GERMAN DEMORALISATION.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 May 1920, Page 12

GERMAN DEMORALISATION.

WAVE OF RECKLESS GAIETY.. ORGIES OF THE NEWLY RICH. Germany, as it is to-day, is graphically described by the special correspondent of London Evening Standard in Berlin. Referring to the nightly round of reckless gaiety in which Germany's war profiteers arc living, scattering their money in haste ill fear that the State will relieve them of it, he says:—l return irresistibly to the amusements of Berlin's nouveau riehe. The sight of people suddenly swamped with money is, always interesting. The spectacle becomes exciting when such people (ire living feverishly in the belief that the period of their prosperity is strictly limited, and that if they do not scatter their fortunes disaster' and taxes may save them the trouble. It is Brewster and his millions over agam. > The war profiteers of Germany have this much in common with our homegrown variety: They will make a nasty splash wherever they go. The women of the extreme type—the only fat women in Germany—richly upholstered in costly fabrics (crepe de chine a la' Botticelli with cloth-topped boots) and the men doing the heavy with an acquired monocle, gazing round surreptitiously to discover the generally accepted weapon with which to assault a mysterious souffle, are good comedy with a, delicate flavor of MoliereFortunately they represent a very small section of society, but it is the only section which is having a "good time" now. THE WAY OF THE FOOD HOG. Throughout the war, and even to-day, money can buy most things in Germany, and the moneyed classes, if prepared to indulge in illegal food traffic, have not gone short at any time. It would surprise Englishmen, who as a nation loyally stood by the Food Controller during the war, to realise the amount of money which the rich and the newly rich in Germany spent in gathering for themselves at extortionate prices foods, chiefly butter, meat, eggs, sugar and bread, which should have been distributed evenly among the rationed population. This illicit trading still goes on and has helped to reduce the vitality of the poorer people, especially the children, because for years farmers have been keeping back milk and making butter to sell to the food hogs who gladly paid 50 marks a lb when the legal maximum was 10.94 marks. RATION ROBBERS. A brief reference to this surprising view of a nation so often pictured during the war as self-denying and patriotic, is necessary to explain how the people with money to spend have managed to retain a vitality fit to endure an orgy of night gaiety while all around them are starved listless people, part of whose rations they have been stealing. The poor people in Berlin to-day cannot procure eggs, yet in the American bar of a West End hotel is a silver tub containing about 50 to make brandy flips at 15s a time. All the way from Hamburg you do not see one head of cattle, yet diners in a fashionable hotel are becoming sick of veal! The food hog and the profiteer have found a willing tool in the small farmer, who, on Ilia part, bitten/by the same lawlessness, refuses to be bound down by controlled prices. NIGHT LIFE GAIETY. Berlin's gaiety starts at the absurd hour of 7.30 p.rii- At 10.30 p.m., candles and lamps replace gas and electric Tight, andi at 11 p.m. Berlin is theoretically closed down for the night. Noske has ordered that all dance halls must shut at this hour. The fact that lie keeps a corps of police pussyfooting about Berlin in the small hours listening for the sound of violins and the popping of corks suggests that lie knows (hat the city is still riddled with all-night clubs whose patrons live in anticipation of a police raid. In one of these places I saw a man pay a drink bill of 1500 marks, which represented to him £75. When the leader of the little orchestra came to him and played a popular waltz he , threw him 500 marks. Such a person would be disgusting - even in a country where the majority of ' the people are not starving.