UNREST UNIVERSAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 63, 28 October 1911, Page 4

UNREST UNIVERSAL.

The London “Chronicle,” dealing with the great social unrest now prevailing, points out that riotsmostly connected with dear food and unsatisfactory industrial conditions, are spreading over the face of the earth, from China in the Far East to Austria, France, and Spain in the West, and goes on to say: The yienna riots, which resulted in loss of life as well as great material destruction, were due to the enormous rice in food prices and house rents, the latter, it is said, being doubled. Some alarm is naturally felt in Germany, where food prices and house rents are also high, and it is suggested by tiie Berlin Liberal Press that in order to allay the general discontent the frontiers should be opened to the free importation of mat, corn, and fodder. The Conservative and Agrarian papers, of course, urge the employment of more force, which John Bright years ago in another connection said was no remedy. Spanish strikes and riots are extending. Martial law has boon proclaimed in Valencia, and it is possible that the constitutional guarantees may be suspended throughout the country. In Vienna the food question is complicated by a continually worsening housing problem. Two million people have to find harbourage within a closely confined area of block dwellings, and there is a grim irony in the circumstance thai a metropolis which is carrying out the magnificent scheme of the forest-ring should he, in the essential matter of accommodation for its workers, as badly oft" as Berlin, or perhaps New York, and infinitely worse off than London. Tariff Reformers in Britain attempt to obscure and confuse the moral of these movements, says the “Chronicle.” “The moral is the folly of recommend ing to tire people of Britain to put a tax upon imported bread and meat.”