In many ways we are living under war conditions. It is not only the constantly rising prices one has to contemplate, but the actual lack of many necessities. We have bread cards and sugar cards and coffee cards, etc. You cannot get a single piece of bread in a restaurant without first having a coupon clipped off your bread card-just as in Berlin. Butter is so scarce that at times we have to go without for breakfast, and we are always using what they call "war butter"-that is, an abominable mixture of butter and flour. Coal is getting very scarce. The darkening of the streets already has begun and is likely to become more pronounced shortly.

Since then things have grown infinitely worse. Prices have risen out of reach, of course. Last spring the maximum price of coffee was fixed at 55 cents a pound, but to get decent coffee-when you could get it at allone had to pay 75 cents. By last fall coffee

was practically not to be had-and no one who has not lived through a Swedish winter can tell what discomfort that implies! Some months ago the custom house officials at Malmö announced the sale at auction of

five pounds of coffee seized from smugglers. The place was overcrowded, and the precious stuff sold at $1.56 a pound. That was in the south. A little later the custom house officials of Haparanda in the extreme north put on sale about 2,600 pounds of coffee that had been smuggled into Finland half a year before and then smuggled back into Sweden. The average price obtained was $1.90 a pound, and some parties went as high as $2.70.

Coal is now $100 per ton; tea, $8 a pound; chocolate, $3 a pound; ham, $1 a pound. Woolen underclothing has increased more than 200 per cent. in price since the beginning of

the war. Ordinary low-grade walking shoes used to be $11 a pair last spring. They are now $25. Lighting is an essential in a country where the midwinter day cannot be reckoned at more than four hours. Kerosene is Kerosene is practically unobtainable. So the people have had to go back to candles. The increasing demand is indicated by the following prices: August, 1914, 15 cents a pound; January, 1917, 34 cents a pound; October, 1917, 58 cents a pound. Last September the Government ordered the national candle stock inventoried and seized. It was found that the whole country had only 500,000 pounds on hand, with no additional production in sight; and the annual consumption under normal conditions aggregates about five million pounds. Recently candles have been stolen from the churches-a crime never before heard of in Sweden-and most of the churches were forced to forego the celebration of early mass on Christmas Day, which has long been one of the nation's most cherished institutions.

to each individual is 50 ounces per week of both rye and wheat-which, they tell me, is 25 per cent. below the ration allowed in Germany. The baking of bread from pure wheat has long been prohibited. In the very best restaurants nothing but "war bread," made of mixed wheat and rye, has been seen since the middle of 1916. In the northern part of Sweden they have begun to ex

A very striking illustration of the state of affairs over there is furnished by an October issue of a Gothenburg daily. There is a whole column of "exchange" advertisements on the back page you know the kind: when a man wants to swap a typewriting machine for a bronze Buddha, and so on. But these advertisements deal exclusively with staple necessities, which have probably never before been mentioned in such a manner. The articles offered in exchange are: coffee, sugar, butter, fire wood, pork, kerosene, candles, oatmeal, coke, soap, potatoes. The articles wanted are: kerosene, candles, sugar, coffee, rubbers, butter, milk, fruit, potatoes, alcohol, tea, and wheat flour. Money is not offered in a single case. You notice, I hope, that the articles are practically identical in both columns. This means that each one of them is regarded as so precious that no one hopes to be able to get it except in exchange for something else of equal value.

Grain is the main problem, however. The nation's store of it was confiscated by the Government in 1916. Bread cards have been used for nearly two years. The ration allotted The ration allotted

periment with bread made of 38 per cent. rye, 12 per cent. potato, and 50 per cent. reindeer moss. A normal crop will provide Sweden with two thirds of her normal consumption. The crop of 1917 was 50 per cent. below normal. In other words, it gave the country just one third of what it will need until the crop of 1918 has been harvested. This means that, to escape actual starvation, Sweden must try to find about 12 million bushels of wheat and rye somewhere during this winter.

If we turn to Denmark for a moment, we find coal shortage the principal trouble. Last spring I attended a performance of the opera "Aida" at Copenhagen. It began at 6.30 and closed at 9:45 P. M. in order to save lighting. The restaurants then closed at 11 P. M. sharp for the same reason. This season, I understand, the theatres will not be permitted to play more than three times a week-if at all. All shops are closing at 5 P. M. In Copenhagen's biggest and finest department store, Illum's, you find the clerks wearing big straw slippers and woolen blankets because there is not coal enough to keep the place properly heated.

