HIGH PRICES IN GERMANY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1565, 17 June 1916, Page 4

HIGH PRICES IN GERMANY.

DUTCH LADY’S EXPERIENCE. As showing- something of the economic situation in Germany it may bo interesting to reproduce from the newspaper Hot Vo!!. ;he experiences of a Dutch lady who has just returned to Holland after a long stay in Germany, and has remarkable stories to tell of the scarcity and dearness prevalent there. When the lady was in Germany last year she got the impression that all she had heard abroad about the unsatisfactory economic situation of Germany was exaggerated. Now she thinks the state of things has grown considerably worse. There is, she says, a great lack of all foodstuffs, and it is quite impossible —even for well-to-do families —to buy enough food at the existing high prices. The want of butter and lard is mostly felt. In Berlin one gets only an eighth of a pound of either per week per head, which is, of course, by far too little. Meat is twice or thrice as dear as in Holland, and thus almost unpurchasable. Vegetables are extremely dear. In short, there is a general scarcity, and with the exception of persons who usually eat very little, nearly everyone says that for a long time past he has not know what it means to be satisfied, while many, indeed, complain that they always feel hungry. As may he imagined, little else is talked of but the unsatisfactory food prices and the consequent necessity for a speedy peace. The enormous loss of life is bad enough, but the frightful dearness and scarcity of food is making everybody earnestly long for the end of the war. The Dutch lady had to go to fetch a bread-ticket at one of the communal offices in a German town. While standing for some hours among a number of workmen’s wives she heard on all sides complaints about the prolongation of the war expressed in the boldest terms, the general sense of which was : “Abroad our sons and husbands are being killed, and here we stay and starve.”