Page:The Destruction of Poland - Toynbee - 1916.djvu/19

the monopoly of tobacco and spirits? Is the extortionate profit, wrung out for this coal by the German police, the ultimate reason for stinting the Poles of it to this extreme degree 1 Obviously not, for it would pay Germany better still to furnish the factories of Lodz, at reasonable prices, with as much coal as they could consume. No, the reason is deeper than that, and the policy pursued is further-reaching. Germany is not aiming merely at feeding herself during the War, or at fleecing the Poles while she holds them in her power. Her grand object is the permanent extirpation of Polish industry. The bombardment of Kalish and the wrecking of the Dombrova mines were true symptoms of what was to come. The work was only delayed till it could be organised and taken up on an infallible plan and a comprehensive scale. There is no possible doubt about this when we examine other measures which the German Administration carried out against Polish industry as soon as they felt the moment favourable for a frontal attack. First, all kinds of auxiliary machines were taken away, turners' plant, metal cylinders, &c. For the textile industry of Lodz, a systematic confiscation of the metal cylinders, which it is very difficult to replace, spells ruin; yet from the factory of Poznanski alone, ten railway trucks of them were removed. Secondly, the whole stock of raw materials was requisitioned from the factories; first oil, leather, and sulphur, then iron, and finally the entire store of wool and cotton. According to the most modest calculation, wool and cotton