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Prepared for THE LITERARY DIGEST by the UNITED STATES FOOD ADMINISTRATION and especially designed for High School Use

THE SUGAR SITUATION

N THE PAST, when any one has given you a lump of sugar, what have you always done with it? .

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Exactly SO. And yet the school children of Paris found a different way to behave one day last winter. These boys and girls had been invited to a luncheon-party by the Red Cross, and at the end of it each was given a lump of sugar a rare treat for them. But did they eat it? Not they. Those lumps of sugar were carefully tucked away and taken home to be sent later to their heroes-bearded and brave fathers and uncles and big brothers who were at the front fighting for France.

Can any one-boy or girl, or father or mother-have that incident in the back of his head and still say:

"I realize that I can have two pounds of sugar a month, or what amounts to six level teaspoons of it every day. But that's not enough.

I want more "?

Can any one say that and still claim to be a patriotic American, trying to do his share toward winning the war?

Learn the facts in the case and see what you think.

FORMER SOURCES OF ALLIED SUGAR-Two thousand one hundred and ninety teaspoons of sugar a year! That's what the two-pound-a-month allowance gives one. Such an intake of sugar for the human system does not seem like any great sacrifice in these war-days. To one who really understands all the circumstances it seems generous.

But "circumstances" is a dull and colorless word to describe anything so interesting and important as the reasons why this country has to be sparing in the use of sugar.

across the water, while Java is the one three times as far off. If we, through our thoughtlessness or greed, force the Allies to send ships all the way to Java for sugar there will be just that much less shipping available to carry soldiers and guns and ammunition across the ocean.

In short, in the time a ship would take to bring a ship-load of sugar from Java to England, it could be carrying one load of sugar, one of soldiers, and one of guns from New York to England or France.

AMERICA THE SOLUTION-Because of the shipping situation we must share sugar with the Allies as we have been sharing our wheat. To deny them this sugar is not merely to withhold the sugar; it also means the slowing up of troop movement and necessary equipment.

WHY MUST I USE

ONLY TWO POUNDS OF SUGAR
A MONTH?

SEVEN WHYS FOR SHORT SUPPLIES:

1. Our great war-program has reduced our sugar-
carrying fleet.

2. The sugar requirements of our overseas army
are very large.

3. Our own sugar-crop is less than we expected.
4. The small island, Cuba, must feed the world
with sugar.

5. We have diverted 50,000 tons of sugar shipping
in order that Belgium should have food.

6. Germans have destroyed sugar-beet fields and
factories in northern France and Italy.

7. More than 50,000,000 pounds of sugar have been
sunk off our shores by German submarines.

To understand why we must go without sugar and ship it overseas instead, it is necessary first to know where the Allies used to get their sugar-supply before the war.

It was not from us. France and Italy used to raise their own sugar. England got some from the British West Indies, and imported large quantities from Java; but more than half England's total came from the German Empire.

The

That was before the war. How do matters stand now? sugar-production in France and Italy has dropt to less than a third of what it used to be, owing to crop failures, labor shortage, the inroads of the German hordes and their destruction of the sugar-beet fields and factories in northern France and Italy. Thus France and Italy must get sugar from us. Nor does England fare better, for obviously her German channels of supply are closed.

THE PROBLEM TO-DAY-But why-asks the person who realizes the fact that there is a quantity of sugar in Java-why can not the Allies get all the sugar they need from Java and the East Indies? Why must they depend on the United States?

There are two reasons: The ship shortage and the need for speed. Imagine a parallel. A large lumber-camp, located on a great lake and hemmed in by woods, must get all its food-supplies by water. It can go to one of two points: a town five miles away or another fifteen miles distant. There are only a certain number of boats in the camp, and most of these are sorely needed to bring in lumbermen and all sorts of tools and machinery. In such an emergency the lumber-camp naturally turns to the town five miles across the water for food instead of to the one fifteen miles away. But suppose that nearer town refuses to share its food. It then becomes necessary to go three times as far for the provisions and, because of the extra time involved, to use three times as many boats to get the food needed for any given month. This means that the lumber-camp will have just that number of boats less to use in bringing men and machinery.

Such, in a rough sense, is the Allies' position to-day. They correspond to the lumber-camp. We are the town five miles

Shall we fail in this, merely because as a nation we have drifted along year after year indulging to our fill an appetite for sweets?

We have only a limited amount of sugar to share. Most of our canesugar comes from Cuba and Hawaii. That fact alone puts a tax on our shipping, without permitting us to turn to the East Indies.

So we must share the sugar we have. And we must do it by keeping inside a limit of two pounds of sugar a month to each person. It would be possible to put every man, woman, and child in the country on such an obligatory sugar ration. But how much better-how much more fitting in a country which claims to be heart and soul for aiding the Allies-to have this a voluntary ration, an honor ration.

Such a sacrifice- or rather, such a privilege will entitle us to sit at a common table with England, France, and Italy. Altho, even so, France and Italy will be eating less sugar than we.

