must be shipped to Antwerp for this special branch of the work in April as in January. Just as Belgium's magnificent network of canals was of inestimable value to the Commission in its distribution of food supplies by canal-boat, so the fact that Belgium has more miles of railroad in proportion to its area than any other country was equally helpful.

The Belgian railroads are of two types. The standard-gauge main trunk lines are owned and operated by the Government, and consequently passed over into the hands of the occupying authorities. Connecting practically every small village with the large centres are narrow-gauge steam roads that wander over the face of the level country as if they were following cattle trails. These roads are partly governmentally, partly municipally, and partly privately owned, and their management was but little interfered with by the Germans until the spring of 1917, when they began to dismantle some of these roads, carrying the tracks and ties off to the front to build up the transport service behind the lines.

These narrow-gauge roads did much of the hauling for the Commission of supplies from the provincial or regional warehouses to the points of distribution, and as the main roads became more and more congested by movement of troops and army supplies, the importance of these smaller roads increased. The Dutch Government generously gave the Commission free railroad transport on all the Dutch railroads, and an agreement was reached with the German Government whereby only one half the regular tariff should be paid by us for freight inside of the occupied territory.

Each winter we had feared that the canals and rivers of Belgium might freeze and thus shut off all traffic by waterways. Such a serious freezing had not occurred for fifteen years, but, to be safe, a careful plan was worked out in advance and negotiations carried on with the Dutch and German authorities for the supply of the necessary railroad cars should this event ever come to pass.

In February, 1917, our fears were realized. Every river and canal was blocked with ice, which gradually attained a metre in thickness, and defied all efforts of our ice breakers.

Our plan called for the despatch to Rotterdam from Belgium empty, and the return loaded, of two hundred German cars per day, beginning four days after the freeze-up, and the gradual increase of this number up to three

hundred cars per day. This programme was never fully lived up to because of the movement at this time by the Germans of large supplies for their armies, in anticipation of the summer offensive, but our shipments from Rotterdam reached as high as 3,000 tons per day, and by them we were able to carry on the supplying of the country without serious interruption during all the forty days that navigation was closed.

The difficulties that had to be overcome were tremendous; breaking barges out of the ice in Rotterdam harbor so that they might come alongside the loading wharfs or elevators; keeping canals open in Belgium up to the last minute so that barges en route might get to the nearest unloading ports; checking, unloading and diverting railroad cars as the needs required. All called for the hardest work imaginable, and a complete transformation overnight of the existing system based on shipments by water. All custom of the port of Rotterdam in the manner of loading cars was upset. The Dutch had never heard of loading wheat in bulk in cars, but sacking it was a slow process, and could not be tolerated. Therefore the cars were first made tight, which was a serious job, because the rolling-stock was in a badly run down condition. It kept men working day and night. Some of the gear of the elevators had to be rearranged so that the grain would run down the spouts into the cars at low tide. Basket cranes had to be rigged, and thirteen loading stations in the port of Rotterdam created.

To meet the changed conditions and permit the discharge of cars, the unloading gear of all the mills in Belgium had to be changed, and where this could not be done the wheat was ground in a central mill and the flour sent on to destination. Our transport and handling organization, which had taken more than two-years to build up, was disrupted and disorganized in a day. But only for a day, for out of a maritime organization appeared in twenty-four hours a railroad organization, which daily increased its handling capacity up to 3,000 tons per day.

But no sooner was it created than we began to plan to turn it back again into the handling of canal boats and tugs, and when finally the thaw set in after six weeks of ice, and water transport was resumed again, we were prepared to pick up the canal boats where they had been frozen in, and to despatch newly loaded boats from Rotterdam.

BY

'N WASHINGTON, D. C., they call him "The Coal Dictator!" but the Ohioan professor, Harry Augustus Garfield, hates the term, though he performs the task, and when he has occasion to speak of the wartime work he is so earnestly engaged in, he calls himself by the title that President Wilson conferred, "Fuel Administrator."

Congress, by a special act of August 10, 1917, handed over to the President of the United States large, almost plenary, powers over the distribution of food products and fuel. It was patent, from the first, that the President would be forced to delegate these powers to some man with expert knowledge, high executive ability, the courage of his convictions, and of undoubted patriotism. As controller of the Nation's fuel, he chose Dr. Harry A. Garfield, the son of former President Garfield.

With a strange and rather unusual admixture of business attainments, scholastic achievements, and experience as a lawyer, Dr. Garfield had long been known to President Wilson, who, in 1903, called him from a lucrative law practice in Cleveland, O., where, a member of the firm of Garfield, Garfield & Howe, he was treasurer of the Cleveland Humane Society, director and president of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce. He had been one of the organizers of the Cleveland Trust Company and was one of its directors; he was the first president of the Municipal Association; and of most of the enterprises which he was successful in launching, his firm was the attorney.

