"WE ARE STARVING."

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11947, 5 March 1917, Page 5

"WE ARE STARVING."

GERMAKY BETWEEN TWOGREAT ABYSSES.

REVOLUTION ANT) DEFEAT

The Amsterdam correspondent of the "Daily Express" sends the following message brought back to him rrom women in western Germany by a neutral merchant of good repute, We are starving. Tell everybody outside Germany \vs are starving, if our soldiers can stand it any longer Wf cannot. We women of Germany cannot go on seeing our children •uifferW deprivation and hunger. We cannot and -will rot. Death is better than such a life, tell them. Ask -hem to have pity on us, for our own Government has nono. TeL

them all we are starving. This merchant (says the ■■' Express _ correspondent) visited a number ot small tcvvns near the Dutch frontier, spent a fortnight in Cologne and several davs in Hanover, and tried to enter Essen, but failed owing to the new measures prohibiting the entrance of foreigners into " Krupp town." Finally, being informed by his Consul that the German authorities considered him suspect, he decided to break off his journev and repoit to Amsterdam. The misery in the little towns oi north-western Germany is terrible, despite thv> continual smuggling of foodstuffs from Holland. The neutral visited Buchholtz and tasted the "bread" the local bakers sell there. He affirms that it is unfit even for horses' food, but the population have seen no other bread for eighteen months. Two ounces daily of ihk stuff, which tastes like india-rubber, and is made of the sweepings of rice and sawdust, is the chief nourishment of the, peer population of western Germany. Meat and milk are hardly ever seen except on the tables of the well-to-do. People in Cologne have not had milk for four weeks, except children under six, who receive less than a pint daily. There has been no genuine coffee for months, only an undrinkable substitute made with barley and. sold at a high price. Beans, rice and dried vegetables are unheard of, except in legendary pre-war stories, while lresh vegetables are all seized by Von Batocki for the army's ,use. The same remark applies to cheese and tea. Every market day rioting takes place between the buyers, and often bet-ween the buyers and the police. On December 12 two women were killed in the open market place of Cologne by revolver shots from the police because they were quarreling about the dearth of food

Another consequents of the scarcity is tho increase of thefts by hoys and girls, who, organised in brigand bands, break into food shops or steal ladies' purses in the open street in daytime. According to the merchant, there are plenty of signs of the pr-ogress of revolutionary ideas. It is merely to stem tho threatening tide that peaco overtures have been made. .Everybody in Germany knows that the Emperor, the Government and the military clique are between two Abysses—revolution within, defeat without At the beginning of the conflict sermons were preached about the sanctity of war and the certainty of victory for Germany, but to-day the people are told that Germany must suffer for her sins. On the Cologne drill ground last week a captain slapped & young recruit in the face before all the other men. The recruit, his nose bleeding, protested, saying that he was a Socialist and would not bo struck. Tho officer drew his revolver and shot him. As to the future, there is no hope except in the Allies' magnanimity in ending the war now. Nobody even hopes for a decent peace, let alono & good peace. The merchant correspondent heard it said among all classes of society : In tho spring of 1917 famine, will surely come. If there is no peace, then revolution will break out in b-er-manv."

Already the people have chosen Von Batocki as the scapegoat for all their sufferings, and he is the most abused man in the empire. Sooner or later he will be made to pay for the mistakes of the Berlin military gang and the official illusionists in the German Admiralty who hare so often fooled the starving Germans with wild stories •about "smashing England's loose Lleokade."