ABYSSINIAN WAR

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 304, 21 November 1935, Page 16

ABYSSINIAN WAR

AERIAL TORPEDOES. SPEEDING UP MUNITIONS. Five hundred additional workers who were engaged for the torpedo factory at Greenock (Scotland) a few weeks ago are being employed in manufacturing aerial torpedoes. The factory is working night and day. Work is' progressing at so high a pressure that hundreds of people are visitin'!; the vicinity of the works to see whirl operations they can from various vantage points. From the top deck of passing ’buses, it is possible to see into the outside yard. In Glasgow, paint manufacturers are busy producing red lead, and other preservative paints for use in Abyssinia. They have received many orders from the Ethiopian Government. One manufacturer said: “We can hardly cope with the orders, and there is a possibility that our product will advance in price as the result of the demand from the East.” FOOD SHORTAGES. GERMANY AND ITALY. The food and other troubles of two unhappy dictatorships, Italy and Germany, are receiving the attention of the British Press. It is officially announced in Berlin that the unemployed in Germany increased by 144,000 in October, and the total is now 1.828,000, not taking into account the Germans in compulsory labour camps. The shortage of. raw materials is causing grave industrial difficulties. Factories are at a standstill, and mass dismissals of workers arc reported. Even armament firms are reported to be dismissing as many as 20 per cent, of their employees. The food shortage is becoming worse each day. A housewife wanting butter waits in a queue for half an hour to buy half a pound at 2s 4d a lb. Boiling beef, including the bones, costs 2s 6d a lb, and cheap quality pork the same. Veal is more than 3s a lb and fillet steak has risen to 6s a . lb. Haricot beans and dried peas, which are important to the working classes, have risen by from 30 to 100 per cent. Potatoes have risen 150 per cent, since 1933. Goods from abroad are at almost prohibitive prices. Tea is from 8s to 9s a lb, medium quality coffee is 4s a lb, and oysters are 12s a dozen at the few restaurants where it is possible to obtain them. Germany has abandoned luxuries and is concentrating on the plain necessities of the man in the street. This is done by State control. Germany’s troubles have revived reports that she will seek financial assistance from Britain, but a new loan is regarded as unlikely. Bonds in the last 7 per cent. Potash Syndicate loan can be bought to give a return of 12$ per cent., and it would be impracticable to issue a new loan to give a comparable yield. ITALIAN PROBLEM.

In Italy the problem is also acute. Butchers are not allowed to sell meat on Tuesdays. They' are allowed to sell anything on Wednesdays, except beef, mutton, lamb, pork, goat’s meat, horseflesh, or sausages. The sale of dry codfish from Newfoundland and Norway' has been almost eliminated. This is the principal staple food of many of the poorer classes in Sicily and southern Italy. Laundry soap and lemons have doubled in price in many shops in the past few days. Fruit and vegetables are being sold at higher prices, and milk is dearer because of the increased price of fodder. Petrol has doubled in price in two months, and is now 5s 6d a gallon. Every day shopkeepers are ordered to close as a punishment for profiteering, chiefly in soaps and oil. MORE TAXES FORESEEN IN GERMANY. In view of the heavy expenses on rearmament reconstruction, the . Minister for Finance (Count Schwerin von Krosigk) foresees extra taxes and sacrifices of luxuries for some years. The remedies, he says, are the creation of Germany’s own products and her participation in territories where raw materials are available. The Budget would gradually undertake the financing of new military forces, and consolidate into loans the sums raised through credits. TENSION IN MALTA.

ITALIANS DEPORTED

The following is from a letter received in Sydney, from Malta : “We, in Malta, are in the thick oi the threatening international situation. Many of our leading Italian merchants have been deported. The garrison has been reinforced, defences strengthened, and everything made ready. Likewise, ‘black-outs’ of all lights during mock air raids, antigas instruction, and gas mask drills are frequent. We have a passive defence corps and anti-gas air locks over all doors in private buildings. Nearly all private houses have a gasprotected room. War, alone or in the company of allies, seems inevitable, but should prove brief. In my opinion, it is highly desirable, as a lesson is needed.”