SOAP AS MONEY.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 3778, 2 May 1919, Page 1

SOAP AS MONEY.

GERMANY AFTER THE WAR

AN AUSTRALIAN'S LETTER

Tho following extracts from the lottor of a young Australian naval officer, who is now serving on a British destroyer in tho Baltic, written on January 24. give interesting details of post-war "conditions in Germany:— "We left Copenhagen," he says, " and came on to Neufanrwasser, a small placo closo to Danzig, which is quite a largo shipbuilding place, also a destroyer bertS. Tho officers on shore nearly, all salute the British. We are fortunate onough to get leavo during tho daylight, so we can see quite a lot of tho placo. English (paper) money is not much use here, as the cxcling cis too high; at present it is about 38.G0, and quit© a lot of please will take it.

" Soap is very, very scarce _ere, and they pay almost any price for it, so whon tihey refused our money we used soap instead. I bought several amber trinkets, and in payment tendered soap. Just fancy going into a Sydney establishment and buying jewellery and offering the manager a few bars of soap instead of money ! The sentries will give you all their equipment for a bar of soap—revolvers, rifles, helmets, belt, etc. The town itself is in mortal terror of the Bolsheviks, who are encamped only a short distance away from here. The townfolk, if anything, are very pleas ed with tho idea of a British cruiser in their town. The people seem to be fairly well clad, though the boots are made of canvas, with wooden soles.