LIFE IN NEW POLAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 116, 15 May 1920, Page 17

LIFE IN NEW POLAND.

A COU.3CTRT OF CO-TTBASTS. WAKSIW (Poland), January 30. • Milk is scarce and appallingly .dear.' Yet here, you-get whipped cream in your 1 coffee; and,a handcart of 'full milk bottles is drawn, by a boy so weak and' with clogs so worn that, he slips on" the ice and the. milk is spilt on the. dirty street, writes Mr. C. I. Beat tie in the "Daily Mail."", -.:.." Fuel is s scarce: and. appallingly, dear. Yet a hot-water tap.in your hotel'runs to waste all day; and.florists'" windows are full of exotic blooms forced in the hothouses around the city. '■ Tobacco is scarce and appallingly deaf. Yet American Red' Cross cigarettes are hawked- in hotels, and boys pester you in'the streets with endless packets'of' 20 offered at 18/ each. . Clothing is scarce and appallingly dear. Yet the waiters' abolished "tips" and, their dress suits as bourgeois, and'made themselves buy lounge suits at £40 each. With long queues standing for bread, a man thinks nothing of eating hors d'oeuvres' enough for an' Englishman's' meal, then two crumbed cutlets, then a porterhouse steak—though - he thinks equally little "of leaving half of it to pass to Peche Melba of pre-war -glory and hand—lis of wafers. ■ Light must be saved, so.cafe and hotel close at 10. You pay your bill at 10.5 by ma—blight, but at 3 a.m. the bedroom next'yours is a blare of festivity and the waiter is bearing heaped trays and tinkling glasses along the corridor. Warsaw is all contrasts ;■ 'bitter frost, radiant - sun, stinging wind and dust, purple-mauve sunset - and steel-blow snow;. a' brisk, moving city, bedrooms, unobtainable: tramways packed worse than the Tube in a raid, cafes a hum of talk and, passionate-music, a city of splendid men—for the nonce of aU nations, and the Pole puts most in the: shade—and shambling beggars, of sparkling women with'the daintiest furs and feet aide by side with those huddling in - , wincey and shawl, as in the closes of Edinburgh 40 years ago. How do they live? Here are some figures. A Cabinet Minister's salary is £100 a month: a clerk's £4. Bread is 2/ » loaf, a pair of boots £20. a cup of chocolate 4/6; a jumper and knitted skirt £84. .Here also are items from a menu: j Table d'Hote Lunch: Soap, entree, ice, £1 2/ _ L_ CAKTE PKICES: .'." , «>• v*. Hors d'oeuvres 15.0 Slice of turkey 15 0 _o_p ......... 38 Spinach SO.' Omelette ...... 00. Compote of frait 10 v j CaUst ...10 0 Bottl? of claret 70 0 j

. There are people here enjoying Lucullan delicacies 1 from ■ East rand; WestSome aire refugeea.from Russia, realising, gems, securities; and estates. Many are Western Europeans chortling over the exchange., For that is the seertt of the above prices and most of the problems of Poland. •■../.-.■ .-;.. ,/; >. '->,-"-,. : The Polish mark, nominally 1/6 at the armistice, is now _d; so you divide the prices I gave above by. 24; and the best China tea, possibly imported-from I—mdon,'isonly 1/6'a-lb, a dress-suit like Saviie-low's is £4 4/,- a packed of Gold FJake, via Cologne, sd, • and a box in the opera' 2/3, just about the price of a loaf. -That" is,' if you have English, French,.or American money to buy them - with.;- But the Pole can earn only Polish .marks.... That-is why some Poles, .returned from the land, of the dollar when the new' Poland, arose, are beginning to think of emigrating once more. ■■' ' • This is a-new republic. With all. its contrasts: and lasternness, it has a high national consciousness pride of pat-1 riot—m. ~It" has enormous possibilities j under an_fdefing hand. It may be our j bulwark against the Reds. Can we en-1 courage it/ to-comfort And competence?, ■Meanwhile the Pole is waiting for something to .happen. "Things cannot] go on like this." ''.'." !