GERMAN FOOD SHORTAGE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1719, 31 May 1917, Page 4

GERMAN FOOD SHORTAGE.

THE EFFECTS OF HUNGER. RIOTS AND DISCONTENT. The speech made in March by Dr. Michaelis, the Prussian Food Commissioner, in the Prussian Landtag, was one of the most serious of any made in Germany since the outbreak of war. The articles in the German press clearly show that the speeches of Baron von Schorlemer and Herr Michaelis have created a great sensation throughout Germany. All the Soeilalist, Progressive, and Agricultural papers attack the two ministers. The Berliner Tageblatt says; “The impression grows that von Schorlemer’s position has become untenable, and Herr Michaelis’s statement on the food question shows the gravity of the economic situation.” Vorwaerts says: “The Minister of Agriculture’s speech shows that there is no longer one Government, but one Government against another. Diplomatic relations between the Pruissian Ministry for Agriculture and the Imperial Government appear to be as effectively broken off as those between Germany and the United States. We are about to witness the sad spectacle of the Empire entering upon a course which will be thwarted by Prussia. The sufferers will be the consumers. They are the victims of the antagonism prevailing in the administration and of the resulting incompleteness and muddled nature of all its measures.” The fullest report hitherto available of Herr Hofer’s speech in the Prussian Diet on the food question is published in the Vorwaerts. The deputy, who declared that the German Junkers, not the “wicked English,” were responsible for the hunger in the land, said that mortality among elderly people was increasing at a terrible rate, while epidemics were spreading owing to the decreased powers of resistance of the individual. After declaring that potatoes to-day were ‘caviare to the general,” the speaker said that tho situation was more serious than had been admitted. PEOPLE WAKING UP TO THE TRUTH. A correspondent stated that, as the result of inquiries in well-infor-med quarters, he was able to state that the position of the Central Empires with regard to food supplies was daily becoming worse and worse. He wrote: “A well-known neutral who has recently visited many of the large towns in AustriaHungary and Germany says the effects of hunger have lately become most marked, and decidedly mure obvious than when he was on a visit to Germany some months earlier. The meagre reports which have reached neutral countries of food riots and discontent and of sharp practices by shopkeepers on the working classes, have not fully disclosed the true state of affairs, and the hunger of the masses has not only engendered despair, but has given an impetus to revolutionary thoughts and tendencies which may at any time threaten the Government and the Hohenzollern dynasty. The people have begun to realise the reality of the desperate straits to which they are being reduced, and combined with their resentment at the treatment they have received is a growing fear that the economic situation must inevitably and perhaps sooner than later contribute to the weakening of the national military effort.” The onslaught of the ■ Allies on the Western front, said the correspondent, was beingawaited with anything** but confidence.

The Amsterdam correspondent of the Daily Chronicle, writing about the same time, said: “There is little doubt that Germany, fearing the worst both internally and externally, is allowing the outer world to know enough to prepare it for the