Page:The Destruction of Poland - Toynbee - 1916.djvu/17

 declared for its own benefit a monopoly of tobacco and cigarettes; and in the course of the same month it assigned a monopoly of the vodka trade to the " War-Potato-CompanyEast" (Kriegskartoffelgesellschaft Ost), an association directed from Berlin. This Berlin Potato Company took over the potatoes requisitioned in Poland, and distributed them for the extraction of alcohol to the refineries in Germany. This alcohol was then reimported into Poland for consumption, while all the time the native Polish refineries were kept in idleness by a strict ban upon their activities, though they were completely adequate to the work, and had indeed sprung up to meet it during the period before the War.

Here there was no question of the needs of the German people, but only of the greed of the Prussian ruling class, which owns the German refining industry as well as the Imperial administration, and could not resist this excellent opportunity of making both work together for its private good. Yet mere extortion is not the whole explanation of the German officials' .machinations. It will not, for instance, explain their policy in the case of such an important commodity as coal.

In Lodz, where great quantities of coal are required for fuel in the houses and in those factories which are working at least a small fraction of the time, the German authorities (the Police Office) have introduced a monopoly in coal and coke. No one is allowed to provide