Page:The Destruction of Poland - Toynbee - 1916.djvu/15

 that the Polish population was not completely undeceived—though even if they had been, they could have acted no differently in the face of sheer military force. In the district of Kujavy, for instance, where there was plenty of grain, the German Landrate were addressing appeals to the peasants, who were jealously hoarding grain for the hour of need, to deliver it up in order that their countrymen in the coal districts of Dombrova, who were dying of famine, might be saved; and as a consequence, plenty of grain went from Kujavy to Germany. The coal district received an absolutely insufficient amount of flour, and that did not come from the district of Kujavy.

So several more months passed (during which the profits of the "Import Company, Ltd.," are said to have risen to more than 140 per cent.), until the German Government saw fit to avow its real purpose. But, on July 1st, 1915, a final order was published "for securing the grain in the districts of Poland situated on the left bank of the Vistula and remaining under German administration, for the needs of the German Army, the German market, and of the population inhabiting the occupied territory." The "population inhabiting the occupied territory" could take little comfort from their inclusion in the list. If the German Army and the German nation were to be served first out of the foodstuffs commandeered in .Poland, it was obvious that the actual producers and rightful owners of the same would have a purely nominal share in the assets.