THE PROBLEM AND THE PRIVILEGE-Such is the sugar situation to-day. Of course, this is not the whole story. For instance, there is the submarine menace, which has destroyed more than 50,000,000 pounds of sugar off our coast. There are the 50,000 tons of sugar shipping diverted from that business in order that Belgium may have food. And finally, there is the fact that our own sugar-crop was less than expected.

But these are only incidents which intensify the world situation. The big problem for us is to get the sugar and ship it abroad. The methods of distributing to sugar trades and dealers in this country, the small necessary increase in price, the thousand-and-one ways sugar may be saved at home, even the reasons why soldiers need more sugar than civilians, are all, comparatively speaking, details, tho they will be dis

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CURRENT POETRY

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Mr. Lawrence Binyon contributes to the London Times lines that show how those who have "gone west" are linked with us who here remain.

THE DEAD TO THE LIVING
BY LAWRENCE BINYON

O you that still have rain and sun,
Kisses of children and of wife,
And the good earth to tread upon,
And the mere sweetness that is life,
Forget us not, who gave all these

For something dearer, and for you!
Think in what cause we crossed the seas!
Remember, he who fails the challenge
Fails us too.

Now in the hour that shows the strong-
The soul no evil powers affray-
Drive straight against embattled Wrong:
Faith knows but one, the hardest, way.
Endure; the end is worth the throe.

Give, give; and dare, and again dare!
On, to that Wrong's great overthrow!

We are with you, of you; we the pain and
Victóry share.

Macaulay, we all remember, said that in writing the "Lays of Ancient Rome" he had copied the manner of the penny ballads of London streets. Some captious critics refuse to consider the lays as genuine poetry, but as ringing verse they hold their place in English letters. An echo of them is found in the following lines that oddly enough constitute a lesson in war-geography:

THE RIVERS OF FRANCE
BY H. J. M.

The rivers of France are ten score and twain,
But five are the names that we know.
The Marne, the Vesle, the Ourcq, and the Aisne.
And the Somme of the swampy flow.

The rivers of France, from source to the sea,
Are nourished by many a rill,
But these five, if ever a drought there be,
The fountains of sorrow would fill.

The rivers of France shine silvery white,
But the waters of five are red
With the richest blood, in the fiercest fight
For Freedom, that ever was shed.

The rivers of France sing soft as they run,
But five have a song of their own,
That hymns the fall of the arrogant one
And the proud cast down from his throne.
The rivers of France, all quietly take
To sleep in the house of their birth.
But the carnadined wave of five shall break
On the uttermost strands of Earth.

Five rivers of France, see their names are writ
On a banner of crimson and gold,
And the glory of those who fashioned it
Shall nevermore cease to be told.

Active-service verse of varied quality makes up the body of a new volume by Ford Madox Hueffer, entitled "On Heaven' (John Lane Company). From the Ypres salient he sends us these lines:

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YPRES SALIENT

BY FORD MADOX HUEFFER

O quiet peoples sleeping bed by bed

Beneath gray roof-trees in the glimmering west, We who can see the silver-gray and red

Rise over No Man's Land-salute your rest.

O quiet comrades, sleeping in the clay

Beneath a turmoil you need no more mark, We who have lived through yet another day Salute your graves at setting in of dark. And rising from your beds or from the clay,

You, dead, or far from lines of slain and slayers, Through your eternal or your finite day.

Give us your prayers!

A striking contrast of the things seen day by day by the men at the front to the pictures that rise in their memories is presented in these very musical lines:

THE IRON MUSIC

BY FORD MADOX HUEFFER

The French guns roll continuously
And our guns, heavy, slow;
Along the Ancre, sinuously,
The transport wagons go,
And the dust is on the thistles
And the larks sing up on high

But I see the Golden Valley

Down by Tintern on the Wye.

For it's just nine weeks last Sunday
Since we took the Chepstow train,
And I'm wondering if one day

We shall do the like again;

For the four-point-two's come screamin Through the sausages on high;

So there's little use in dreaming

How we walked above the Wye.

Dust and corpses in the thistles

Where the gas-shells burst like snow. And the shrapnel screams and whistles On the Becourt road below, And the High Wood bursts and bristles Where the mine-clouds foul the sky But I'm with you at Wyndcroft,

Over Tintern on the Wye.

The ruined windows and battered walls of Flanders are gracefully memorialized by Mr. Hueffer in the medium of poetry so frequently abused and supposed a modern discovery, free verse:

THE OLD HOUSES OF FLANDERS
BY FORD MADOX HUEFFER

The old houses of Flanders,

They watch by the high cathedrals;
They overtop the high town-halls;

They have eyes, mournful, tolerant, and sardonic, for the ways of men

In the high, white, tiled gables.

The rain and the night have settled down on Flanders:

It is all wet darkness; you can see nothing.

Then those old eyes, mournful, tolerant, and sardonic,

Look at great, sudden, red lights.

Look upon the shades of the cathedrals:

And the golden rods of the illuminated rain,

For a second. . .

