vi EUROPE AFTER THE TREATY 217

of the soil from lack of the usual applications ofartificial manures throughout the course of the war;the unsettlement of the minds of the labouring classeson the fundamental economic issues of their lives.But above all (to quote Mr. Hoover), " there is agreat relaxation of effort as the reflex of physicalexhaustion of large sections of the population fromprivation and the mental and physical strain of thewar." Many persons are for one reason or anotherout of employment altogether. According to Mr.Hoover, a summary of the unemployment bureausin Europe in July 1919, showed that 15,000,000families were receiving unemployment allowancesin one form or another, and were being paid in themain by a constant inflation of currency. InGermany there is the added deterrent to labour andto capital (in so far as the Reparation terms are takenliterally), that anything, which they may producebeyond the barest level of subsistence, will for yearsto come be taken away from them.

Such definite data as we possess do not addmuch, perhaps, to the general picture of decay. ButI will remind the reader of one or two of them. Thecoal production of Europe as a whole is estimatedto have fallen off by 30 per cent; and upon coalthe greater part of the industries of Europe and thewhole of her transport system depend. Whereasbefore the war Germany produced 85 per cent ofthe total food consumed by her inhabitants, the