The scheme is much more far-reaching than at first sight it appears. It embraces not only the feeding of the men, but also of their families. His share of the coal he intends to sell to Austria, just across the border, where the scarcity of every kind of fuel is causing a crisis. When he has done this, many Austrian factories which have been standing idle will be able to re-open. So, by feeding the Carlsbad miners, he is re-employing the Austrian working-man. He was warned when he first discussed his plans, that they would be rejected by Government and miners alike. On the contrary they have been eagerly accepted by both Government and miners; but most eagerly by the miners. The miners all over Czecho-Slovakia are clamouring to be given the same opportunity. If it pays an individual to indulge in this kind of commercial enterprise, it would equally pay the Allies. For, while this is no philanthropy, it attains the ends of philanthropy and has the added advantage that it is economically constructive. To state the case cynically, the politicians of the Allies can play the part of Good Samaritans and find themselves in pocket. The experiment which has started with the miners of Carlsbad can be extended to cover almost all branches of industry. But the value of the experiment and its eager acceptance proves that it is not unwillingness, but inability due to undernourishment, that prevents Central Europe from getting to work. In Czecho-Slovakia, as in Hungary and Austria, the commercial stagnation which has produced every kind, of shortage, is chiefly to be traced to the establishing of new frontiers. When the Peace Treaty repartitioned Europe, it took apart a watch which was going, and failed to put it together. All the cogs and wheels are still here, but they lie scattered about and consequently there is no movement. An example of this disorganization is near at hand. The peasants of a certain district of what is now Czecho-Slovakia, were accustomed to gain their bread by felling trees in the winter and floating them down the rivers in the summer to Hungary. In Hungary they sold their logs and stayed to help with the harvest. Then they returned to their homes in the mountains to eke out a livelihood for the next nine months with the money they had thus earned. Now that Ruthenia has become Czecho-Slovak and a frontier has been established, they are no longer allowed to pass freely into Hungary; consequently they starve. The trees in their forests as of old stand ready for the cutting. The peasants are more anxious than ever to make their traditional excursion. But someone in Paris scrawled on a map with a blue pencil, so the trees are not felled and the peasants starve. Conditions are so bad in these primitive villages that the children would not have lived the year out had not the American Relief Administration made their rescue one of its special objects.