EUROPE'S CRISIS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12646, 2 June 1919, Page 4

EUROPE'S CRISIS.

in mi mm IMMENSE FOOD PROBLEMS. (By KEITH MURDOCH, in Melbourne “Herald”) PARTS, March 12. Reports from Peace Conference agents in Central Europe and Russia make extraordinary reading, more thrilling and saddening than the great tragedies. Europe is disrupted, choatic. Intense physical sufferings have been immediately and markedly followed by decline of spiritual forces. Faiths are shattered minds grope wearily amid uncertainties. You arc dismayed that these bodily horrors are possible in western civilisation. Yon are aghast that they bring rapid, ugly social and moral decay. All are realising to-day how thin and brittle is the partition between complex organised civilisation and consuming anarchy. These wise men of Europe gathered in Paris think all evil springs from lack of food. It is a materialistic doctrine. It strikes at the roots of self-respect. I Bub the Conference is pledged to it. I Its reports aro sent to the Food Bureau. Great soldiers may scan these! talcs of social uprisings. But action does not lie with them; the General’s day is past. Financiers study them ; hut what can money doP Pastors and teachers may theorise, but the Conference does not deal in prayers. No, off with all those reports to the Food Controller, the great Food Man of Europe, who deals in wheat and meat and ships, and ro-croates it rail system hero or canal traffic there, in order to save the body and stabilise the mind with material substance. He is the outstanding man to-day, this Food Controller, for Europe has passed from absorption on war to absorption on transportation and distribution of grain. ' DISTEMPER IN GERMANY, According to ■ British and American agents, including a distinguished general, Germany is on the very edge of starvation. The well-to-do classes have managed to hold out by combination ill little groups to buy supplies at exorbitant prices. But the working peopled have for some months been getting less than tho body requires. One report speaks of thousands of men in an industrial centtre being eager but unable to work. All reports tell of terrible distress among children and high mortality among infants. General .Sir Herbert Plumer, who is not tho agent referred to, has telegraphed that thousands of Germans are dying of starvation, and infectious diseases aro running through tho population. Masses of people aro iu rags. Germany is unhinged- The revolutionary sailors holding the Reichstag building against Government troops this week in Berlin agreed to surrender in return for soup. They pulled down their flag, handed over their rifles, drank their soup, and melted into tho crowds, comforted. The famous Guards Division has become frankly mercenary, and fights this street clear or captures that building from Spartacists for set payments in cash and food. Berlin riots along. The Jazz dance has become a craze, operas and theatres are filled with people in evening dress while bullets whistle outside. The jewellers ransom their shops for so many thousand marks; at Mannheim the whole city suddenly goes Bolshevik; at Duesseldorf a dapper _ little major-general with 1500 men drives thousands of insurgents away and then stands a siege. POLITICAL DISEASES. Some people rush along a Berlin street with handbills, declaring that if the great General Ludendorff could be brought hack his wonderful brain would settle Germany’s difficulties, and therefore all good Berliners will seek Ids return. Immediately other handbills appear exhorting the public to chase the great General Ludendorff with a rope or send a file of soldiers after him. Reports of flaring depravity in Berlin come from too many quarters to he ignored. Those proud people lie and rob to get food, and their lowered moral is shown in flagrant profligacy. “Bread and circus games.” those two things which at their empire’s end the Roman populace demanded as a cure for all their ills, are the chief demands also of the once Imperial Berlin. The masses are apathetic, turning this way and that at the persuasion of the stronger mind. Had Lndendorff’s throw brought them victory, how they would have strutted about and shouted" for the Emperor. But who a. year ago worshipped the Kaiser now rush frenzied toward the extremes of communistic rule. Government troops, officers’ corps, and tli6 i old General Staff win their bloody victories over the ill-trained and unkempt mobs of proletarian enthusiasts who have taken to liquid fire, bombs and asphyxiating gases to destroy society. But they cannot quieten tho surging discontent of the people. Spnrtacus movements come and go. but the distemper grows steadily. An intense radical insurgency is abroad, and great changes will occur in Germany, as in Russia, before stability comes again. Through all Europe it.is true that, this is tho testing time of political ideas and tho moment of history most pregnant with political change. The failure of tho old system looks now complete. .Starvation and disorder have followed upon unparalleled human slaughter mid destruction. What will supervene? Certainly not the old form of society in its entirety. AUSTRIA’S AGONY GREAT. Glance through Central Europe. Austria takes pride in its steadiness. “ We are not like those boastful Prussian organisers, whoso organisation collapses under less strain than we suffer.'’ But Austria’s physical agony is -worse than that of Germany. The Conference’s reports describe the Viennese dying in the streets, women fainting ns they work, children erring all day. Two thin meals a clay in Vienna is the utmost the Government can manage. Black, pnddeny, ill-smelling bread and watery soup. Better food conditions rule in Hungary, but hete insurgency is strong, and the tide of rebellion and

