GERMAN SUPPLIES

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10207, 18 February 1919, Page 7

GERMAN SUPPLIES

LARGE BUT DEAR UOOD SITUATION NOT SO BAD ■ AFTER ALL. Many of tho correspondents who visited Germany early in December agreed that the food situation was not nearly so eorious as Dr Solf pretended. Thus a correspondent writing from Cologne on December 9th said:— Ono gathers that the food situation is much the same her© as at Aix and other towns* The rationing „ has been very thorough, but the population seems to have come through the lean season wonderfully well on its 250 gramme© of bread tß|ozl and a pound of potatoes a day. In the shops and hotels there is ©very evidence of abundance of luxurious food for those who can pay for it. As to other places, the Burgomaster of Cologne estimates that the essential foodstuffs still on hand are enough to i»ast for four or five weeks. While the situation, if revictualment were long delayed, might easily become acute, tho moment for panic or for such appeals as those of Dr fiolf is not yet. Writing from Berlin, a correspondent of the “Telegraaf” reported an interview with an official of the German Food Department, Dr Alter, who denied that an' English Mission was in Berlin to inquire into the question of general distress. A German commission would negotiate with the Entente Commission under Mr Hoover in a place still to be chosen. Dr Alter said that German people wore still far from starvation, and this statement was corroborated by Herr Hirsoh, a member of the executive committee of the Prussian Diet. SAUSAGES AND POULTRY. Almost everything can be bad in Berlin. The menus in the restaurants offer g relative variety. The bread, ration as been increased, and the quality is better than in Holland. Sausages can bo had in large quantities without a ticket. Geese and poultry are served even in the most modest lunch-rooms. Pood in. the common, is rather good. But prices are high. A pound of red cabbage costs nearly two shillings, a quarter of a pound ot sausages between'two and three shillings—probably the result of cornering. I am told that Alx is short of food, and that many of the poor are nearly starving, writes another correspondent from Aix-10-Chapell©. It may b© so, but the impression I formed from ing at th© people and walking about the city for some hours, was rather that they were at least as well off as niaiiy towns on oar side of the battiefront. I have seen very few persons who looked at all underfed. The majority appear to be ihealthy and as well nourished, as the people in Eastern Belgium, where food is-more plentiful than it is in England. Undoubtedly those who have money can procure substantial meals. A TYPICAL HOTEL MEAL. I had the ordinary lunch, which cost nine marks, at the Kaiserhof Hotel in the Hochstrasao. It consisted of soup with little bits of fried bacon .floating in a thick mass of vegetables, bacon and eggs served with potato salad, a beefsteak, with fried potatoes, green beans, and bread of good quality—whiter than that procurable at Verviers or Namur—and genuine coffee. Lunch was served in a small diningroom, and some ten or twelve civilians who drifted in while X was there followed exactly the same menu. In another diningroom twenty German officers in uniform were lunching. The hotel service seemed to be operated exactly as in peace time, and tho linen of the waiters and their dress suits were irreproachable. There is very little food in the shop windows —vegetables and "ersatz," extracts of "beef," and other substitute products for the most part; but the cigar stores are well stocked, and there are many, shops with good displayo or men’s haberdashery, sticks, womens leather bags in all sizes, and boots of clumsy pattern, costing up to f 3 a pair. Tho kiosks display the Munich and Herlin comic papers; there are no sweets, and' the windows of the chocolate shops are filled with empty boxes.