The present productivity of the Russian peasant is not believed to be sufficient to yield an exportable surplus on the pre-war scale.

The reasons for this are obviously many, but amongst them are included the insufficiency of agricultural implements and accessories and the absence of incentive to production caused by the lack of commodities in the towns which the peasants can purchase in exchange for their produce.

Finally, there is the decay of the transport system, which hinders or renders impossible the collection of local surpluses in the big centers of distribution.
I see no possible means of repairing this loss of productivity within any reasonable period of time except through the agency of German enterprise and organization.

It is impossible geographically and for many other reasons for Englishmen, Frenchmen, or Americans to undertake it;--we have neither the incentive nor the means for doing the work on a sufficient scale.

Germany, on the other hand, has the experience, the incentive, and to a large extent the materials for furnishing the Russian peasant with the goods of which be has been starved for the past five years, for reorganizing the business of transport and collection, and so for bringing into the world's pool, for the common advantage, the supplies from which we are now so disastrously cut off.
It is in our interest to hasten the day when German agents and organizers will be in a position to set in train in every Russian village the impulses of ordinary economic motive.