THE LAST BLOCKADE
Sut,—" W. K.," in his letter about the alleged harsh and vindictive blockade of Germany after the Armistice of 1918, appeals to the " plain language of statistics."
He asserts that Germany's annual food consumption was over too million tons. For a population of 6o millions that would mean nearly two tons per annum for each man, woman and child, or over to lbs. per day—incredible.
The one million tons, quoted by " Janus," for a period of nine months would have provided each man, woman and child of the 6o millions 'with lb. of food per week, not a bad supplement to the existing stocks and home-grown produce. " W. K." ignores completely the fact that people in this country, already on short rations, as well as occupying troops, went on even shorter rations to enable their late enemies to be fed in 1919.
While there was and no doubt will be again, rightly, sympathy and practical help for the sufferers from Germany's megalomania, I hope there will be harsh and vindictive blockade of the crude propaganda of such letters as " W. K.'s," which are on a par with the map I saw in the Berlin War Museum in 1939. That map purported to show the disposition of the opposing armies at the beginning of August, 1914, and placed the British Army on the Franco-Belgian frontier—in position ready to march through Belgium against innocent peace-loving Germany!
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