THE SPECTRE OF FAMINE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2990, 30 January 1917, Page 5

THE SPECTRE OF FAMINE

MILLIONS OF STARVING AND DESPERATE WOMEN

FOOD CRISIS IN AUSTRIA

(Rec. January 29, 8.10 p.m.)

London, January 29. The "Morning Post's" Budapest correspondent states that the latest feature of the food crisis is the growing desperation of the women, who are unable to provide their children with the bare necessaries of life. Many are absolutely without coal, petroleum, wood, and! milk. Prices of commodities in many cases have risen from 300 to 1000 per cent., while the stock of rice in the country consists of fifty wagon loads. Beef costs 10s. per kilogramme. (2 1-filb.); fat, 7s. 9d.j butter, 10s. Bd. The new vegetables cannot bo expected before July, and unless a miracle happens famine in its worst form is iaevitable. The fixing cf maximum prices resulted in the holding up of stocks, and thus far has caused" a greater scarcity. Some relief has been afforded 1 by pig slaughtering. The richer Budapest families bought up thousands of siuafl pigs in the spring and!_had them fed. The country is receiving considerable supplies of pork fat from this wholesale slaughter, wnich is going on because the Government prohibits the use of maize fodder. "It may bo possible to restrict the feeding of a few hundred thousands of people in a besieged city, but.120,000,000' are not easily managed. Hundreds of thousands of Socialists and other disaffected elements musi be reckoned ■with, while there aro millions of vomen, bereaved and poverty-stricken, and possessed' of the single thoughthow to feed their children. It is impossible to reason with them on political and patriotic grounds. .The next few months will reveal the strength of these millions of uninstructed, desperate women, who have given their sons and husbands to the war, and now find that they can endtare their misery no longer.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. FAMINE IN SOUTHERN SUA?. STATES. ' (Hoc. January 29, 5.5 p.m.) ' Stockholm, January 28. M. Dmitri Jantchivetsky, a Russian publicist, who has just been released after thirty months' imprisonment in Austria, states that there is a universal desire for peace on almost any terms in Austro-Hungary, particularly among the Slavs and Magyars. Thero is no feeling of bitterness against) the Entente Powers. Tho Emperor, Empress, and .Court are endeavouring to secure the country's independence from Germany. Tlio food supply is relatively good in the north', but .xtual hunger prevails in the soiith of Hungary and in the southern Slav States. Tho desertions owing to under-feeding have increased threefold in six months.— Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.