BITTER PRIVATIONS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 April 1942, Page 3

BITTER PRIVATIONS

REPORTED IN GERMANY INCREASINGLY STRINGENT RATIONING. PROVISION OF DRASTIC PENALTIES. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, April 4. ' Depressing conditions ruling in Berlin as the greatest Russian-German clash approaches and scarcely a family, has not a member at the front, are described by various neutral newspaper correspondents in Berlin. From every aspect the lot of civilians becomes increasingly bitter. Potato and alcohol cards will be introduced at the beginning of the new rationing period, says the Stockholm “Tidningen.” Potato cards will not entitle the purchaser to definite quantities, but these will probably be determined by shopkeepers. No free choice between types or quantities of alcohol is likely to be permitted. Fish is rarely seen in shops, and bird fare has disappeared. The “Dagens Nyheter,” writing of various travel bans, states that legally there are neither orders nor prohibitions, but “categorical warnings.” The point seems unimportant, since offenders will be taken to concentration camps in any case. Domestic service, states the “Svenska Dagbladet,” will not be available in Berlin in future. All free labour goes to war industries. German newspapers themselves tell the same story of privation. For some time paper and paper pulp clothes have been permitted, but the Reich office for clothing has now prohibited this, ac-. cording to the “Frankfurter Zeitung.” The Stockholm “Tidningen” states that the military commander of Bel-, gium and Northern France has decreed 1 the death sentence for forging food cards or knowingly using or distributing them.