CHAOTIC AUSTRIA

Southland Times, Issue 18963, 9 June 1923, Page 6

CHAOTIC AUSTRIA

HOLIDAY 113 TIMES A YEAR. COMEDIES OF DEPRECIATED CURRENCY. Kommerzialrat Gottlieb Pollak, a prominent Viennese business man, points ou(; in an open letter to the Vienna press that in spite of all the meetings, discussions and official deliberation which have been held during the last two years in Austria, with the object of getting the number of public holidays reduced—Austria being, with the exception of Rumania, the “most favoured nation” in the world in this respect—there are actually in the calendar for this year as many as ever. With 52 Sundays, 52 half-holidays on Saturdays, 17 whole holidays which are public, and 21 days’ leave which must by law be allowed to every employee of any kind, every Austrian gets 113 days’ holiday in the year. This is after deducting three days for the two Sundays and the two Saturday half-holidays which would fall in the period of leave. Also, Herr Pollak points out, the eight hours’ day as enforced in Austria really means seven and a-half hours daily, and he asks, “How can Austria prosper?” There is thus an element of humoUr, apart from the enormous inconvenience caused to the public, in the passive resistance strike against the Government begun this morning in Austria by all grades of postal, telegraph and telephone employees m order to force the Government to grant “privilege tickets” upon the Austrian State railways with the same lavish generosity as heretofore.

This “ca’ canny” policy consists in the precise observance of all the myriad regulations laid down in years gone by, many of which are quite antiquated and under present conditions simply absurd. All the political parties are united in this defiance of the Government. The motto of the strike is “Don’t hurry.” For instance, there is a regulation requiring every man who delivers registered letters containing articles of an aggregate value exceeding 20,000 crowns to be accompanied by another official on his round. As that sum is now r worth less than eighteenpence, no postman can deliver registered letters to-day alone. Another regulation demands a list, of the notes composing the amount to be handed over the counter by everyone paying more than 5000 crowns for a telegram or money order or any other requisite.

A telephone girl is bound by regulations long since abandoned to check the number asked for in her book and ascertain whether there is an answer from that number before she makes connection. It takes such a long time to-day to make a call of any kind that hardly anyone is using the telephone at all. These kindergarten follies are being practised to-day in Vienna by many thousands of sulky grown-up men and women. It is the second day of the Spring Fair, upon the success of which perhaps Austria’s future prosperity will largely depend, but the “resisters” are more keenly concerned about the cost of their approaching Easter holidays than about any considerations of duty. Letters are being dispatched and delivered anyhow. There can be no certainty of any letter catching any post to anywhere, and telegrams are equally uncertain. This state of affairs, if it lasts, will produce chaos, but the government is reluctant to give way, because economies on the railways are absolutely essential.