HUNGER

Grey River Argus, 17 April 1920, Page 7

HUNGER

PHILIP G

BBS'S STORY,

I have already given some pictures of life in' Vienna, and of the lingering death with which that city is menaced (writes Sir Philip Gibbs in the '"Daily Chronicle"). Most startling is *he contrast between the luxury in the rich restaurants — crammed with foreigners feeding on the difference of exchange, their money being worth many times the Austrian paper notes — and the poverty that gnaws at the vitals of the masses and the middle c'asves I coud v.ot understand at first how it could possibly happen that with a system of Government rations at maximum prices there should be a frightful inequality of food supply between people who can pay any 'money to fill their stomachs find those who have less than a living wage. Now Iki ow. I know why it is also that in the evenings the tramcars which come in from the outer suburbs on the edge of the countryside are crowded wi'.h well-dresed young me" and some old fellows, who look like comercial travellers and city clerks carrying heavy, bulging havers?.cks strapped on their backs. ,

They are the smugglers of Vienna, who have gone out upon adventures of "Schleich-handluug", as it is ca-'led and are coming back from farms ar.d villages laden with meat, cheese, butter potatoes and other produce of the land which they have bought at six, eight, or ten times the "maximum price,'' allowed by the Governed.

Government officials are smuggling,

Our own charitable societies in Vienna arc smuggling. Everybody is doing ft who can afford the money and the time for "Schleich-lmi.dlung," for it is ; he only way of obtaining supplies. From a secret adventure it h?s become an open system and the Goverr.ent has has no power to stop it, though it sill tries feebly to enforce its maximum price. It is an unfair system, and hideously wasteful in energy and transport. It takes 1000 people, going sir.g'y into the country with their haversacks, to bring into Vienna >m amount of potatoes equal t o a wagon load. The p..bsurdijty of this is only equalled by its tragedy. For, at the back of it, is the whole 1 tragedy of this new Australian Republic, and especially of Vienna, engirdled by unfriendly States who will not lift a little finsier to save it from starvation.

Is Vienna going to disappear as one of the great cities of Europe? I hardly think the world can stai-d by indifferent to the fate of these people, for, apart froni' Christian charity — oh, the rarity I — .and that sensitive egotism which urges well-fed folk io give sops to the. hungry so that their own selfsatisfaction may not be disturbed — it seems to me certain that "Western Europe cai-not be healthy if, on its borders, there is a welter of misery and disease, a breeding ground of poison mi- j crobes, a moral and* physical plzguo. I am writing of Austria, but beyond is Hungary and Russia, a vast Slav race, developing not only typhus and tuberculosis ; but morbid passions and philosophies of desp?ar.

Western Europe "victors" of Avar, but with unhealcd wounds, commercial ruin. a»d an. after- war psychology susceptible to infectious ideas, had better take warning while there is time, before they, too, sicken of the fever.

The problems of Eastern Europe are hideously complicated' 1 and beyond settlement by statesmen- bigger than those who made this muddle of misery. There arc natural forces at work which can hardly be controlled — the surgings of many races, whose instincts of nationality are being exploited by political leaders for their own ends.

Czccho-Slovakia, a new Repub'ic, is, I am told, already dividing against itself, for the Slovaks hate the. Czechs and resent their domination. There arc also 4,000,000 Germans in Czechoslovakia who are passionately resentful of the frontier which separates them from their kinsfolk.

Jugo-Slavia, ar.o'hcr republic, carved out of old Austria, is mobi ising her men and inflaming a bellicose spirit which sees Italy as the enemy.

In Hungary the Rumanians are ask-ir-.g for trouble by their conduct in 13udapest, brutalities and robberies which they call "paying back." They will get the trouble they ask for. Beyond, and not barred out by frontiers, the spirit of Bolshevism, not yet dead, and with gifts of recovery, threat ens all city populations with its .Mru?, though everywhere the peasants — if they are peasant proprietors — detest its attack upon individual proper'-.v.

In the Austrian country district* there is no danger, I am told, of Bolshevism, which is repulsive to the farming class and Vienna kno.vs t'«at if she turned "Red" she would V 3 wore com plctcly cut off than now from ail sources of supply and that ins'antlv. Hut although the Austrian pr-jbl-sm i.« no*complicated by the Bolshevik peril at the present time, it is hard to know what cure there is for her sickness. Austrian public men with whom I have spoken all say one thir.g. -'We must establish an economic union between the old States of the Empire. That first, then a political federation." But an economic, union desired by Vienna does not appeal to Czccho-slo-viikin—rich and self-supporting— nor to Jugo-SLavia, rich also in natural resources. Both of them are distrustful of Vienna, and also afraid of a new domination by ihe clever brains that live there. At the present time they ar c so disinclined for economic union with Austria that they guard their frontiers with a jealous pride and put every barrier in the way of free trade.

One thing is certain— at least Lt is th* conviction expres c ed t 0 me by all pcop'.e of authority. British a s well as Austrian, with whom I have been in touch—charity alone will not raise Austria from her abyss of misery. If Vienna, or Austria, is to be more than a pauper State, fed in soup kitchens and clothed by philanthropic societies, she must ; . be .. ener&isedi into ,■ organisSi^JlSl

tries, and making her own commcrcia relations with her neighbours.

How that is to bo done is doubtful. I know very little aboui these things, and cannot judge. I only know that I have seen the misery of many people, the half-starved and hopeless, a»d the 6ight of it is sickening in the heart of Europe.