POVERTY IN GERMANY

Evening Star, Issue 20989, 31 December 1931, Page 12

POVERTY IN GERMANY

MILLIONS ON BREAD LINE UNEMPLOYMENT RIFE Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, December 30. (Received December 31, at 1.20 p.m.) Th© ‘ Daily Herald’s ’ Berlin correspondent says that 20,000,000 Germans are dragging out a miserable existence on relief provided by the remaining two-thirds of the population. The purchasing power of the masses has dwindled to the barest subsistence level. They just manage to buy enough bread, margarine, potatoes, and milk, with a little of the cheapest forms of meat, once or twice a week. One-third of the unemployed relief is deducted for rent.

The purchase of any clothing is impossible, while owing to the recent cuts in wages thousands of workers are receiving, a mere trifle above the unemployment relief standard. The middleclass people are reducing their expenditure most drastically. The majority have had to dismiss their maids, who go to swell the ranks of the unemployed. Many theatres, despite sweeping reductions in prices, have had to close. Even the cheap cinemas are poorly attended.