vi EUROPE AFTER THE TREATY 213

destruction of this organisation and the interruptionof the stream of supplies, a part of this population isdeprived of its means of livelihood. Emigration isnot open to the redundant surplus. For it wouldtake years to transport them overseas, even, whichis not the case, if countries could be found whichwere ready to receive them. The danger confrontingus, therefore, is the rapid depression of the standardof life of the European populations to a pointwhich will mean actual starvation for some (a pointalready reached in Eussia and approximately reachedin Austria ). Men will not always die quietly. Forstarvation, which brings to some lethargy and ahelpless despair, drives other temperaments to thenervous instability of hysteria and to a mad de-spair. And these in their distress may overturn theremnants of organisation, and submerge civilisationitself in their attempts to satisfy desperately theoverwhelming needs of the individual. This is thedanger against which all our resources and courageand idealism must now co-operate.

On the 13th May 1919, Count Brockdorff-Rantzau addressed to the Peace Conference of the Alliedand Associated Powers the Report of the GermanEconomic Commission charged with the study of theeffect of the conditions of Peace on the situation ofthe German population. <c In the course of the lasttwo generations," they reported, "Germany has be-come transformed from an agricultural State to an