THE PANAMA CANAL

A bird's-eye view of the great canal, which was planned as a short cut for the fleet of the United States from one ocean to the other.

which was $747,000,000 a year.

Now the entire revenue

of the empire before the war was only $634,000,000 from taxation and $260,000,000 from railroads, posts and telegraphs; wherefore a considerable increase in taxation was necessitated, to meet the interest charges on the debt.

AMERICAN SUPPLIES FOR THE ALLIES

The allied powers have from the first been looking to the United States for a great part of their supplies, both of munitions of war and of foodstuffs. The result has been an enormous increase in the foreign trade of the nation. Our exports had ranged from $2,170,000,000 in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1912, to $2,716,000,000 in that ending June 30, 1915; but in the next year, the first full fiscal year of the war, ending June 30, 1916, they increased to $4,272,000,000; an increase of 57 per cent in one year.

Still more significant was the destination of this trade. Our exports to the Central Powers of Europe practically ceased, while those to the allies enormously increased. Thus before the war we had sold $335,000,000 worth yearly to Germany, but in 1916 that amount shrunk to only $288,851. On the other hand, our exports to France rose from $146,000,000 in 1913 to $630,000,000 in 1916; those to Italy from $76,000,000 to $270,000,000; to Russia from $26,000,000 to $313,000,000; and to Great Britain from $597,000,000 to $1,518,000,000. There was also a great increase, for a time, to certain neutral countries: To Denmark from $18,000,000 to $55,000,000; to Norway from $8,000,000 to $53,000,000; and to Sweden from $12,000,000 to $51,000,000. It was quite obvious that this increase could not be required to supply the needs of

those countries, but, as they were in close commercial intercourse with Germany, that the enormous surplus above their own requirements was being transshipped to the latter country. It was on that perfectly logical and just ground that the allies interfered with that trade and prevented unlimited imports into neutral lands having trade relations with Germany.

EXPORTS OF MUNITIONS OF WAR

Significant, too, was the character of our trade. Thus animals, chiefly horses and mules, rose from $7,000,000 in 1913 to $99,000,000 in 1916; brass and brass ware from $8,000,000 to $164,000,000; vehicles from $54,000,000 to $167,000,000; chemicals from $26,000,000 to $124,000,000; explosives from $5,000,000 to $467,000,000; iron and steel from $304,000,000 to $621,000,000; leather from $63,000,000 to $146,000,000; woolen goods from $4,000,000 to $53,000,000; and zinc from $406,000 to $48,000,000. These changes could have only one possible meaning. The United States was supplying the allied powers with a large proportion of their munitions of war.

There was also a large increase in our exports of foodstuffs of various kinds, though this was not so marked as the increase of munitions because the surplus above our own needs was limited. But so much was sent abroad as to cause an enormous rise in the domestic prices of food. Never before in our history did prices rise so high as in the spring of 1917. The gold prices of wheat and potatoes then were considerably higher than they had been in depreciated paper currency during the Civil War. The highest price of wheat in depreciated paper scrip in the Civil War was about $2.85 a bushel; in April, 1917, it rose to $3.10 in gold,

THE SPECTRE OF FAMINE

From an early date in the war the grim spectre of potential famine haunted the European belligerents; and by the second year of the war all the peoples were placed upon a siege diet. The governments took possession and control of all food supplies, and fixed the prices and determined the amounts that should be distributed to the people. First attention was paid to the wants of the armies, it being essential that the physical strength of the soldiers should be maintained. After that, the non-combatant population fared but meagrely, especially in the blockaded Central Empires. Still, at the worst, they did not approximate the famine-pangs which others had endured in other wars.

There has, for example, been in Germany no such privations as those which German armies a generation ago imposed upon beleaguered Paris. In that City of Light in the war of the Terrible Year the market price of eggs rose to 45 cents apiece. A box of sardines cost $3 and a cauliflower the same. Potatoes were $10 a bushel. Fresh butter was $12 a pound. A head of cabbage cost $2.50, while a single carrot was valued at 45 cents. Preserved beef was $3 a pound and ham was $7 a pound. A fowl cost $14, a hare $15 and a rabbit $12.

So much for legitimate food supplies. But in the horrors of that siege Parisians eagerly devoured that which at other times would have caused their gorge to rise as filthy and obscene. Cats were eaten, by those who could pay $3 apiece for them; crows were delicacies at $1 each, and even rats were not disdained at 50 cents. As for bread, there was a loathsome composition, consisting largely of sawdust, but containing other ingredients which cannot decently be named, and this was doled out daily at the rate of a third of a pound to each person.