FOOD AND HEALTH IN GERMANY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3065, 28 April 1917, Page 9

FOOD AND HEALTH IN GERMANY

THE U-BOAT'FETISH -,

NATION SICK OP THE WAR

("Times" Correspondent.)

' ""' ' Rotterdam, February 11. Some reliable information regarding economic and other conditions in Germany las just reached mo through s traveller who has arrived from ovei the frontier. His experiences are deprived from residence in 20 towns of al] 1 sizes, and the hotels in,ivhich ho stay- ; ed were invariably the. best commercial houses. -.He said:— : i , My experises.were just about 2os. pei iday for board! and lodging, worked out ' thus:-r-I paid usually about 4s. for a worn. . Then came! breakfast, consisting of 80 grammes of bread (30z.), sever ■ grammes, or, a quarter of an ounce, of butter, and burned yeast instead of coffee, sometimes, not always, with saccharin, and sometimes jam, which ,was not very fruity. This,-'always cost Is. 6d. Being,a foreigner, 1' got rather more bread than the Germans do, thus; At each place I was asked how long I intended' to remain; and '. would say, "Perhaps a week." Then •Igotfor a week a.bread card called a'traveller's bread card, with;2o • tickets of. ljoz. eaoh. ' But sometimes I only stayed two days; then I ate my jweek's aupply : in two days, or sometimes gave some tickets to friend's and -business acquaintances. After break- " fast I usually went to, a cafe, and again got two thin slices of bread with .coffee substitute, which again-cost Is. ■ 6d., but kept me going. • . • Sugar, real coffee, and milk are no- . .'where-obtainable. Last, November when •I was in Germany you could still get some, milk before 12-' o'clock, but now •:: all.- milk; is, kept for ■ children ■ under two years.-. At-half-past-12 I "returned ■to the hotel for,.dinner.' This "consisted of thin soup,' made of turnip tops or sometimes carrots. -.- Then followed cne'ttttle potato. "Next came a piece tof meat'weighing'roughly one and!.-a Jialf ; ; English ■ ounces, with .one-half of a potato.'" That was the'whcle dinner, ; ;. / andc05t,45..,6d.. y .., r ■ . . •'■ '-'".- : At •.4',-p.mi'. r'had.'j-tea,:. 'consisting ■.'"again of two thin- slices' of bread' and . coffee ;Bubstitute,:.-prioa Is. 6d. At. 8 : . Iliad: supper,- which.-, was the r same as ■ 'dinner and the same price--4s.' 6d. Be- '■-■' tween meals I- bought-. Dutch chocolate, ' which seems to-be on sale in' all the : principal towns,'-chiefly from the.firms of Kwata''of Breda andJ'Bensdorp'of Amsterdam'. It 'costs' lid. per -.piece instead of. about'three "halfpence as in Holland. Faith in U-Boats. With regard to. public spirit, 1 was Sn Germany until after the submarine • campaign started. : -'. Frankly- the Ger- ; mans generally, both military and civilian, with whom I talked think of !the submarine less as a means of achieving final victory than of securing 'peace. "We are only.fighting to come to an agreement," said one after another, and "the longer we fight the more taxes our children will have to pay." But they made a god of the V.tMjoat. They consider them sure to isolate England. : , ' • I frequently pointed out to' Germans ■that England haß daily: some-300 ships - ■'. at sea, and even submarines -. cannot •sink them all, but they-always, replied, '-'■"Yes l if England! has three hundred ships at sea we shall sink them all, ana within two months England also will have nothing more to eat." They believe, the wildest legends about - -submarines. Thus I was seriously informed by- a grave arid perfectly serious'person that Germany launched 120 - .••■ in-- one -> day r ".-, They < absolutely'disbelieve that: the; Bremen' ,w.as " r 'surik v o'r"-lost. ; "At r Christmas • time- " Titz's' big 'stores 'at ' had a. ..'great window.'display announcing "Ar- • rival of submarine Bremen in Hamburg." , ... It. may interest you to learn that for some'reason I was not permitted to go 'to Dresden. I had a friend there whom 1 wanted much to meet, but_ I could not get permission, and my.friend! had to come to. meetrme elsewhere. -I pointed out-that there had been a report in Holland of a great explosion at Dresden, but my informant said that he had heard nothing of it. All he knew was that-he could'not get there; Regarding explosions, my. informant said:— The papers are so strictly censored that if-there is-.an explosion you know nothing about it, unless you como across evidence of it. For instancy on the Kaiser's birthday (January 27) I was walking on the Prinzadolf Alee at Dusseldorf, near the Pschorrbrauerei, at 11 a.m. when-1 heard a heavy explosion. Every where the windows -.were smashed, and so it was all over the place? ' it'was over in a few seconds, but I know there must have been an explosion somewhere. Next day people from the place where the explosion occurred, namely, the ammunition works about two hours from Cologne, arrived at Dusseldorf. and said that 40' people had been killed and a large number injured. It was a very big explosion; and the whole place was utterly wrecked, but next Iday the Dusseldorfer "Genoralanzeiger" had about three lines to Baythat t)?o persons were killed,-two seriously injured, and two slightly injured,.- whilst considerable damage had been done to property. . Not one word was allowed to appear about the damage in DusBeldorf. -..The. statement that 40 persons, were killed was not a first sensational report; but a serious statement made next day.I: was also told that Munich, as well Sis Dresden,.is closed to foreigners, but I cannot state if this is correct. Women, as you know, are running the whole economic life of the country.. They are street-cleaners, navvies, mu-nition-makers, and do all the work on .the trains except the driving'and the chief guards' work. . The train service itself is abominable. At Cologne I •waited three hours for an overdue train to Aix-la-Chapelle, and when it came it was overfull. Half of every train is reserved for tho military. "Great Attack on England." The people are frankly sick of the war, and oven amongst the soldiers and junior officers and n.c.o.'s, with whom I often talked, tho only ones who show any ,war keenness are those who have not yet been to the front. But the general talk is all of a great German attack on England. They say that', the crisis 'of the -submarine/campaign' is to Coincide with a great Germau attack on the.Western front, tho idea being that just at the crisis of the fight in the W'est the submarine campaign will cut short the supply of ammunition to ihe British front in Franco. Naturally there is much' discontent, but you may take it from me that there is no. .riQting,.'.for the following reason. [The system of police espionage and information'by amateur spies'is amazing. If a - discontented person begins murmuring, he or she is seized and haled before a Magistrate,-, before he has time to do more than get the incriminating words out of his niouth. Hence any attempt at organised protest is sup- • pressed before it has time to como even to the.bud. I heard from friends in Dusseldorf that some _20 soldiers had intended to create a disturbance about feeding or\ something, but before they could get a chan<*» to concert their action thoy were all arrested through tho agency of spies and given periods of fortress imprisonment. - (Tho cable news in this i6Sue accredited to the London 'Times" has appeared in that journal but only where expressly rtated is such news the editorial opinion Dl Tha illmeB,")