VIENNESE ENVY GERMANS

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 42, 18 August 1915, Page 10

VIENNESE ENVY GERMANS

AUSTEIANS AND THEIR WAR BREAD. According to a message from Vienna to a New York paper, the Austrians, and the Viennese especially, are reading with envy the announcement of the German Government that the quantity of flour and potatoes available for the civil population (leaving the army out of the question), up to the time when the new harvest may be taken into account, is amply sufficient for all wants, and that the strict economy imposed in the winter, and implicitly carried out to the letter by a most reasonable population, may be somewhat relaxed. White bread, and even breakfast rolls in moderation, may again be enjoyed. Vienna, with its two million inhabitants, is, I believe, worse off than any other large community influenced by the war (continues the correspondent). The prices of what are considered the necessaries of life— meat, vegetables, cereals, flour, eggs, and butter — are enormous. On an average, they sell at something like two to five times their cost as quoted before the last months before the war. In the case of bread and flour, even a long "purse is of no use. No wheat or rye flour has been for sale since last December, and the Viennese have a particular aversion to yellow corn flour. Furthermore, the bakers have proved singularly inefficient, and are incapable of producing a nourishing or appetising bread from the flour which the authorities place at their disposition, and which is a mixture of maize, barley, and bean flour — officially named "war-flour." The same weight of bread is not even one-half in volume of what it was formerly. No one in Vienna at the present time eats bread to please his palate, but only just as much as is absolutely necessary. Even so, the result is indigestion and chronic discomfort. Besides, the population is irritated by the tales of those who came from without — from Lin/.. Graz, Budapest, and even irom small towns in the neighbourhood, i where they have been liberally served with excellent rye bread and even white 'rolls and " semmeis." Naturally, there are old people and little children in Vienna by the thousands who suffer severely from this state of things. For the rich, a prescription from the family doctor gives the right to purchase a kilogram (2.21b) of "wheat flour at the apothecary's for three crowns (two-thirds of a dollar), but what arc tho delicate and sick among the poor to do? It is very difficult to obtain admission in a hospital jn&t now. when all of them are lequired for the wounded and the diseased that pour in from the seats of war. Of the bread, poor as it h, there is not oven enough to go round, and the childien and old women of the needy classes stand in long columns wait1 injz lor their tarn to our chase a loaf

for their hard-earned money and in exchange of the scanty breadcards allotted to them. This state of things has lasted for nine weeks and will last until the new harvest releases us from semi-star-vation. Happily, as I have said, the harvest promises well in Austria,, in Hungary, as also in the German Empire. During the hearing of the bacon workers' dispute at the Arbitration Court yesterday, a witness stated that he had left his employment, and was at present out of work. Incidentally he mentioned that he was unmarried. " What did you leave your employment for?" witness was asked. "To see if I could better myself," he replied. " You should have made sure of bettering yourself before you left your employment,'^ commented, his Honour Mr. Justice Stringer, who added: "You have now a chance of serving your country."