LIFE IN SWEDEN.

Timaru Herald, Volume CVII, Issue 16433, 3 January 1918, Page 3

LIFE IN SWEDEN.

TEA'AT 26s A POUND.'

An Englishman living in Sweden gives a gloomy account of the state of affairs in that country. He . wrote to a friend in London asking if it? were possible to -send him tea, coffee, cocoa, jam, flour, and biscuits. _ Some of the following extracts are significant:— "Unless we get some foodstuffs released in England I believe we are going to be in a state of starvation during the present winter. The question of getting coal here is really a serious matter. "Works cannot be kept" going, and there is huge unemployment. That, together with the high price of foodstuffs, is rendering the position almost untenable. The great difficulty at the moment is the firing question. The Government is storing very large piles of wood for distribution' among the poor people, but they are makiro? a charge of anything from 60 to 75 kroner per fathom, as against a pre-war rate of 10 to 14 kroner. If we have a severe winter it will be something terrible. j "There is no doubt that there are tlninsrs which have transpired in I this , country which are not pleasant to England and our Government; but when you consider that over threefourths of the people in Sweden are the working classes, and 'that they are very poor, also that the Government are' ruled by the minority, and the minority is more or less favourable to Germany, you can ' easilv appreciate i why people must suffer for the mis-

takes of the minority. Certain rumours are curient all over tho country, and if one can believe anything like tho minutest fraction of the same, we'are in for rather serious times m the very near future." At the present rate of exchange, according to ■ this Englishman's letter, the price of tea in Sweden is within an ace of 26s per lb, and that of coffee 15s (3d per lb. Referring to the internment a few weeks ago of Mr P. do Laszlo, the famoua Hungarian, painter, the London correspondent of the Sydney "Morning Herald'' writes:—"DeLaszlo made this country his home some years" ago, and became a naturalised British subject, and bias long enjoyed high repute as a fashionable portrait painter, his patrons numbering many great personages, including Bjqyalues, o? more _tifia.u one country. The charge against him, hoard in camera, is believed to be one of communicating with the enemy. His appeal against it was, it is understood, very strenuous, ab one stage reaching •die" level of tears. Bu'o he was convicted, and is now among the ot-h-sr German suspects at Islington "Workhouse after some days in Brixton Prison, where, however, he became ill, and was conceded five less sbrinsmt conditions of Islington. The case go?s to confirm our widespread suspicion tha't Gorman agencies are hard at work amongst us. and in unexpected places, and that our own Boloism is as insidiously active aSythmlD of France."