I was taken to the laundry to see how the paper was laundered. It so happened that we arrived in time to catch a laundress using a brush to one of the tattered maternity garments. The fury of the Director, who escorted me, was extravagant. It knew no bounds. He shouted and thumped and gesticulated. It was as though the woman had dared to scrub a priceless piece of tapestry. I thought he would have struck her. Later he apologised to me for his passion, “On our retention of that gown some mother's life may depend.” It was the kind of clout with which no self-respecting housewife in America would have deigned to mop her floor. CHAPTER IX—AN ECONOMIC EXPERIMENT They wouldn't need to starve if they would get to work.” The retort and the criticism which it implies are as shallow as they are selfish. Central Europe wants to work. It is begging for the chance to work; but it cannot work efficiently while it is under-nourished. Here in Prague there is an American business man who has probed deeper into the Czecho-Slovak economic situation than all the politicians. He has found a way to feed the nation and to make a profit for himself. He bases his calculations on the firm belief that a people, heretofore industrious, still retains the habit; all they require to set them on their feet is food. He is willing to provide the food and to risk his capital on their bare word that they will play the game by him. He has started his experiment with the miners of Carlsbad. The Government food-ration allowed to working miners is precisely half what it ought to be. He has offered to supply the other half of the ration, bringing their allowance up to normal, on condition that the miners will do their best to increase their output of coal by 20 per cent. They are not to make this increase by working overtime, but by speeding up during their ordinary working hours. The average of their present output is calculated on the results of the past nine months. As repayment and profit on his investment, he is given the option to purchase one-half of the 20 per cent, increased output at the inland price, i.e., the price that coal is selling for in Czechoslovakia. He makes his profit by exporting. The question immediately arises, why could not Czecho-Slovakia do the exporting and make the profit herself? The answer is that the partitioning of Austro-Hungary by the Peace Treaty and the consequent establishing of new frontiers has bred such a deep international distrust that the new nations are reluctant to let their freight-cars pass out of their own territory for fear they should never recover them. At the border merchandise is unloaded and re-shipped, which adds considerably to the expense of transportation. Major S., being an American, has a superior reputation for integrity and His word is accepted when he promises that cars carrying his shipments out of Czechoslovakia will be returned.