Part 30

The government saw this and tried a little belated regulation.

I say belated regulation because the measures came too late to have much value. That there would be a shortage in coal had been foreseen. Nothing could be done, however, to ward off the Knappheit.

Among my many acquaintances is the owner of several coal-mines in Austrian Silesia. His handicaps were typical of what every mine-operator had to contend with.

"The coal is there, of course," he would say. "But how am I to get it out? My best miners are at the front. Coal-mining may be done only by men who are physically the fittest. That is the very class of man the government needs at the front. I am trying to come somewhere near my normal output with men that are long past the age when they can produce what is expected of the average miner.

"It can't be done, of course.

"Women are no good underground. So I have tried Russian prisoners-of-war. I went to a prison camp and picked out seventy-five of the most likely chaps. I made willingness to work in a mine one of the conditions of their furlough. They all were willing--so long as they did not know what the work was. Right there the willingness of half the crew ended. I sent them back and tried my luck with the rest.

"To get some work out of the men, I made arrangements with the government that I was to pay them four-fifths of the regular scale. It isn't a question of money. It's a question of getting at the coal. To make a long story short: Out of the seventy-five Russians seventeen have qualified. I can't afford to repeat the experiment, for the reason that apprentices litter up the works and interfere with the few miners I have left."

The man was short then nearly two hundred workers at the mine shafts. He had underground most of his surface hands. With overtime and some other makeshifts he was able to produce about four-fifths of his normal output. The demand for fuel was such that he would have been able to sell twice as much coal as formerly.

Natural resources mean nothing to a state so long as they cannot be made available. This was the case with Central Europe.

More economy, more restrictions. Industries not contributing directly to the military strength of the Central Powers were ordered to discontinue all night work and overtime. Shops, cafés, hotels, restaurants, and other public places had to limit the consumption of fuel for heating and lighting purposes to one-third their usual quota. The lighting of shop-windows was cut down to almost nothing. Stores had to close at seven o'clock, eating- and drinking-places first at twelve and later at eleven. No light was to be used in the hotels after twelve. All unnecessary heating was prohibited, and the warm-water period in hotels shrank from four to two hours per day. On each stretch of corridor and at each stair-landing or elevator door one small light was allowed.

In Vienna all places of amusement "not contributing to the cultivation of art for art's sake" were closed. This hit the cheaper theaters and every moving-picture house.

A city of such restrictions would need no street lights at any time. But up to eleven o'clock two lights for each block were allowed. After that Stygian black reigned. Street traction ceased on some lines at eight o'clock; on all lines at nine, though arrangements were made for a few cars to run when the playing theaters closed.

But the regulations came near spilling the baby with the bath. They were well meant, but poorly considered. Economic waste came from them.

The several governments did their very best to get coal to the consumers. In Vienna, for instance, Emperor Charles took a personal interest in the matter. He issued an order that as many miners as possible be returned immediately from the front. For the workers at the mines, who had been living none too well so far as food went, he prescribed the subsistence given the men in the trenches and placed military commissaries in charge of the kitchens. Men from the military railroad organizations were given the running of coal-trains. For certain hours each day the passenger service of the city street traction systems was suspended in favor of the coal traffic, which often gave rise to the unusual sight of seeing an electric street-car drag behind it, over the pavement, from three to five ordinary coal-wagons, which later were towed to their destination by army tractors.

It was a herculean labor that would have to be done in a few days, if a part of the population were not to perish in the cold spell that had come over Central Europe. The work of a whole summer was now to be done in a few days.

From the front came whole columns of army motor trucks. These took a hand at coal distribution. And finally Emperor Charles gave over to the work every horse in the imperial stables.

I will never forget the sight of the imperial coachmen in their yellow-and-black uniforms hauling coal all over Vienna. Their cockaded top-hats looked out of place on the coal-wagons, though no more so than the fine black and silver-adorned harness of the full-blooded horses that drew the wagons.

The press was freer now. Political censorship had been reduced to a minimum. Criticism changed with valuable tips, and one of them was that the government had done a very foolish thing in closing the Kinos--movies. It was pointed out that their closing resulted in so small a saving of fuel for heating and lighting that, compared with the wasteful result of the regulation, it stood as one to hundreds.

Such was the case. The men, women, and families who had formerly spent their evenings in the movies were now obliged to frequent the more expensive cafés or sit home and use light and fuel. Some man with a statistical mind figured out that the closing of a movie seating five hundred people and giving two performances in the evening, meant an increase in fuel consumption for heating and lighting purposes sixty times greater than what the movie used.

That was simple enough, and a few days later the movies and cheap theaters resumed business. More than that followed. The government decided that this was a fine method of co-operation. It gave the cafés permission to use more fuel and light in return for a more liberal treatment of patrons not able to spend much money. In harmony with this policy the passenger service of the car lines was extended first to nine and later to ten o'clock, so that people were not obliged to spend every evening in the same café or other public place.

The case was a fine example of co-operation between government and public, with the press as the medium of thought exchange. A twelve-month before, the reaching of such an understanding would have been next to impossible. The editor who then mastered the courage of criticizing a government measure had the suspension of his paper before his eyes. He no longer had to fear this. The result was a clearing of the political atmosphere. Government and people were in touch with one another for the first time in two years.

For over a year all effort of the upper classes had lain fallow. The women who had done their utmost at the beginning of the war had not met enough encouragement to keep their labor up. It had been found, moreover, that charity concerts and teas "an' sich" were of little value in times when everything had to be done on the largest of scales. What good could come from collecting a few thousand marks or crowns, when not money, but food, was the thing?

The fuel conjunction offered new opportunities. Free musical recitals, concerts, theatrical performances, and lectures were arranged for in order that thousands might be attracted away from their homes and thus be prevented from using coal and light.

One of the leaders in this movement in Vienna was Princess Alexandrine Windisch-Graetz.

The lady is either the owner or the lessee of the Urania Theater. In the past she had financed at her house free performances and lectures for the people in order that they might not be without recreation. A washed face and clean collar were the admission fee. Under her auspices many such institutions sprang up within a few weeks.

"We are saving coal and educating the masses at the same time," she would say to me. "There are times when making a virtue of necessity has its rewards."

And rewards the scheme did have. Lectures on any conceivable subject could be heard, and I was glad to notice that not a single one dealt with the war. The public was tired of this subject and the promoters of the lectures were no less so.

Those whom lectures did not attract could go to the free concerts, and, when the cheaper music palled, payment of twelve cents American brought within reach the best Vienna has to offer in symphony and chamber music.