On the other hand, Germany and her associates began to husband carefully their internal food supplies by instituting a rigid, or would-be rigid, control of internal marketing and consumption, and to collect from any outside sources still accessible to them, such as the contiguous neutral lands, whatever food was possible. Also they had strong hopes of preventing, by their submarine warfare, the provisioning of the Allies from America and other overseas sources. Thus, from the beginning of the war, and all through its long course, food supply and food control were of the most vital importance. If our epigrammatic slogan, "Food Will Win the War," was, like most epigrams, not literally true, it was, nevertheless, literally true that there was always possible to either side the loss of the war through lack of food, and it is literally true that the food victory of the Allies was a great element in the final war victory. Germany's military defeat was partly due to food defeat, and if a military decision had not been reached in the fall of 1918, Germany would have lost the war in the spring of 1919 anyway from lack of food and raw materials. ECONOMIC SELF-SUFFICIENCY The great struggle for food supply and food control involved so many and such complex undertakings that it is hopeless to attempt a detailed account of it in any space short of a huge volume. Yet the very limitations of the present discussion may have its advantages in compelling us to concentrate our attention on the most important aspects of the struggle and to try to sum up the most important results of it. Some of these at least should not be forgotten, for they have a bearing on the peace-time food problem as well as the war-time one. Fortunately the war-time food situation has developed in us a national and an individual food consciousness that will certainly not disappear in this generation at least. The first important lesson that has been learned is that it is of great value to a nation to be able to provide in its own land its own necessary food supply. For although in times of peace and usual harvests international food exchanges enable a country, such as England or Belgium, highly industrialized and of large population in proportion to area, to make up without much difficulty its deficit as between production and consumption, the moment the great emergency arrives there is the utmost danger for its people. The history of the "relief of Belgium" during the war will illustrate this. $600,000,000 WORTH OF FOOD SUPPLIED