In Sweden the railroad engines have long been using wood-which does not improve the speed of the trains. Express trains are a thing of the past. First-class carriages exist no longer. Sleeping berths have to be obtained weeks in advance. Every train is overcrowded in the most discomfortable manner. It is quite common to see passengers standing up through an entire day's journey. After dark there is just enough light on board to enable the conductors to see the tickets. The number of trains has been greatly reduced, while at the same time the traffic demands have become multiplied by the influx of for

eigners. There are now 17 taxicabs operating in Stockholm. A single automobile tire brought $540 in October last year, and gasolene was then $2 a gallon. In Denmark it was estimated as early as last spring that traffic conditions had been reduced to what they used to be in 1881.

affected in the same way by the shortage of material. Many industries have already come to a

standstill in Sweden. Up to little

more than a year ago every shoe factory in Sweden was running overtime to manufacture military shoes for the German and Austrian armies. Then the English stopped the bark needed by the tanneries, and when the tanneries had to stop on that account, the shoe factories had to close down for lack of hides. Now the minimum home consumption cannot be met. Last fall the Swedish Government issued two regulations to ease matters up; one putting the maximum height of ladies' boots at seven inches, and the other one forbidding the use of hides weighing more than 35 pounds for any purpose but sole leather.

will bring it back to its old perfection. In the meantime, however, it has suffered like everything else in the country. Trickeries and swindles of a heretofore unknown kind have been unearthed everywhere. Last year a man named Lundström, a relative by marriage of former Prime Minister Swartz, started to create a corner in wool. On the strength of it he collected $12,500,000, mostly from members of the aristocracy and the higher bureaucracy. A son of Swartz was his associate. The bubble was kept going by faked telegrams from Copenhagen about enormous purchases of wool. When it burst at last, all the money was gone, and Mr. Lundström had the tact to eliminate himself by the means of a revolver.

The lack of lubricating oils is a menace to every factory in the country. Recently men were found traveling through the rural districts where they bought up all the butter they could lay their hands on at prices way above those fixed by the Government. Their object was to mix the butter with tallow and then to sell it under the name of "purified tallow" for lubricating purposes. One of the largest concerns in Sweden, which owns iron and copper mines, iron works, steel furnaces, paper mills, and I don't know what, has had a complete plant for the manufacture of sulphuric acid ready for nearly a year without being able to put it into operation. The reason is that the machinery requires a strong asbestos flooring, and although the concern in question has severed every connection with Germany, it has so far been unable to obtain the few tons of asbestos required. The point of it is that, in a war like this one, a nation must be looked upon as a unit, and the good behavior of individuals or separate firms cannot save them from the responsibility incurred by the nation as a whole.

At a much earlier period a large Stockholm firm applied to the proper authorities for a license to export a certain number of bags of coffee to Russia. The head of that firm is one of the leading lights of the Conservative party in Stockholm, a pro-German reactionary of the purest water, but this did not prevent him from doing business with the "hereditary enemy" to the eastward. The size of a coffee bag is the same the world over, I think, and as a rule it is used as a reliable measure of quantity. But when the man in question had obtained his license, he arranged for special bags holding more than double the usual amount, and thus he was able to export 90,000 pounds instead of the 40,000 for which the authorities supposed themselves to have issued a permit. He was prosecuted, but under the letter of the law he could not be found guilty.

Thefts of metal have become epidemic throughout the three Scandinavian countries. German vessels have been smuggling liquor into Stockholm and selling it to workmen at 75 cents a bottle in silver or bills, but asking only 25 cents for the same quantity when pay

ment was made in copper coins or in copper under any other form. German agents have been traversing the rural districts of Sweden, offering temptations of every kind for various illegal operations. Finnish political agents have visited regimental camps and barracks to buy revolvers and cartridges from the men at ridiculous prices. Swedish and Norwegian sailors have been bribed into furnishing information that has enabled German bomb plotters to sink not only British but also Scandinavian vessels, and some of the men thus led astray are now serving long terms in jail. I could go on indefinitely with similar stories, but I have told enough to indicate what is going on-and I can assure you that the mass of the Swedish people regard things of this kind as hardly less trying than actual distress.

South America is credited with having earned 20,000,000 kronor in one year. A business man with a seat in the Upper House of the Riksdag is said to have pocketed 30,000,000 kronor ($7,100,000) as the result of a single deal, in which several Allied Governments were deeply interested. These are sample cases merely. The large influx of money is

A special chapter might be written about the loss in lives and ships suffered by the Scandinavian merchant marines through German brutality on the high seas, but this aspect of the general situation is so well known over here that I need hardly dwell on it. There is now a movement afoot among the sailors and longshoremen both in Sweden and Norway to declare a boycott against all German-owned vessels as well as against every vessel performing any service whatever for Germany. The governments have so far been able to check this movement which, they feel, would involve their countries in immediate war with Germany, but it seems unlikely that the wrath of the large seafaring populations in the two countries can be kept down indefinitely.

