"POTATO DIPLOMACY."

Clutha Leader, Volume XLII, Issue 89, 16 May 1916, Page 1

"POTATO DIPLOMACY."

WOMAN AM) SHOPKEEPER. I Tim 'Yorwarts,' the German Social- \ ist paper, i« fond of telling the truth I in parable and short stories, which ap- ; parently escape the. eye, of the censor I (says the 'Westminster Gazette';. Hero . is a little .story which it calls "Potato . Diplomacy,'' which tells more than wo : might otherwise have learnt about the .feelings of the housefrau when she goes shopping in Berlin. 1 had no potatoes in the house. For weeks this had been the case. 1 nwist, however, have potatoes; I cannot live without potatoes. With my purse I went into the market with the courage. jof despair in my heart. The last harvest yielded 5o million Zentncrs, so I I had a right at least to a couple of pounds. We are potato Croesuses, we Genitalis. Wy possess thit costly fruit in full abundance. "Why should' not I get some? With my head in the air 1 went through the market. I went from stall to stall—There—l could scarcely trust uny eyes—stood threesacks full of potatoes. Why not? "Ten pounds of potatoes," I said, suppressing my joy. The trader heard me when I had said it three times. Then, without 'looking at me, he said in an indifferent voice through his teeth, "1 haven't got any." Enraged, I lmuited at the sacks, and opened one"What are these, then? Eh?'' "Potatoes," replied the shopman laconically, "hut they are mine. I have just, bought them from a passer-by." "What!" I cried, full of rage. "Your potatoes? Yours?" "Yes, mine,'' he said. "I can stand anything here that belongs to me." I went on. There was no point iiv staying any longer. "Don't waste your time here." said a sympathetic ladv to me. "Go to the H Street, to Schulze's, there are some there." I dragged my feet to Schulze's, where there ought to be potatoes. Hut I had become sly, and hid my purse under my cloak. | _ "Can I have some cabbage?" I asked |in a timid voice. Fran Sehulze took up ; a. cabbage top and plumped it laughing, ly iiv the scales.

''Four pounds. That means 83 pfennigs, two-and-twenty pfennigs the pound.'' .--lie reckoned. This price was far. far above the official price, but I kept quiet, for I wanted to get potatoes at any price. And now I brought out fn.v purse.

"Potatoes!'' Oh, yes. I could get you some. Twenty pounds!-'" That was just -what I wanted. And so I got my beloved potatoes. Rut not, as the story points out, until bhe had oaid double the price which fche ought to have paid for a cabbage. The mora] of the story is that you cannot get what you want in Berlin except by buying something else first at an exorbitant price. And thus the 'Vorwarts,' the protector of the poor, enjoys its slap at the greedy tradesmen of Berlin once more, and ridicules the abundant supplies and fixed prices. It must do this in an indirect way, for it may be remembered that recently the editor of the 'Vonvarts' was held up by the police for creating dissention between the classes. It does not do to sayopenly what you think in Berlin.