[Sidenote: News of unrestricted submarine warfare.] There was much excitement among them when, early in 1917, the news spread that unrestricted submarine warfare was to be resumed. Old Fritz came over to me with a newspaper in his hand and his eyes fairly popping with excitement. "This will end it!" he declared. "We are going to starve you out, you English." "You'll bring America in," I told him. "No, no!" he said, quite confidently. "The Yankees won't come in. They are making too much money as it is. They won't fight. See, here it is in the paper. It is stated clearly here that the United States will not fight. It doesn't dare to fight!" But when the news came that the United States had actually declared war they were a sad lot. I took the first opportunity to pump old Fritz about the views of his companions. "It's bad, bad," he said, shaking his head dolefully. "Then you are afraid of the Americans, after all?" I said. [Sidenote: Why Fritz was sorry to have America in the war.] Fritz laughed, with a short, contemptuous note. "No, it is not that," he said. "England will be starved out before the Americans can come in and then it will all be over. But--just between us, you and me--most of us here were intending to go to America, after the war, where we would be free from all this. But--now the United States won't let us in after the war!" I shall never forget the day that the papers announced the refusal of the English labor delegates to go to Stockholm. One excited miner struck me across the face with the open newspaper in his hand. [Sidenote: Hatred of the English.] "Always, always the same!" he almost screamed. "The English block everything. They will not join and what good can come now of the conference? They will not be content and the war must go on!" [Sidenote: Shortage in necessities of life.] The food shortage reached a crisis about the time that I managed, after three futile attempts, to escape. Frequently, when the people took their bread tickets to the stores they found that supplies had been exhausted and that there was nothing to be obtained. Prices had gone sky-high. Bacon, for instance, $2.50 and more a pound. A cake of soap cost 85 cents. Cleanliness became a luxury. These prices are indicative of the whole range and it is not hard to see the struggle these poor mine people were having to keep alive at all. [Sidenote: Prisoners receive food from England.] [Sidenote: Germans wonder at food of starving England.]