GERMAN FOOD SHORTAGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22713, 28 October 1935, Page 14

GERMAN FOOD SHORTAGE

BUTTER 3/- PER LB OFFICIALS DISMISSED. (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, October 5. Germany is suffering from a shortage of important foodstuffs. Berlin is particularly affected. Popular cuts of meat are very scarce. Last week-end there was meat of the “uncontrolled” better cuts in shops and markets, but '“tie business was done, as the shrunken effective wages of to-day render such cuts a rare luxury. The cheaper sorts, ot boiling meat for which controlled prices have been introduced were very scarce indeed and soon snapped up. Lard has been difficult to obtain ever since the scarcity of pork set in. Even if meat can be obtained (says The Times correspondent), it is said tha. there is nothing to cook it with, and that the quality is too poor to provide a normal amount of dripping. As for me tinned meat which is being urged on Ger•mau housewives, it is complained that tne tins contain a very small piece of meat, and a large quantity of water. The order fixing the prices of certain sausages has also not been very helpful, as the quality is deteriorating, and such popular sorts as blood sausage and liver sausage are becoming rare because, it is ironically said, the blood is needed to give verisimilitude to the tinned meat, and all the* liver available is needed for sale as such. QUEUES FOR BUTTER. During the week-end queues were formed outside shops to obtain butter. The Government’s fixed prices for butter (which costs nearly three shillings a pound) are being strictly maintained, but individual purchasers were limited to aquarter of a pound. Cows, it is explained, are giving less and poorer quality milk at this time of the year, and a number of reasons are put forward to show that consumption of butter just now is anusually high. It is stated that richer fodder will shortly he available for cows, which should improve their milk yield. An unofficial news item suggests that supplies of imported butter from Denmark may be increased. , Foreign exchange from Dr Schacht s secret Reichsbank reserve has had to be drawn upon to enable supplies ot butter to be bought abroad. Butter trains are on their way from Denmark and Holland to Berlin. Leipzig, Essen and other industrial towns where the shortage is particularly marked. In Denmark alone 20,000 tons have been bought, with Dr Schacht’s consent. HUNGRY, BUT WELL ARMED. “The Nazis have not hitherto dared to confess publicly the real cause why stomachs are empty,” comments the Morning Post. “ But the truth must surely sooner or later dawn on the German people, if it has not occurred to them already, and conceivably they would deem the sacrifice worth while. But men will not go hungry without a. good and sufficient reward. Would it' be a sufficient reward to be told that they had now got the most powerfully equipped army and air force in the world? Is it not more likely that they would also expect these magnificent forces to achieve something commensurate with their power? Can anyone doubt that this is the path HenHitler will presently be compelled to tread, however pacific may be bis present intentions? ” OFFICIALS’ IMPOSSIBLE TASK. Two high officials of the meat, production department of the Ministry ’of Agriculture have been summarily dismissed, it is announced in Berlin. No reason ia given, nor has any further announcement been made that might suggest one, and the general public is greatly mystified (says the Manchester Guardian correspondent). It may be assumed that the officials have been dismissed for failing in the impossible task-of making wholesale prices for carcasses correspond to the nominally controlled retail prices. Worried butchers are explaining to their worried customers that they would gladly sell meat and meat products freely at official prices if they could get wholesale supplies at rates which would allow them to.