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judge from the verses it has inspired in Mr. Theodore Maynard's graceful and hearty muse. We quote it from The New Witness (London):

DITCHLING

BY THEODORE MAYNARD If, after having lived in many towns,

Such goodness comes to me

That I might house beneath the noble Downs
Beside an apple-tree;

Then would I find in moon and candle-light
A supper-table spread

With Ditchling ham and ale for my delight,
And honest Ditchling bread;

And open to the kindly Sussex air
My heart and window wide,

That gentle thoughts might find me sleeping there,
And I be satisfied.

has

Among publications that war brought into being is The Anglo-Italian Review (London), a monthly miscellany of prose and verse. The prose contributions are designed to strengthen the friendly relations between England and Italy and to convey useful information on various topics to readers in both countries. As is meet, the verse consists of songs for the song's sake, and a charming specimen in the August issue is most likely the product of the editor, Mr. Edward Hutton, altho it is signed with initials only.

EVENING AT VALLOMBROSA
BY E. H.

The woods are very still,

Dear, let us lie,

Here or here, where you will,
Just you and I,

Here or here, where you will,
'Twixt the woods and the sky.
The woods are very still.
The valleys old
The setting sun shall fill
With glory and gold;
And each beloved hill

He shall enfold.

The little old cities rare,
Hidden at noon,

Shall each shine forth and share
His blessing soon;
While over Florence fair
Low sets the moon.

The lingering day its sweet,
Its last light strews,
And heaven with silence meek
The earth endues,
While faint far towers repeat
An angel's news.

The woods are very still,
Here let us lie,

Forgetting all the ill,

Just you and I,

Forgetting all the ill,

"Twixt the earth and the sky.

One of the most ambitious efforts of Miss Florence Nash in "June Dusk, and Other Poems" (Doran), and not by any means the least successful, is presented in the following

LINES TO A DEAD POET

BY FLORENCE NASH

Come, hold my hand across the space of death,
Dear, gentle singer whom I read so well,
Surely mine anguish does inform you now
Of all that love I had no chance to tell.
Gather me close within your spirit's arms,
Soothing my fears with your enchanted hands,
Whisper some song there was no time to sing
Before your journey to the shadow-lands.
Flowers were laid upon your last low bed,
Soft-petaled violets of dusk-time hue,

I have no knowledge where your grave may be,
I only know it has not prisoned you.

So hold my hand across the space of death,
Soothing my fears with your enchanted hands,
Tho in this life you knew not of my love,
Such love must triumph in the shadow-lands.

REVIEWS OF NEW BOOKS

NOTABLE NEW WAR-BOOKS

I

PROF. LAUGHLIN ON ECONOMIC AND FINAN CIAL ASPECTS OF THE CONFLICT

Laughlin, J. Laurence (Ph.D.). Credit of the Nations. A Study of the European War. 8vo, pp. xiv-406. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. $3.50. Postage, 16 cents.

The nations considered in this volume are naturally Great Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. Austria, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Russia are left out of account. The thesis of the book is that the ultimate causes of the war are to be found in economic conditions. The period 1880-1910 was one of "unparalleled industrial revolution," which developed into a race for the foremost position. Power was created and manufactures grew, transportation by land and sea cheapened as science, industry, and commerce united their forces. The extension of commerce gave rise to an extension of credit, and this latter became dependent not on the amount of money available, but on the amount of goods produced or producible. Great Britain led in the development. Germany followed and was overtaking her rival, partly because government and business were allies. But she made the mistake of assuming that she must own the territories from which raw materials were drawn and the markets where products were sold. Hence her desire for colonies. Ambitions grew out of her amazing success, the cry of "freedom of the seas" was raised, altho to the freedom which she already enjoyed-and this was completeshe owed in great part her advance during the last thirty years, an advance greater in proportion than that of any other nation. So that the present-day militarism of the Teutons is the result of industrial growth and power. Expansion south and east was the only vent before the war, hence the Central-Europe-Balkan-Turkey schemeand the war considered solely as a means of economic aggression.

That is Professor Laughlin's diagnosis in his first chapter. In his second he shows that Lord Kitchener's "men, munitions, and money," as the basis of war-prosecution, must be read "men, munitions, and credit." One hundred billions at least are already spent, but no such amount of money existed, and there is more money in existence now than when the war began. Not money but wealth ("goods in some form") has been destroyed. So that "goods are primary; money and credit secondary," and credit is present purchasing power. A government, in borrowing, transmutes its future production into present means of payment, employing private credit organizations and its citizens. The three factors of the huge financial operations of the war are (1) money, (2) credit and banking, and (3) national fiscal operations (taxes, etc.). In peace waste lies in consumption that is superfluoususe of means beyond the actual necessities for sustaining life. In war the waste is in the destruction not merely of wealth but of capital (i.e., productive wealth). When the loss of goods depresses the amount available below the necessaries of life, below surplus wealth and the possibility of reproduction, credit falls and ultimately fails-unless the borrower can go elsewhere (as France and Great Britain to the United States). Hence huge debts alone will not end war; credit (which "depends on normal productive power")

must vanish.

Now, how is it with Germany?

Her

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