Why does Poland starve? The question needs answering. In our secret hearts we people who have plenty, are inclined to suspect that the nations who suffer are purchasing their hunger with idleness. I do not pretend that the situation at Marki answers all the question, But certainly the reasons for the hunger there apply to very many towns which once were hives of industry.

Marki lies six miles to the east of Warsaw in the direct path of a Russian advance. The country through which one approaches it is still marred by defenses and barbed wire entanglements, hastily prepared last summer to hold up the Bolshevist attack. Before the war it was a Polish Boumeville or Port Sunlight—a successful experiment in housing workmen in healthy surroundings. The village centred about a woollen mill, which supported three thousand employees. The employees had homes in model dwellings, rented to them at a moderate figure. They were provided with an up-to-date school, a hospital, bath-houses, etc., and were in an exceptional state of contentment. When the great strike occurred in 1905 and 1906, they refused to leave their work and only joined at length under threats and at the revolver's point. The owners of the mill were originally British, though circumstances have made it wise for them to become Polish citizens. They were residents of Marki and one of them, with whom I spoke today, still retains his Lancashire dialect. Since 1884 the mill had been manufacturing yarn, until in 1914 it had attained a weekly output of one hundred thousand pounds. It traded under the name of E. Briggs Brothers and Company. Then came the war, the general dislocation and the end of prosperity.

Marki was in Russian Poland. In 1916 it was captured by the Germans. The mill became a prison-camp for interned Russian soldiers and industry was at a standstill. Obviously, when there was a crying need for woollens, it was bad economy to allow this intricate mass of valuable machinery to stand idle. A German manufacturer was sent down, with a view to setting it going. His plans were almost completed, when the Roh Stoff Abteilung got wind of what was happening. The Roh Stoff Abteilung was a company organized for the systematic looting of captured territories. It paid the German Government a lump sum for its privileges and an additional percentage on its profits. It dispatched an agent to Marki to make a report on the opportunities, with the result that the compatriot manufacturer was ousted and the wrecking of the machinery commenced.

Today one of the partners, Mr. Charles Whitehead, took me over what was left after the Roh Stoff Abteilung had completed its work. All the boilers, motors, piping, belting, brass and copper parts have been torn out. Even the cork that insulated the roofs has been removed. The bulk of the machinery still stands, but until the stolen parts have been put back the whole is rendered useless. To replace these parts is no easy task when six hundred Polish marks are only worth a dollar and most of civilized Europe is in disrepair. The damage done was so senseless. The rewards gained from the sale of the jumbled loot were so disproportionately small as compared with the expense of its replacement. And so the model village of Marki is a model no longer. The houses are bare of furniture; the furniture has been sold for food. The inhabi............