Page:The Destruction of Poland - Toynbee - 1916.djvu/30

 Council of Lodz Mr. Winnicki, a town councillor of Polish nationality, raised the question why the German 'Import Company,' which has been invested by the German Government with the monopoly of buying grain for Russian Poland, pays 7½ roubles for 1 cwt. of rye when it buys it in the districts of Russian Poland under German occupation, but charges at Lodz 23 roubles for a bag of 'war flour' which contains hardly 40 per cent, of the 1 cwt. of rye. In answer to Mr. Winnicki's question, the senior burgomaster, Herr Schoppen, answered that an injustice is certainly done to the inhabitants of Lodz, but that he could do nothing to lower prices, since the prices at which the 'Import Company, Limited' bought grain in Russian Poland, as well as the prices it charged for grain at Lodz and elsewhere, had been fixed by Field-Marshal von Hindenburg, Supreme Commander in the East, and could not, therefore, be modified by the town administration. In order, however, to ease the situation to some degree, Herr Schoppen promised in his own name, arid in that of the German police, to lower the octroi for the importation of food into Lodz, considerable supplies being available at some distance from the city.

"The delegation from Lodz which went recently to Berlin to raise a loan for the town, complained about the excessive price of bread. It asked that the town might be allowed to provision itself without the intervention of the 'Import Company, Ltd.,' as is done in neigh-