LOOTING- IN RUHR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18532, 17 October 1923, Page 9

LOOTING- IN RUHR.

PORTENTS OF ANAKCHY.

DESPERATE UNEMPLOYED.

MOBS RANSACK SHOPS.

By Telegraph— Association— Copyright. A. and N.Z. LONDON. Oct. 15. The special correspondent of the Daily Express at Dusseldorf says the situation in the Ruhr and Rhineland is rapidly approachinig a point where British and French troops will inevitably bo drawn into a bitter conflict with tho civil p.ywlation if the country is to be saved from anarchy and complete destruction. Everywhere thousands of Communists and unemployed, driven desperate by sheer hunger and want of winter clothing, have engaged in wholesale plunder. Hundreds of shops in Dusseldorf have been ransacked, nothing being left except a few waxwork figures standing amid piles of broken glass from the shattered windows.

Tho crowds ran wild, and hundreds of men and women paraded the streets wearing all manner of new clothing. Tho correspondent saw scores of men discarding their own clothing in tho shops into which they had smashed a way, and calmly attiring themselves in completenew outfits. Seme left wearing two or three suits, one over the other, and carrying bundles homewards. The people raided the food stores like hungry wolves, the police being powerless to prevent them. The Green Police have been disbanded. v

Similar scones have been witnessed in nearly every Ruhr town. Mounted police rushed to Solingen, in the British area, but our troops may be called on at any moment to charge unemployed Germans.

The French are standing by ready to assist the police in Dusseldori, but have been ordered not to interfere unless the French and Allied interests are threatened.

The outlook is of the blackest, for the unemployed already number a million.