AUSTRO-GERMANY.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 February 1917, Page 5

AUSTRO-GERMANY.

DESPERATION OF GERMAN PEOPLE. UNDER-FEEDING CAUSES STRIKES. -SPIRIT OF REVOLT SPREADING. HOSPITALS OVERFLOWING. DESPERATE SCENES AT DORTMUND Received Feb. 2C, 5.30 p.m. Amsterdam, February 25. The Daily Chronicle's correspondent at Amsterdam says the evidence is accumulating as to the desperation of the German people. He adds: "My informant left Germany a week ago, and says that hundreds of Workmen at the shipyards and ammunition' factories are ailing as the result of under-feeding, and this has caused a serious shortage of labor. At the Vulcan yards, Stettin, where submarines are being constructed, many j hundreds l\avc struck as a protest against under-l'ceding. The police used &rn?s to suppress the demonstrations, [ but tlio spirit of revolt is spreading and strikes are steadily increasing. At Hamburg thousands of hungry women and ill-clad children a fortnight ago marched in silence to the burgomaster's house. The police roughly dispersed the procession. At Berlin the position is equally threatening, 8000 employees of the General Electric Company demand better wages and food. Many of the hospitals are overflowing with men who have collapsed owing to starvation. Great queues of women and children flock to tlio back doors of the more expensive reutaurants to receive kitchen refuse. The authorities are helpless to obtain and distribute .elief. Desperate scenes were witnessed at Dortmund on the Iflth, when a hungry mob sacked the shops and attacked the police. Tli£ cavalry, with drawn swords, rode in the midst of the mob, many being injured, < Holland is increasingly anxious, fearI ing r. suddep German food raid.

CONFERENCE WITH NEUTRAL AMBASSADORS. Received Fob. 26, 5.30 p.m. Copenhagen, Feb. £5. 1 Herr von Bethmann BoJlweg ana Herr Zimmermann conferred at the Wilhelmstrasse with the neutral ambassadors.-