fighting rolls up and down. Just to the north, the Poles are going through a political tempest, though I am informed by General Carton do Wiart, head, of tho British section of the Polish Comission, that Paderewski, with his great charm of manner and deep sincerity, has a wonderful hold over his jieople. At Lemberg de Wiart dined well. Ho bad money. But outside he saw thousands of emaciated folk who were getting but one poor meal of soup a day, whose children were dying and whoso clothes were so ,thin that the winter’s blasts brought ravaging illnesses. Paris is flooded with delegates convinced that their country’s fate is worse than anything seen since heathendom. Rumanians aro dying from starvation literally in hundreds every day. The. Germans left them only ten locomotives, and these move with difficulty. The country was stripped hare. The Bolshevism there takes the form of peasants seizing the estates Turkey has long ceased to show nnyl hopeful sign to the Paris Conference.' The population dwindles, but nothing dan be done, for shipping is needed here. The story of Prague is. perhaps,; the most lamentable. The Czechs are' a capable, industrious, high-spirited race. Tlicv have neither food nor! clothes in Prague, and Lady Muriel! Paget, who has undertaken the distribution of relief, writes to the Food Commission that people aro to be semi practically naked as well ns starving. WHAT OF BRITAIN? Here in the western countries, where food is scarce and high in 'price, bub enough to keep bodies from famishing,, one sees the other side of tho peculiar post-war diseases. In France and Britain there are tremendous movements for higher pay and shorter working hours. Dissatisfaction with the Constitution is not apparent in Britain. Not Bolshevism can be discerned. The, British masses seem still to have trust! and affection for their established forms’ of government. Attacks on the royali household or on Parliament are confined to orators on a par with those of the Yarra Bank. But throughout France and . Britain great restlessness prevails. The people are clamorous against the old 1914 order of things. They are paying a stupendous price for mere necessities. The cost of living is at least 80 per eent higher than he-i fore the war—to many people the figure is 150 per cent. And they know, as the Coal Commission and other inquiries show, that profiteering has been rampant, and that immense fortunes were made because tlie Governments would not interfere with tlio economic system; lest it weaken tho vital task of war-, winning. At the same time there is the general cult of the Jazz Dance, widespread; merry-making, the irruption every night in London of East End boys and girls to the pleasure haunts and streets! of the West End. There is profligate' expenditure, a lower plane,of ambition,' gaudy dress and voluptuous search ofl giddy whirls and tango ragtime music.’ Is it nob nil for the same cause? The) European peoples ni'o worn, tired, “ fed' up.” They are irritable one day, thev l seek extremes of pleasure the next. What is Bolsbvism but one form off hopelessness .and tiredness, leading to passionate anger expressed in smashing? I do not discount the doctrines! behind reform, but this is political disease, infectious because of the mental and physical condition of the people. There are, of course, many millions of people who do not understand what is goiim on, but proceed stolidly along their old straight paths. They are for saving the world from further violation, and they do their duty, day by day, in the hope that the clouds will blow over. REFORM movements spread. Any picture of Europe to-day would be false if it did not pay high tribute to tlie great-hearted men and women who have .suffered, whoso backs and hearts are breaking, but who stick it out and carry on. Thev will probably be the. saviours of civilisation. All the rest should he only a phase. Tlio Peace Conference wise men knit their brows over difficulties, and fear that anything may happen. In, all countries great reform movements are proceeding, and attempts are made to meet the new order of things with a changed order of society and government. It is largely a question of compromise. Will those who have powpr and money make the necessary surrender? They are moving that way. Britain is almost pledged to a great policy of nationalisation. Lloyd George wishes it to come at once and with a rush. Employers everywhere seem to be actuated by a new spirit, to have found something of comradeship in tlie men who were their boys’ pais as figbterci. They offer profit-sharing, co-partner-ship, increased wages. Nowhere is there a sign of what is commonly called “capita!” making a fight 'to the death—an unwise alternative. Europe should bo fed during this spring. None knows what will happen in Russia, except that no foreign intervention can stifle tho new radical spirit. But one fact stands out. the anxious days will not bo over in Central and Western Europe until all people aro fed. employed, economically saved. Then it will be seen into what form Europe is going' to settle down.