"The cotton table is based upon normal industrial conditions in all the consuming countries and upon the restoration of the spinning industry in the devastated regions. If conditions do not reach normal, and if the industry is not restored, the consumption of cotton will be substantially less. With practically complete restoration, cotton consumption may well be expected to equal the normal or pre-war times on account of the present shortage of cotton goods in various countries. The economies which the peoples of Europe must practice for some years to come must be considered." CENTRAL EUROPE IN DIRE WANT News from Europe showed everywhere acute suffering from lack of food; even in France the country districts were badly off. A member of the Federal Food Administration reported that bread was practically the only food that anyone could afford. President Wilson referred to this subject in the address with which he accompanied his announcement of the terms signed by Germany. He definitely took a stand in favor of provisioning the country, explaining that by use of the idle tonnage of the Central Empires it ought presently to be possible to lift the fear of utter misery, "'from their oppressed populations and set their minds and energies free for the great and hazardous tasks of political reconstruction which now face them on every hand. Hunger does not breed reform; it breeds madness and all the ugly distempers that make an ordered life impossible. "'For with the fall of the ancient governments which rested like an incubus on the peoples of the Central Empires has come political change not merely, but revolution.' "Putting this danger into a nutshell, the _Wall Street Journal_ asks whether Central Europe shall have 'bread or Bolshevism?' This strong exponent of a firm social order is of the opinion that 'we must recognize the fact that hunger breeds anarchy, and that the most effective weapon against Bolshevism is a loaf of bread.' Victory has made the Allied peoples, 'through their governments, responsible for world conditions,' in the opinion of this paper as well as of the Montreal _Star_ quoted above, and Food Administrator Hoover declares that 'the specter of famine abroad now haunts the abundance of our tables at home.'" TO PREVENT FAMINE IN GERMANY Both in England and in France there was official recognition of the need of preventing famine conditions in Germany. It was believed that large imports of wheat could be brought from Australia and India. The _Times_ (London) said: