local education authorities to supply free meals to school-children who were unable because of lack of food to take full advantage of the education provided for them. Table XV shows the extent of school feeding from the year 1913 to 1920. TABLE XV NUMBER OF AUTHORITIES PROVIDING SCHOOL MEALS, NUM- The number of children fed at school increased from 156,531 in the year ending March 31, 1914, to 422,401 in the year ending March 31, 1915—an increase of 265,870, or 169.9 per cent, during the first year of the war. It is also significant that the number of areas in which children were fed also increased from 98 in the year preceding the war to 134 during the first year of the war. The decline in the number of children fed and in the number of areas in which children were fed was rapid after the industrial recovery during the second year of the war; and this decline continued until the year ending March 31, 1920, when the number of children fed increased again along with the increase in post-war unemployment. Thus there was a very marked increase (of 36.0 per cent) in the number of areas providing meals in the year ending March 31, 1920, as compared with the preceding year, and an increase of 15,812, or 29.4 per cent, in the number of the children fed. It is of interest that along with the decline in the number of children fed during the war, there was an increase in the number of meals paid for by parents. The great increase in the employ ment of married women outside the home, the increased ability of parents to pay, and the increased rise in the prices of food were assigned as the chief causes for the change. The chief medical officer of the Board of Education reviewed in the last year of the war the school-feeding situation as follows: Soon after the outbreak of war in 1914, the number of necessitous children fed under the provisions of the Act reached its maximum, but with the distribution of the naval and military separation allowances, the rise in wages, and the increase of opportunities for employment, the number declined, until at the present time the number of necessitous school children being fed is considerably less than that at any other period since 1906. On the other hand, owing to circumstances arising out of the War, a larger number than heretofore of children who cannot be said to be necessitous have been provided for by Local Education Authorities. In these cases some payment in return for the meals supplied has been made by the parents or guardians of the children. The chief factors which have contributed to this increase of provision for non-necessitous children are the greatly enhanced price of foodstuffs, and the extensive employment of married women in factories and workshops. This latter fact, in occasioning the withdrawal of the mother from the home, has rendered impossible in a number of cases the preparation and supply of a mid-day meal in the home for the children, and consequently there has been an increased demand for school meals.1 Table XVI indicates the total expenditure for the provision of school meals and the proportion of this expenditure which was contributed by parents. Annual Report for the Year Ending March 31, 1918, of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education (Cd. 9206), p. 128. Further evidence of the decline in destitution during the war is to be found in reports as to the physical condition of schoolchildren. For example, an inquiry was undertaken in January, 1918, in Bedfordshire to determine how far school-children were being adversely affected by the food situation. The director of education reported on the basis of the inquiry that he was forced unhesitatingly to the opinion that on the whole the children had not been adversely affected by the food problem, but were "actually better clothed, better shod, better fed, and in better health than they were in pre-war days." This satisfactory condition of affairs, the director of education added, was undoubtedly due to the fact that even with the shortage of food the children were "provided with more food than in pre-war times, as their parents were financially better off and could buy more food even under present conditions than they could in times when food supplies were greater and wages lower." A number of teachers volunteered information as to two points: (1) that many of the children who stayed at school for dinner also had a hot meal in the evening; (2) that many children were having a hot midday meal four or five days a week. USE OF POOR-LAW INSTITUTIONS FOR MILITARY PURPOSES As early as December 15, 1915, before it became apparent that there would be a general exodus from the workhouse, the Local Government Board had given consent to arrangements or had been responsible for initiating arrangements for using poor-law institutions of various sorts, poor-law schools, infirmaries, and even the main workhouses, for military purposes of different kinds. The emergency uses to which these institutions were put in the early months of the war included the billeting of troops, the temporary reception of Belgian refugees, the temporary reception of wives and families of interned enemy aliens, and hospital facilities for the wounded both of the British and Belgian armies. Part of the accommodation thus provided was the margin of spare accommodation which many of the poor-law authorities maintained. Soon, however, as the demand for institutional facilities for war INTER-ALLIED DEBTS, REPARATIONS, AND T NATIONAL POLICY HE tremendous financial burden of the World War pre sented, among other important questions, that of its dis tribution among the participants. Each nation involved was obliged, naturally, to assume a large part of the expense of equipping and supporting its own armed forces, but it became apparent at an early stage of the conflict that the economically stronger countries must render financial support to the weaker countries if the maximum combative effort were to be exerted. The adoption of this policy by the Allied governments, including the United States after April 6, 1917, led to a series of arrangements for co-operative financial support which did, in fact, render their military efforts more effective, but which involved some general questions of policy that cannot yet be regarded as finally settled, despite a considerable amount of discussion and negotiation. Another aspect of the same general problem of disposing of the costs of the war is encountered in the determination of the amount of reparations to be exacted from Germany, and in the establishment of a neat balance between the amount that Germany can pay and that which the creditor nations will accept. A third angle of this general problem is presented by certain matters of national policy, such as the pressure for more effective protection of home markets by means of higher tariff rates, the encouragement of American capital investments abroad, and the desire to relieve agricultural, and, if necessary, business depression, and, finally, the insistence that none of these matters any connection with any other. has The important question for decision is whether or not the inter-Allied debts and the German reparations are entirely independent, and whether both of these issues, in addition to being independent and distinct, are so remote and disassociated from the American economic entity as to be entirely unaffected by anything that may be undertaken or desired here in the manipu lation of the tariff, in the investment of capital abroad, or in the relief of depressed business conditions. The official view has been, consistently, that these matters are in separate water-tight compartments, and that whatever may be done in any given compartment can have no possible effect, economic, moral, or psychological, on the situation in any other compartment. If this view should be correct, an assumption which violates all experience in international affairs, it would follow, for example, that no action could be taken in this country with regard to either the interAllied debts or the reparations question that could be productive of relief in the depression which agriculture has experienced for some time and which may now be threatening business in general. The purpose of this article is to show that while the official attitude may be legally correct, it cannot be upheld on economic grounds, and to point out, further, that a different solution of the reparations-Allied debt tangle may contribute substantially to the long-run improvement of American agriculture and business. Although the facts relative to the debt settlements and the revision of reparations are matters of public record, these facts may not be generally available, and it seems advisable to supply here, as part of the argument, an outline of these developments to date. INTER-ALLIED DEBT SETTLEMENTS The inter-Allied debts are the debts which were incurred during and after the war by the allied European governments for the purposes, first, of obtaining funds for the purchase of supplies for military forces and the civilian population, and, second, for the financing of rehabilitation and reconstruction work after the cessation of hostilities. Great Britain had recognized and dealt with this problem before the United States entered the war by extending credits to France and Italy, thereby imposing an additional strain on her own credit and taxation resources. The successive Liberty Loan Acts authorized the allocation of a portion of the proceeds of these loans to the financial support of the Allies through the acquisition, by the federal Treasury, of the debt obligations of these governments. The authorized amount of such loans was steadily extended until it eventually reached a |