Yet when he was summoned by the President of Princeton University to take the Chair of Politics there he did not hesitate.

But even before going to Princeton, Dr. Garfield had shown an interest in the coal industry. He had been instrumental in the opening of a rich coal field in southeastern Ohio and, associated with Mr. Calvary Morris, he organized a syndicate that formed a combination between two small railroads and built thirty

miles of new road to bring to market the output of the Piney Fork Coal mine.

In assuming the duties of Fuel Administrator for the United States, Dr. Garfield evidently recognized at once that there was much more to be accomplished than merely to fix, arbitrarily and equitably, the price at which bituminous and anthracite coal should be sold at the mines. That was a necessary task, but it was by no means the greatest one. He characterized the work that lay before him thus: "The task of the Fuel Administration is to secure the largest possible production of fuel at prices just to the producer and reasonable to the consumer."

It was President Wilson himself who fixed the prices of coal at the mines. Provisional prices they are, subject to reconsideration when the whole method of administering the fuel supplies of the country shall have been satisfactorily organized and put into operation. These prices run as low as $1.95 a ton, to as high as $3.25 for bituminous; and from $4.00 to as high as $5.30 for anthracite. When these prices were finally announced about the middle of August, President Wilson stated that "they are based upon the actual cost of production and are deemed to be not only fair and just, but liberal as well. Under them the industry should nowhere lack stimulation."

But, in wartime, a month may bring many changes, and Fuel Administrator Garfield has been busy arranging new schedules of prices. He is a hard worker himself and his energy and patriotic fervor have attracted to his side the leading experts of the coal business in the country. Rembrandt Peale, president of many coal companies, of which the chief was Peale, Peacock and Kerr, of Pennsylvania and New York, with its chief mines at St. Benedict, Cambria County. Pennsylvania, resigned the presidency of all his coal companies to take a position on Dr. Garfield's staff. And the same day the Fuel Administrator added to his staff

T

HE Nation is now fast emerging from its insular position in the world's affairs, and is taking a large place and responsibility as a great Power. As the readers of the WORLD'S WORK know, this great expansion should find its reflection in this magazine. The very name of the WORLD'S WORK certainly indicates a field beyond the activities of our own country.

A vast number of Americans are going abroad, as soldiers, as sailors, as engineers and doctors, as well as commercial men, and they are spreading throughout the entire globe. Many of these Americans are among the most adventurous and interesting people one can imagine, and the WORLD'S WORK is fortunate in receiving letters from them, telling very often the reasons that led them to go to foreign countries and what they did when they got there.

Under the head of the AMERICANS ABROAD CLUB we hope from time to time to print letters and stories from these people who claim some part of the United States as their home. The WORLD'S WORK offers awards for the best of these letters, They come from every country-Siam, China, South America, India, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the South Sea Islands, the Caribbean Islands, Cuba-and we value them all.

Here, for instance, is a letter from a subscriber in Apia, Samoa-Mr. H. J. Moors, who sailed for the South Seas many years ago. He says: At the age of twenty-one and fired with that adventurous spirit and romantic turn of mind instilled by reading "Typee," "Omoo," and similar productions, and anxious to meet a new "Fayaway" and recline in dreamy content under the shade of the traditional banana tree, with just a little trading to relieve the monotony of an easy life, I took passage on a little 84-ton schooner for Apia some 42 years ago, bringing with me on her deck a good sized whaleboat to aid me in my ventures.

I had received more or less advice from an old resident of the islands who had himself chartered the vessel we sailed in, and who owned her assorted cargo of provisions, calicoes, prints, and knicknacks, which latter included an assortment of fishhooks, spears, jews'-harps, and the like.

We had a long passage of forty-two days without

Within a week's time I set off with a crew of two men and a half-caste interpreter for the Island of Savaii, some 30 miles distant, to look up a good situation for a trading station. My interpreter's wife was a sister to Malicatsa, the reigning King of Samoa, and this lady accompanied us, and so on arrival on Savaii feast followed feast wherever we went, and, of course we had to make some small returns as we proceeded. At every stopping point the natives were anxious that I should locate and trade with them, but the whites already settled on this island were just as anxious that I should move on and not interfere. Some of these gentry were rather truculent, and one known as "Spanish Mike" let me understand that he was rather handy with his knife, which he assured me he could throw quite a distance with remarkable accuracy.

Even at twenty-one I was none too amiable if I felt my rights were being trespassed upon, and so I finally fixed upon a location which seemed to please me very well. And now a serious negotiation commenced for the hire of two native houses-one to be used as a store and the other as a copra shed.

Before deciding on the terms they would demand, the natives held several rather acrimonious meetings, and finally I was summoned to attend.