The picture I have painted is one of black on black. Are there no bright spots, no silver linings, to record? Yes, a few. I have already mentioned the principal one in the opening sentence of this article. Thanks to high prices and higher freight rates, money has been made on an unprecedented scale in all the Scandinavian countries. One of the largest private banks at Stockholm, operating with a capital of 53 million kronor, cleared a net gain of 25 million ($6,750,000) during 1916. A well known Swedish ship owner doing a large business in this country and

also proved by the high value of the Swedish krona everywhere, and by the prohibition against the importation of gold issued at one time by the Swedish Government.

The riches thus acquired have been squandered by a fool here and there. As a rule they have been applied systematically and practically to make the three countries financially independent. Always poor hitherto, they have had to operate with foreign capital-this being one reason why Germany was able to get the hold on them it had at the outbreak of the war. But that is a matter of the past. Even Swedes of decided pro-German sympathies have proved themselves anxious to see their country freed from such dependence. The buying up of Swedish securities abroad, and mostly in Germany, has been going on steadily for more than two years, and the same is true in regard to Norway. The stock of the Norwegian Hydro, probably the largest concern in that country, is now said to rest exclusively in Norwegian hands. Sweden's largest mining concern, the Grängesberg Company, of which the state owns one half, has already acquired the large block of shares held by Sir Ernest Cassel in England, and is now negotiating for the $12,000,000 worth of stock held by Senator Possehl of Luebeck. The same company has just bought back the large and rich Strassa and Strypa ore fields in middle Sweden, which were acquired by an Austrian syndicate only five years ago—which, by the by, furnishes another indication of how badly off the Central Powers are financially. Quite recently the Grängesberg Company ordered eighteen new freight steamers, aggregating 115,000 tons, from various Swedish shipyards, the Swedish Government having appropriated $750,000 to be used as loans for the extension and improvement of Swedish shipbuilding.

These are not the only items on the credit side. Increasing shortage has cut down indulgence, which at one time threatened to become a national menace. Wine, which flowed so freely during the first years of the war, has become extremely scarce. The consumption The consumption of liquor in every form has been cut down by regulations, and is now being cut down still more by the prohibition of manufacture. No brännvin (white Swedish whisky) can be produced this winter except as a by-product at paper mills, etc. Beer is already unobtainable in many districts. National prohibition seems imminent, and while this undoubtedly implies a certain amount of genuine hardship in a climate like that of Sweden, it is nevertheless something for which the best minds in the nation have long been striving. Distress, on the other hand, has not yet reached the fatal point, and so it is quite in keeping with the eternal fitness of things to find the mortality rate of Sweden reduced from 15.7 to 12.6 per 1,000.

Without wishing for a moment to underestimate these compensations, I must insist that they will signify very little in the end, if the conditions now menacing the very existence of the three little northern neutrals should continue to develop in the wrong direc

tion. The same will be the case, if, by our own action or that of anybody else, those countries should be thrown into the seething caldron of the war on the wrong side-or prematurely on the right side. As long as Germany still has the power of striking hard at any one of them, we must do our best to keep them out of reach of "the mailed fist," and to do so we must help according to our best ability to keep them out of starvation. If, at the same time, we will pay proper attention to the spiritual side of the situation, so to speak, we shall do still better by

them.

In the minds of those small nations the war has fostered a great deal of skepticism and pessimism. They have learned their complete helplessness in a world all armed. They have begun to fear that right will never more be able to hold its own against might in the councils of the nations. They have come to look upon all the belligerents with distrust and upon the future with a feeling akin to despair. What they need is reassurance of the very kind contained in President Wilson's speech to Congress on December 4th last year (1917). They want peace, universal peace, enduring peace, but they believe that it can be had only on the basis of a justice so perfect that it deals fairly even with the enemy.

T

HE same influences that led the French Canadians of Quebec to vote almost en bloc against the new Union Government and its conscription policy assure their peaceful acceptance of that policy now that it is the law of the land, enforced by an administration with a strong popular mandate.

Quebec is queer, by present-day standards. It is in the new world but not of it. Its ideas, ideals, and modes of thought are almost medieval-peasant France before Voltaire. Insulated from the rest of Canada and from the great currents of the world by his language,

his naïve indifference to affairs which touch him not tangibly, and by the jealous guardianship of a too maternal Church, the FrenchCanadian dwells in a peaceful backwater of time, quite content. He breeds large families, is a devout Catholic, and is reared so devotedly in the discipline of the Church that secular law finds in him an instinctively obedient subject. Sharp and intimate must be the impulse that shall stir him from his peaceful round.

To impel a whole people voluntarily into war requires some great passionate motive. Germany had the carefully fostered passion of hate and of conquest. France had "La