CONDITIONS IN AUSTRALIA.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 18 August 1917, Page 6

CONDITIONS IN AUSTRALIA.

PEACE AT ANY PRICE. ACUTENEbS OF FOOD PROBLEM. Vienna to-day neither sees nor hears anything of the war, a neutural wrote recently. The people think ,of nothing but enjoyment; the cafes—where conversation about the war is taboo—are full from morning till night, the restaurants, ■where everything except bread alTd potatoes can be obtained, if one s purse is deep enough, are crowded, the opera and the theatres have nearly every seat booked in advance. On all sides are fine shops full of the latest fashions which find purchasers even at the prevailing exhorbitant prices. Everything is up to date and is of the best, but only within reach of the rich. Below the surface, however, housekeeping, even on the most modest scale, is almost an impossibility, owing to the difficulty of obtaining supplies. The rich solve this difficulty by going to restaurants for most of their meals but to those of moderate or. small income the food problem is an ever-increasing anxiety. It is impossible to procure many articles which were formerly regarded as necessaries. CARDS AND SUBSTITUTES. Bread is not to be bought except with a bread card at a particular shop in the district in which the purchaser dwells, and very often he cannot get bread at all. The supply of potatoes is limited to 11b per person weekly, but for some weeks recently there were none on the market. Milk is sc iscarce that no"person can have more than about one-fifth of a pint daily. Such things as coffee, butter, fat, macaroni, rice, petroleum, soap and leather are not to be bought. Cards are the order of the day—bread cards, lat cards sugar cards, coffee earns, r—indeed, meat is about the only article of food for which a card is not necessary. This is because it was found that the demand for meat was not increasing on account of its prohibitive price. The shops are full of substitutes, and prices have gone up enormously —in many cases as much as 300 or 400 per cent. The poor peole are not noticeable in the streets. Their distress and privations during the past winter owing to the scarcity of coal, and coke and the price of feul, were the cause of numerous deaths from '“hunger-typhus.” Attempts are now being made to relieve their wants, and cheap meat is being supplied to the really needy; but however cheap this meat may be it is not of much use if the money is not forthcoming to pay for it. In the country life is strenuous. The villages and small towns are peopled by old men, women and children lor every man and youth capable of holding a weapon has been drafted into the army. Day in and day out, from early dawn till late in the evening, the entire population of a village may he seen working on the land trying to raise a crop sufficient for their needs during the coming year, after a very large portion of the harvest has been commandeered by the Government to feed the army—and Vienna. CONDITIONS IN THE COUNTRY. Even in peace time the peasant lives frugally, but now he has to be content with his piece of black bread, which he soaks in his substitute for coffee, and his knodcl-Ja kind of dumpling), and he may consider himself very fortunate if he can add eggs from his own fowls and potatoes from his own patch of ground. Meat he very seldom tastes, as he cannot afford to buy it, and he has also to do without many articles as they are unobtainable in the shops. The attitude of the people toward -the war may be described as one of

-total indifference —except in regard to its duration. The only desire of the people is for. peace, “no matter who wins.” If Austria could shake off the 1 Germanic influence and get good terms she would make peace to-morrow, but as she knows that she would be obliged to give up so much of her territory she is obliged to continue the fight in the hope that something may turn up.