The chief who presided was moderated and corrected occasionally by the native pastor. He stated that while they wanted me to stay and trade with them, they also wanted a fair rental for their property, which I had asked them to alter a good deal to suit my purposes, and on this account they thought I ought to be fairly liberal with them, so his highness apologized for the lofty terms they were about to propose; but the parson interposed that if I differed from their views, I was to correct them in a kindly way. This sort of palaver went on for some time until I bluntly asked them to proceed and state the weighty business. No one seemed willing to get down to figures. Deathly silence ensued for a time; none wanted to state the bad news, until one old chap, after repeated urgings on my part, finally blurted out, as if deeply shamed, that they thought I should pay a dollar a month for the two houses.

My prompt acceptance restored confidence and good will, and these people now set up another proposition, namely: I came there with two boatmen who were to be my servants-I had no land-had nothing that grew. How would I like it if they were to provide my two boatmen and myself with the best native cooked food which they would have in abundance? Yes, that would be a good idea-what would be the charge? Another short discussion and a pause, and some one ventured to say in a hesitating way, "Another dollar a month," but that if I differed, they would amend the price to suit my views.

I stayed with these good people about six months and they treated us splendidly and were extremely honest, and the food they supplied was ample and satisfying to my boys and made up the chief part of my own diet.

I had little difficulty in acquiring the native language, which I spoke fairly well within three months' time. I traded for copra, paying cash or goods for it as the vendor pleased to have, and whenever I accumulated a boatload of this I took it to Apia and sold it and replenished my stock of trade.

My financial rating in those days would have been rather low had it been investigated, for my whole stock was packed in two pine trunks, and these were not over-full either. Of course, I had a case or two of kerosene to be bottled and retailed, and some great tins of biscuits as well, but the bulk of my wealth was stored in the two trunks, and these were secured by flimsy locks which almost any key would open, and during my frequent absences on long journeys to Apia they were left in a doorless open house, sometimes for several days at a time.

Occasionally while I was absent customers came along, and in the presence of the chief or parson my boxes were opened and the goods overlooked, so that when I returned the customer came to me and stated just what he or she wanted-for after viewing my stores the goods were carefully repacked to be left so until I personally made the sale.

I can look back over those early years with much amusement and considerable satisfaction.

GERMAN NEW GUINEA

—that is, until the war, this land of tropical charm south of Australia and near the English and Dutch colonies was expected to be a great German stronghold in the East. It has now been taken over by the English, and Mr. Thomas J. McMahon sends us this interesting account of present-day conditions as he saw them:

The madness of the Germans in forcing the present war, and the losses they are to sustain by defeat, is in no way more accentuated than in what they have done in bringing, or the money they have spent to bring, their colonial possessions to the state of prosperity and perfection which they, assuredly, in a sense

had done before the war, and the loss of which must bring the extreme of bitterness. To many travelers it is almost incomprehensible that such efforts should have been made, that millions of pounds should have been expended, with the one object of making these possessions successful, and yet apparently without any due amount of foresight and calculation as to an adequate means of defending and holding such valuable commercial assets, as in all instances they promised to be, and now have passed into the hands of the Allies after the weakest opposition or in some cases without any attempt at defense. For the last half century Germany has been grabbing for places "in the sun" and into the grab have fallen some particularly desirable places, but evidently the forty years of preparation for this frightful war never included the protection of any place but the Fatherland.

A BRITISH AND GERMAN COMPARISON

What the Germans have accomplished in German New Guinea is of its kind praiseworthy, but it is of true German fashion, limited in extent and defective in effect, and the comparison that is often made, not only about German New Guinea, but about German Africa, anent the thoroughness, smartness, and liberality of German methods in colonization over the slow, sentimental, red-tape progress of British methods, is, after experience and searching, found very much unwarranted and most absurd. The British may be slow, but their colonization is always successful. The Germans have made a great deal of outward show as to colonizing, and their manner of rushing colonies into existence has blinded the world to many gross imperfections which a little scratching of the surface very soon reveals. For German methods are for repression, not progression. Hence the passing of German rule in German New Guinea is a blessing that can only be fully appreciated and realized by those who have seen the horrors of the German methods; its

BRUTALITY WITH COLORED PEOPLES;

its tyrannical nursing of the full meaning of the "mailed fist"; its failure in democratic and general ideals; and its selfishness in commercial achievement and ambitions. The record of German atrocities with her subject races of Africa is one of the foulest, cruelest, and most lurid records the world could possibly read, and the deeds easily outvie the Congo revelations which at one time shocked mankind. In all German possessions the humanitarian system is not only unknown but accounted contemptible, and the folly of weak administration. It is inconsistent and impossible to German ideals. Not one of the tropical possessions of Germany can show its native races happy, contented, and progressive.

The British administration has called a halt to the wanton and cruel abuse and exploitation of the natives, and the German with all his sullenness does