GERMAN FOOD SHORTAGE

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 November 1939, Page 11

GERMAN FOOD SHORTAGE

REICH’S FRUGAL TABLE. The writer of this article in the Melbourne “Argus,” Friedrich Czerwenka, an Austrian who left Vienna early in June, compares the Australian dietary regimen with the German and casts doubts upon the stories of immense stocks of food and warlike material stored in Germany.

“Brisbane was the first Australian town I saw. I went through the streets and was genuinely surprised to see quality meat and vegetables at an incredibly low price. A few days afterwards I was in Sydney. Again I studied prices and found that they were on the average only half those charged in Germany for similar articles. But prices can properly only be compared, on an income basis.

“I had anothei* enlightening experience in the steamer in which I travelled to Australia. Wishing to improve my English, I told the barber that I would like to ask the electrician of the boat to spend an hour each day talking with me and I would’ be willing to pay him two shillings an hour. A gentleman was in the barber’s chair, and the barber himself laughed heartily concerning my proposal. I am sure I looked very silly, because I did not understand why they laughed. Then I was told that the electrician would surely be prepared to spend some of his time with me, but would never accept money. ' “Afterwards I learned that the pay of the electrician is about £8 a week. So doubtless my intention did seem silly to an Australian mind. But a man with this pay is on another standard of life than a ‘worker’- in Germany or in Europe. The average electrician in Germany receives £3 a week, and the prices of food are double. What a difference! “I read my first Australian newspaper in Sydney, and ,1 noticed an article in which Sydney’s housewives were complaining about the high prices. I was astonished to read that housewives were unable to nourish their children sufficiently because they could not afford! to buy the necessary foodstuffs.

“It was my turn to laugh. “The next day I arrived in Melbourne, and 1 heard again from a taxi driver, a complaint about ‘the high prices.’ My reply was: ‘You live in the happiest country in the world. You have high wages and cheap prices. The average standard of living is the highest that I know. You have no political troubles and no reason to be anxious about your neighbours. Water is around Australia, and the only country which might interfere is weakened by a war and more than 2,000 miles away. Your taxation is so low that it would do you good to study the taxation rates in Germany or other countries.’ I repeated: ‘Australia is the happiest country in the world; but I have a feeling that some Australians ignore this fact.’ “I have spent three months in Melbourne. I have seen the conditions of living, and I have no reason to change my first impression: ‘Australia is the happiest country in the world.’

“In Germany incomes are, on the average, half what they are here a,nd food prices are double Australian prices. Everyone knows that Germany is short of food. She is short of meat, eggs, butter, and so on; nevertheless, the people are good-looking and well nourished. If you could see German soldiers or German children you would! admit that they are not undernourished. AVERAGE MEALS. “You ask for an explanation. Well, here is an example of what the average Austrian wife of a worker arranged for her family:—For break-

fast, milk, coffee or soup, with a large slice of dark, heavy rye bread. Neither butter nor jam is used. The coffee is made only by ‘ersatz’ (substitute material). Roasted barley is very useful. Even wealthy people come to enjoy this coffee as much as the real coffee. For breakfast I preferred, a cup of beef tea (made by pouring hot water on a small cube) to real tea or coffee. You will admit that this breakfast is not very expensive.

“Schools and offices commence at 8 a.m., factories usually at 7 a.m., therefore breakfast must be taken at an early hour. It is usual to have a second breakfast at 10 o’clock. Margarine, bacon, cheese (or, if circumstances allow, ham), pig’s grease or butter sandwiched between two large slices of heavy brown bread. Housewives prepare also from liver t and grease or margarine a very cheap paste, which is spread on the bread, and would please also an Australian taste.

“At midday there is the principal meal of the day, but only one dish is served in the working-class family. Meat, sweets, fruit, butter, tea, and coffee are not served; vegetables with dumplings is the usual dish. Beans, lentils, and peas, with a small piece of sausage, are also frequently on tlie menu. Another dish is macaroni, spaghetti, or vermicelli, with cheese or sauce, or sweetened with jam, fruit juice, or poppy, nuts, chocolate, or cinnamon with sugar. Soup may be served first.

“The evening meal is even simpler —usually the ‘leftovers’ of the same day or the day before, and some cheap cheese and ersatz-coffee are on the table. Meat is served only on Sundays in these families. “As for the large stocks of food which Goering claims to have laid in, I do not believe the story. A stock of 101 b for every German means nothing. It would not suffice for more than a week, when you consider that large quantities of potatoes and hour (for bread) are necessary, and. that eggs, butter, and meat are seldom used. To hold in stock for 80,000,000 Germans only 101 b of food would mean 400,000 tons for one week! These quantities cannot be hidden. I have never seen or heard anything about such provisions. I believe that they are invented as a consolation for the German people. “We have also heard that Germany has stored large quantities of raw materials for use in war time. Germany’s annual importations of iron ore and manganese are, I think, between 20,000,000 and 30,000,000 tons. Such quantities cannot be hidden. The same with oil and petrol. Millions of tons are necessary—in war time much more than in peace time. Liquids are not so easy to store as iron ore. I have never heard of the construction of tanks able to store such quantities. “’Months before the outbreak of war Brownshirts collected all scrap iron. In one of the largest towns in Ger-| many—and I have no doubt that the same has been done in the whole country—the tram standards of cast iron were exchanged for wooden ones. The minimum cost of replacing each post was at least 100 marks. The price for scrap iron is 5 pfennig (0.5 mark) for every 21b. That means that 100 marks have been spent to take scrap iron worth 1.50 marks. I cannot believe that a country with secret stocks of material would do such a thing"in peace time.”