LIFE IN GERMANY

Otago Witness, Issue 3593, 23 January 1923, Page 41

LIFE IN GERMANY

CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE. Interesting travels on the Continent were made by Mr E. L. Bartleet, who returned to Auckland this week after an absence of 10 months (says the Star). A flight in an airship from Croydon aerodrome to Brussels, a distance of 250 miles, formed one of Mr Bartleet’s experiences. There were eight passengers and the journey was accomplished in 1 hour 50 minutes, the schedule time being 2 hours 15 minutes. The people in Brussels seemed to be working hard and to be quite happy, their motto apparently being to “live for the day.” The Hague and Amsterdam were next visited, and it was, evident that although Holland did not take part in the war the people are experiencing hard times. German workmen coming into the country are prepared ,to work for little money and are supplanting Dutch workers, with the result that there is a great deal of unemployment In Hamburg there appears to be quite a friendly attitude toward Englishmen and Americans-, this being very different from the state of affairs in Berlin, where the people go out of their way to show their hostility. Some theatres will not admit foreigners, and some shops will not serve them with goods, while others raise the prices three or four times. With the mark at 12,000 to the sterling, the best dinner was procurable for 2s to 2s 6d. At times the banks could not change £lO into marks, owing to the fact that the paper money could not be printed fast enough to cope with the demand, and it was the general practice to get £2 or £3 worth of marks at a time. The issue of single notes for 10,000 marks has solved the problem of carrying the paper money about, and the story of the man who, on being requested to remove a large portmanteau from a railway carriage, replied that it was merely his purse, is still applicable in some degree. On the face of tlfings the Germans seem to be getting on. all right, and they spend all the money they receive, not knowing what the mark is going to drop to on the morrow. The hotels which take foreigners charge three times as much as for Germans, and there is a tax of 40 per cent, for the Government. In Cologne, Mr Bartleet saw the opera “Carmen,” and had to pay 4000 marks for admission, Germans being charged 1000 marks. A huge system of underground tubes, stated to be the finest in the world, is in process of construction in Berlin, and the whole place is being torn up. Regulations prevent the taking of goods out of Germany except under license, and then a heavy duly of 80 to 100 cent, has to be paid When crossing Ihe" frontier into Switzerland Mr Bartleet had to surrender a portmanteau he had bought in Germany, because he did not have a license.