SCARCITY OF FOOD

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 82, 11 August 1923, Page 5

SCARCITY OF FOOD

GERMANY'S CRITICAL PLIGHT. PRICES SOAR CONTINUALLY. DANGER OF OOLSH E’» iSM. Press Association —Copyt vim, Australian and N.Z. ('aide >.notation (Received 9.30 a nt.) London, August 10. Tho Morning Post’s • i-nm correspondent says that food ; .i the large towns is scarce. Meat i- obtainable only by tho richest. Potatoes and eggs have- practically disappeared. Crouds stand for hours outside the butter shops. Farmers and agriculturists, owing to the depreciated mark preventing purch abroad, have now come to be mar.tors of the situation. The prices of everything have risen to hundreds of thousands of marks. Notes for five million marks are plentiful. j but unchangeable. The supply of notes of loss value than a million is unaccountably failing; in consequence, the workers are not being fully paid. This, coupled with tho fact that the rate of wages does not keep pace with the cost of food, is tho cause of disturbances. Communists everywhere are exploiting the situation. The authorities announce that the printing presses cannot cope with tho demand for the notes required for daily necessities, but the workers suspect other reasons.

The Danzig dockers refuse to work unless paid a dollar a day. Btolun and Voss shipbuilders at Hamburg, closed their yards in consequence of the attitude of the workers, who are under the Communists’ influence. Siomen’s workers demonstrated before the directors’ offices, complaining that the advances in wages were not arranged quickly enough to keep pace with the prices. Tlio Berlin electricity workers are adopting passive resistance. The supply of electricity is already scanty. The shops, except the food stores, were closed on Thursday.

EMPTY WINDOWS. THE SHOPKEEPERS’ QUANDARY (Received noon). Berlin, August 10. The shops present a curious spectacle with absolutely empty windows. The .shopkeepers refuse to display goods owing to the regulation compelling them to price the articles displayed. They point nut that it is impossible to keep in step with ti climing prices. STRIKE ADDS TO TROUBLES. BERLIN PRINTERS’ STOPPAGE. TRAFFIC AT A STANDSTILL. Press Association— -Copyright, Australian and N.Z, Cable Association. (Received 12.25 p.m.) Berlin, August 10. A strike of printers has begun, resulting in the stoppage of publication of all Berlin newspapers except those controlled by the Socialists and Communists. The bank note printers also ceased work. The strike is the outcome of the men’s refusal to accept the Labour Ministry’s award of a wage of six and three-quarter million marks per week. It is feared the strike will spread to all the municipal services and factories. Underground workmen struck owing to the dismissal of three work men. Traffic is at a complete stand still. A later message says the strike is spreading rapidly. The Government is gravely concerned. There are no trains from Berlin to-dnv.