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178 "in Southern Ukraine and in Galicia, where there has been considerable unrest amongst the peasants due to the high cost of textiles.'"

"That is fascinating news," said Kitson sardonically. "Are you running a scrap-book on high finance?"

"No," said the other shortly, "the Land Bank is a Loan Bank. It finances peasant proprietors."

"You a shareholder?" asked Mr. Kitson wonderingly.

"No."

Kitson picked up another cutting. It was a telegraphic dispatch dated from Berlin:

"' As evidence of the healthy industrial tone which prevails in Germany and the rapidity with which the Government is recovering from the effects of the war, I may instance the fact that an order has been placed with the Leipzieger Spoorwagen Gesselshaft for 60,000 box cars. The order has been placed by the L.S.G. with thirty firms, and the first delivery is due in six weeks.'"

"That's exciting," said Kitson, "but why cut it out?"

The next cutting was also dated "Berlin" and announced the revival of the "War Purchase Council" of the old belligerent days as "a temporary measure."

" It is not intended," said the dispatch, "to invest the committee with all its old functions, and the step has been taken in view of the bad potato crop to organize distribution."

"What's the joke about that?" asked Kitson, now puzzled.

"The joke is that there is no potato shortage—there never was such a good harvest," said Beale. "I keep tag of these things and I know. The Western Mail had an article from its Berlin correspondent last week saying that potatoes were so plentiful that they were a drug on the market."