CHAOS IN GERMANY

Gisborne Times, Volume LIX, Issue 9576, 30 July 1923, Page 5

CHAOS IN GERMANY

COUNTRY FACING SERIOUS CRISIS. LONG QUEUES WAITING FOR. FOOD. EXCJJANGE RATES RESPONSIBLE .FOR AMUSING SCENES. TWO TRILLION MARKS PRINTED DAILY. ("United Press Association —Copyright.) (Received July 29, 5.5 n.m.) LONDON, '.July 2,8. The “Daily Chronicle's” Berlin correspondent says ‘there is little doubt Germany faces a serious crisis. Money in millions is to be seen about the city, yet its very abundance is the cause of what, is rapidly becoming a tragedy ex death or famine. Queues of housewives waiting for food are street census which outclass the worst of the war rationing days. There are signs -:i threatened uprising, which are being referred to in such ominous phrases as civil war. There is a shortage of but-ter-fats, sugar, potatoes and eggs, and it is growing worse daily. The Government is circularising provincial authorities and ordering special police measures to ensure a cafe transport ct goods to city and town markets. Farmers alarmed at the economic chaos jn the cities are hesitating whether to forward their produce. Most of the taxes are now costing more to collect than they realise. Trains are delayed while clerks count the huge bundles of marks tendered by travellers for fares. The “Daily Express’” correspondent says the most amusing eights witnessed lately are those of people going to restaurants carrying bundles of notes wrapped in newspapers to pay their bills. There is a perfect orgy of profiteering. Twice this week a leading hotel increased its charges for rooms. The prices of foodstuffs change two or three timers daily. The hotels arthasing their prices on the pound or dollar, but (his is just as senseless as everything else. A. message from New York yesterday stated that the mark declined to 1,111.1000 to the dollar, thus directly reflecting Germany’s wholesale issue cf paper marks, of which two trillions are being printed daily without sign of abatement.—A. and N.Z.C.A.

RESIGNATION OF CABINET EX PECTED. ARMED POLICE DRAFTED TO BERLINLONDON. July 29. The Sunday Express’ Berlin correspondent states that the resignation of the German Cabinet or reconstruction is expected. The Centre Party and Socialists are combining against the Communists to bold the German Empire together against the possibility of Soviet government or Royalist intrigues. Soldiers and armed police in motor cars have been drafted into Berlin in anticipation of ail attempt by th(> Communists to bold their prohibited demonstration at Potsdam today. The general uneasiness is causing an exodus of Germans and foreigners, thousands of whom have gone to Holland or to relatives in the country.—A. and N.Z.C.A.. (Received July of), 12.20 n.m.) BRUSSELS, July 29. Cabinet met to-day to consider the draft French reply and to draw up its own. which it is c-xpccted will be transmitted to Paris to-morrow. It is anticipated that both replies wiil thereupon be sent to London.—-A. and N.Z.C.A.

FOOD SCARCITY IN BERLIN. GOVERNMENT IN iT;RYENTIOX ASKED FOR. BERLIN. July 27. Big queues arc daily outside provision stores, waiting to buv butter and potatoes, which, are vei’y scarce owing to the impossibility of dealers buying goods abroad in view of the collapse t f-the mark. The authorities regard the situation as serious. A special meeting of the town council declared that unless the Government intervened a storm would break out, and decided to send a deputation to Dr. Cuno to demand remedia 1 measures. In view of the continued depreciation of the mark the Reichstag will hold an extraordinarv session on Aug.

GHUMANY OF TO-DAY. THE MASSES PROSPEROUS. THE RUHR OCCUPATION. Berlin newspayort* report lin'd Buckmaster as having said in the House of Lords, “Germany stand- on the verge of hunger. The life of the German people is to-day a life of the greatest misery.” If this is a co:reel report, writes ’.he Berlin correspondent of a London paper, the ex-Lord Chancellor is strangely misinformed. Ir is true that the German middie-classes, and especially the intellectual class, have suffered severely. The “Intellectuals” are, indeed, being ••rushed out of existence, and their places taken by others springing from different Mra.fa of society.

A tour round Berlin, however, or, still better, a journey through any distend no further than an hour or two by train from the capital, would have revealed to Lord Buekmaster the fact that, so far from a life of misery, large masses of the German nation are loading a life of great prosperity. The amount of building now going on throughout the land —building of factories, farms, private houses, institutions —is amazing. Outside Berlin food is good, 'cheap and abundant. In Berlin tho'.e is barely a bank that has not built itself important annexes of luxurious appearance. It is m but la tod that there are more than five times an many motor cars at* Germany than before the war. The agricultural classes, an important pari of the nation, are probably belter offtlian at any period in their history. The commercial classes are hardly less flourishing'.

It .is oven doubtful whether the working classes are substantially worse oil, for in 192*2 the League of Nations Labor Bureau, examining twenty-seven out of fifty-eight leading German industries, found that the wages in them were above the pre-war level. What Germany is suffering from is a violent: internal readjustment of wealth that has disastrously affected a very valuable class of society, and the selfish policy of the great capitalists. It is almost staggering to learn the use to which the Ruhr capitalists -have put at least a portion of the •"roniis obtained from the Government to enable IT :m to carry on resistance end compensate thorn for the loss of meter cars an t other-goods rcouisiiicno-a by the French. At the very height of the ct niggle to keep up the mark and thus continue, the passive resistance, a Ruin* firm of pro-dominant position made a sudden purchase of several hundred thousand pounds’ worth of foreign drafts which were being sold on the Berlin Bourse by the Reichstag Bank for this purpose. It was this that caused a shortage in the supply of foreign drafts, that instantaneously drove their price up, and that drove down the value of the mark. Not French influences, as at first' alleged, but German, were responsible for the slump of the mark. This revelation is made, not in an anti-capitalist paper, but in the eminently respectable and moneyed Frankfurter Zeihmg. Vorwaerts only adds this definite information: The firm that beared marks was the Stinnes’ concern.