrawled on a map with a blue pencil, so the trees are not felled and the peasants starve. Conditions are so bad in these primitive

l Europe with hostile tariff walls in places where the flow of trade was once traditional and amiable. Whether these countries will be able to function efficiently after they have adapted themselves to their new boundaries is a

almost gone. No one who had anything of actual value would go to Vienna to exchange it for their unreal money. Nevertheless, the railroads still converge there; there has been no time to change them. For all the purpose they serve they might as well run out into the Sahara desert. The political map, as re-arranged by the Peace, has built walls across most of the old travel-routes; it has given ancient hostilities a new means of venting their animosities, has destroyed confidence and dislocated the entire system of transport. This is without doubt the fundamental answer to the question,