Unemployment seems to have increased enormously, especially for women, owing to the fact that most manufacturers have closed down their works, either for lack of raw material or for lack of demand. In some other industries where women cannot take the place of men workers are badly needed. I have been told that unemployment is even greater in the northern towns. The toy-making and fancy goods industries are almost entirely stopped, as the stores are full of goods prepared for the usual exportation, which is, this year, entirely paralysed. Paper, wool, metal, and wooden industries no longer receive their usual supplies of raw material; and though articles manufactured of these are badly needed, the works have had to close. Metals have increased enormously in price, and all the reserves of so-called noble metals, and also of nickel, etc., were requisitioned by the military authorities. Such metals are indispensable in the making of new guns, and also for repairing the old ones put out of action by long usage. Lead is also very much dearer than usual, and everybody is instructed to take down old gas and water pipes and to bring them to special depôts, at which the metal is bought by weight at standard prices, to be forwarded to military works, where it is converted into bullets. As for copper, a few old mines which had been given up forty years since because they did not pay when the metal could be imported freely, have been reopened with success and give employment to some of the out-of-work folk. Bread, except in the Zucker-Baeckereien, which are not forced to sell at standard prices, is getting very scarce, and all bakers study every possible way to make it as heavy and as economic as possible. Wheat and other cereals, all equally scarce, have been seized by the Government, which lets the different bakers have so much a week and gives instructions about bread substitutes and the methods of making them as healthful and nourishing as possible. The Government also recommends the baker to make his wares as little appetising as possible so that people should not eat too much out of _Feinsmecherei_--gluttony. The last quality, if not the other two, is certainly prominent in the German bread I have seen. Though bread is not the most important part of the daily food of the German population, and though in many provinces potatoes have almost completely taken its place, yet the problem is very serious, and Germany tries to face it in all possible ways. Large quantities of wheat have been imported from Roumania, and potatoes, dried peas, etc., from Switzerland. Through Holland, Germany still gets a certain amount of fruit, beef, and cheese. Special stores have been arranged for the preservation in good condition of perishable goods for a fairly long time.