In Germany there is the added deterrent to labor and to capital (in so far as the Reparation terms are taken literally), that anything, which they may produce beyond the barest level of subsistence, will for years to come be taken away from them.
Such definite data as we possess do not add much, perhaps, to the general picture of decay.

But I will remind the reader of one or two of them.

The coal production of Europe as a whole is estimated to have fallen off by 30 per cent; and upon coal the greater part of the industries of Europe and the whole of her transport system depend.
Whereas before the war Germany produced 85 per cent of the total food consumed by her inhabitants, the productivity of the soil is now diminished by 40 per cent and the effective quality of the live-stock by 55 per cent.[145] Of the European countries which formerly possessed a large exportable surplus, Russia, as much by reason of deficient transport as of diminished output, may herself starve.

Hungary, apart from her other troubles, has been pillaged by the Romanians immediately after harvest.

Austria will have consumed the whole of her own harvest for 1919 before the end of the calendar year.