A NEW ZEALANDER IN HUNGARY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3415, 29 August 1919, Page 60

A NEW ZEALANDER IN HUNGARY.

THE EFFECTS OF THE WAR. (From Oub Own Correspondent.) LONDON, June 30. Lieutenant O. V. Connolly, R.N.V.R. (Auckland), who. has been for the last year or two on special service on the coast of Asia Minor, has now gone to Hungary, with the British Naval Brigade on the Danube. At the time of writing he was stationed at the small town of Baja, about 100 miles from Budapest and 200 miles from Belgrade (within half a milo of the demarcation line laid down by the Peace Conference between the Jugo-Slavs and the Hungarians). Each morning, Mr Connolly says, the Bolshevists send over a couple of aeroplanes to observe the doings of the Allied force. They have also half a dozen monitors a.v-i a large number of armed tugs and riv; i boats. They have_ several times apprpachoti the demarcation line, but withdrawn without talcing any action. All the land and military work in the occupied area is entrusted to a small body of Serbs. The population of the area is very mixed, including Hungarian Jews, Christians, Serbs, and Croatian s. The Jews hate the Christians, and both, hate the Jugo-Slavs and Croats, nor do the elements of the Jugoslav population work too harmoniously, together. Very many people, says Lieutenant Connolly, both male and female, are hard at work studying English in the hope of getting out'of the country. They say that it is absolutely necessary to be an "Englisher," because they own all the ships, have all the money, "and all the colonies in the world. One of these is the family of a Hungarian general, to whom Mr Connolly has been teaching English in his spare time. __ The prestige of the Allies is being enhanced also by the stories brought back by returning refugees who have been in Italy, France, and England. Living conditions in Lower Hungary are very strained, and prices ride in some cases 100 times pre-war rates. This is especially the case with flour. Local wine is also 32 times the price, _ dressing material is 80 times what it previously was, and. a suit of clothes, which once cost 80 krona, now costs 2000. The English exchange was previously 25 krona to the pound; it is now 120.