Dantzig's problem is similar to the problems of the whole of Central Europe; it arises out of the arbitrary creation of new frontiers. To sit in Paris with a blue pencil and scrawl lines on a map was a simple task; to have to dwell within those lines, despite their violation of economic laws, and make a livelihood, has proved less easy. It is one thing to declare Dantzig a free-port; it is another to persuade her neighbours to use her. It is possible that in making Dantzig free, the Peace Conference has only made her free to starve.

Here is the situation. Dantzig, as she is today, consists of seven hundred and fifty square miles of territory, and a population of 350,000 souls. Her former industries were shipping, ship-building and the manufacture of armaments. For the latter purposes, while the war was on, the Germans imported thousands of workmen, many of whom still remain. The manufacture of armaments is now forbidden. There is no demand for ship-building. Ocean-going traffic is at a halt; the nations in whose interests the free-port was constituted are either bankrupt or anxious to develop their own harbours. Poland, who was expected to be her largest employer, is too busy with the Bolshevists to be a producer; hence she has nothing to ship. When she does begin to produce, it is on the boards that she may avoid Dantzig. She acquired a distaste for free-ports last summer when the Dantzig longshoremen refused to unload her munitions. She is already flirting with two alternatives. Germany is coaxing her to adopt Stettin as her outlet; she herself is inclined to build docks of her own on the seaboard of the Polish Corridor.

Meanwhile Dantzig is idle. She has no industries to keep her going. Her agriculture is too limited to support her population. Her neighbours cannot send her food-stuffs; their own needs are too pressing. If times were normal, Poland might be willing to feed her; but Poland herself is only being kept alive by the relief brought in from America. When the free-port was created, a clause was inserted in the Peace Treaty, obliging Poland to act as Dantzig's larder. One of the demands was that Poland should provide the free-port with five hundred tons of flour weekly at a stipulated price. The price named was so insufficient that the flour sent to Dantzig costs Poland twice as much, not reckoning the unloading, as the price which Dantzig pays for it. All of it has to be imported from America.

In 1914 the daily consumption of milk in Dantzig was 50,000 litres, most of which was Polish. Today the maximum she is able to obtain is 10,000 litres and the minimum 4,000. As a consequence babies are the sufferers. I visited ward after ward filled with tiny mites made hideous with rickets. The hospital was so overcrowded and diminished in its resources that it possessed no change of linen. While the rags are washed the little patients go naked. What this means in the sanitary conditions of a babies' hospital can be best imagined. You may see children of six months who have not gained beyond their birth-weight.

In Vienna, where similar conditions prevail, I saw a four year old child who weighed only nineteen pounds.

It is the children, always the children who are the victims, no matter in which country you investigate. When we fought, we believed that it was we who paid the price; but the bill of pain which we settled in the trenches is as nothing to the account which is being rendered to the younger generation. Of the Dantzig children below the age of fifteen who have been medically examined, more than half are under-nourished and of this half only a third are being cared for by the joint efforts of the American Children's Relief and the Society of Friends. Here are the exact figures. One quarter of the children examined is normal. One quarter is badly under-nourished. And one half is sufficiently below the standard to warrant extra feeding. An important fact of the situation is that the majority of the starving children belong to the middle-classes. During the war and until recently the workmen have received special rations to induce them to labour. In addition to this their wages have followed the rise in costs, whereas the salaries of clerks, officials and professional people have been comparatively stationary. The middle-classes are not unionized so they cannot attract attention to their grievances by strikers' methods.

Dantzig's future is distinctly gloomy. Germany has her own Baltic ports to encourage. Poland is her sole hope of prosperity and Poland is in bitter want herself. Moreover, if Poland recovers, which may take years, she may prefer to construct her own harbour—that is to say, if she does not yield to the inducements held out by Stettin.

The muddle is economic and racial. But such a statement leads to no solution. The fact remains that before she was commanded to be nobody's property her harbours were thriving. Today, as far as one can see, all that her freedom means is that her harbours are free to stand empty and her children are at liberty to die of hunger. No doubt the gentleman in Paris with the blue pencil had the handsomest of intentions, but he collided head-on with economic forces which it was his business to have apprehended. Whoever he was, he has made good his escape, while the children, as usual, pay the penalty.