The Mena weekly star. (Mena, Ark.) 1904-1977, 1919-11-20
AS FOOD GOES OUT,
ANARCHY ENTERS
Vienna Facing Terrible Situation as
Winter Comes On-Bank Notes So
Low in Value They Are Used
as Beer Labels.
BYLueIEN JONES.


News Service
Vienna. Oct IA (by mail Seven
million people are in danger Of death
by starvation in Austria owing TO the
country's credit for foodstuffs be.
ing exhausted,
Austria now has no food and no
money to pay for outside help
The pound sterling to-day reached
the record value of $50 crowns (about
$7776), which means that for every
ounce of foodstuffs needed eighteen
times its value must be paid
The last ship OF the Allied Food Mis-.
sion discharged its cargo five days
ago at Trieste.
The Austrian Government has six
days supplies in hand. and after that,
unless further supplies and credit are
forthcoming from Great Britain or
, the Allies, the Austrian Republic will
be ravaged by hunger and typhus.
Almost any country under such con-
ditions would be the prey. .of revolu-
tion and anarchy and it would be
surprising If In Vienna, which is with
out coal. food or warm clothes, Com
munism, with its attendant horrors.
does not appear.
A high official OF the British Food
Mission to Southeastern Europe ex-
planned the situation to-day.
Vienna promises to become in
few weeks time a city Of anarchy,
even worse than was Budapest under
the Soviet Government.
Under the present arrangements
Austrian credit is exhausted and no
further supplies are forthcoming, but
even If Austria cannot pay can Great
Britain stand by and see 100000 hui
man beings slowly die Of starvation?
Personally, / could not show my face
in Vienna If | thought that were the
case.
Austria up to now has been sup
piled with credit In foodstuffs in small
doles What is wanted now is large
credit of s250,0O0,o00 to buy coal and
raw matrials to start her factories.
Facilities must be given to Aus
trian officials to travel to neutral and
Allied countries to arrange credit for
their country. AS matters are now ap-
pIiieation pI fer q permit to travel to Eng
land has to be made to the Director Of
Military Intelligence in Whitehall,
which entails delay of three weeks
even in the most urgent cases."
The wild scramble for foreign mon
ey continues In Vienna. An Austrian
one crown note has less value In Zu-
rich than the paper on which 1t is
printed
A well-known brand Of Kroner"
beer is now being sold with crown
note stuck or the bottle in place of
a label, this being cheaper than pay
ing for printed labels.
Owing to the acute financial and
food situation the shops are refusing,
where possible. to accept crowns, de-
manding payment in foreign values.
A leading firm of tailors offered to
make me suit of the finest English
cloth, lined with silk, for $35, pro-
vided that an English food parcel con
tanning milk, tea and sugar was
thrown in.
A great many firms In Vienna will
now only sell goods for pounds. dol
lars, or Swiss or French francs. One
firm with an enormous trade in Aus
tria and turnover OF many hundred
thousand crowns yearly today went
into liquidation owing to inability to
pay debt OF s4,320 contracted be-
fore the war with an English firm
This sum in Austrian money now
amounts to nearly half a million
crowns.
Prices have doubled everywhere In
the past ten days. If an Austrian
buys suit OF clothes it costs him In
his own money the equivalent of q
pre-war price Of $95040.
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