Poverty in Europe

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 7064, 25 January 1933, Page 2

Poverty in Europe

A story of unbelievable poverty auu hardship in Central Europe was told by Mrs Duncan Heaton-Armstrong, a Tasmanian who for the past twelve years has lived in Czccho-Slovakiu and Austria, to the Melbourne “Herald,” and who is about to return to her home among the mountains of Central Austria after a brief visit ot Tasmania.

“When we first settled in Europe after the war,” she said, “tho poverty was appalling. People literally starved. Then times became a little better, and now conditions arc becoming steadily worse again through lack of trade and the rate of exchange. “Food is very expensive in Austria today. Meat costs the equivalent of 3/to 4/- a lb, butter 3/-, while fruit and all other imported goods are cjuito beyond the purses of most people.

“Peasants and middle-class folk seldom sec meat, summer or winter. Broad, butter, cheese and milk provide their staple diet. Many .large families I

know personally live on £2 a month, which provides food and clothing for several children even during the severe cold of our winters. Australians have really no conception of the poverty of Central Europe. “The high rate of exchange has driven most English people from Austria, as it is practically impossible to obtain Austrian schillings for English money in tho country. So we are compelled to find some other way to obtain schillings. I import quite cheap tea from London

by the chest. After paying the high duties and import taxes, I make it into packets of 1 kilo or more, then send it to various Austrian friends who sell it. So tea which cost perhaps 1/G a pound in England is sold at 8/- or moro in Austria. But it must be strong tea to suit the Austrian taste. Hotels and housewives dry the leaves after each brewing, until at length every particle of strength has been procured. Then they are thrown on the rubbish tip. “In Czecho-Slovalcia living is more, difficult for foreigners than in Austria. After the war the Czechs left the Hungarian aristocrats their castles and their woods, but all the profitable acres of land were confiscated. It is wonderful how they can keep up appearances on no capital, these feudal lords.”