The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1920-06-11

clothing are insufficient to make life tolerable.
Particularly in the broad belt lying between the
Baltic and the Black seas there is appalling mis-
cry. This great area includes the new Baltic
states, Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Ukraine, Austria,
Hungary, Roumania, Montenegro, Albania and
Serbia, TO say nothing Of Russia eastward and
Armenia to the south. In all that region there is
almost complete paralysis of national life and in
dustry.
All that part of Europe has today a tremen-
dous number of idle people. Many Of them want
TO work. But there is a great shortage of raw
materials with which to work, and the import
export situation seems all but hopeless. Such
has been the output Of paper money and so much
greater is the need Of imports than the POSSIBLE
ity Of exports under existing conditions that these
countries have nothing, either money or goods,
with which to purchase from outside what they
need to sustain life itself, to say nothing of sup
plies for the revival of industry. They totter on
the brink Of utter ruin, from which nothing but a
helping hand can save them.
The depreciation in the currencies Of some Of
these countries, as valued in dollars, is unbeliev-
able. According to market quotations of April 10,
1t ran as follows:
Austrla .9'.o5To
hungary .9I.4S%
IerIHany .S-.oZ1o
Greece .43.26%
ROunania 81 $40
POland .9I9SH0
CZecho-SlOvakia ................ 90. 1870
In other words, if the peoples Of these coun-
tries tried to buy materials and supplies in Amer
lea at the present market values of their curren-
cies, Austria would have to pay approximately 40
times the normal cost, Germany Is times, Greece
just double, Czecho-SlOvakia IA times and Po-
land 80.
These figures are official and are the only in
dex which can briefly give any comprehension Of
the economic conditions inside these countries.
Their currencies are deprecated because they
have neither gold nor sufficient production with
which to maintain their normal position with the
United States or with their immediate neighbors
Until each such country is able to produce sufi-
cient to maintain itself, either from within or by
importing in exchange for gold or goods, 1t can
not hope for normal conditions, If indeed it can
hope to survive. There Is nothing difficult Of
comprehension about the situation. Somewhere,
somehow, some time. those countries must be-
come possessed Of food, clothing, raw materials
and the means of transporting them, or they
must perish. Economically and politically. they
are crippled to a point threatening complete
paralysis, while at the same time the people are
ravaged by restitution and disease. The inroads
of the latter on the war-wo and undernourished
population has reached the proportions which
Mr.. BalfOur called appalling"
Men, women and children are dying by thou
sands. and over vast once civilized areas there are
neither medical appliances nor medical skill sufH-
cient to cope with the sanitary crisis.
In the Ukraine, winter Of 1888. typhus and
influenza affected most Of the population. In vii
lagos Of 1000 and 1900 half the people would be
Ill Of typhus at the sam time. Many physicians
attended a territory 40 miles I'm diameter. Some
who had 10000 to 10000 typhus patients could
get no medical supplies whatsoever, and could
give only oral encouragement to their sick. And
this year the condition is even worse. Pauperism
is becoming more and more intense. Prices have
advanced steadily.
In Austria, according to a report dated Feb
ruary IL, there were I'm Vienna rations for three
weeks. People were apathetic f~atalistic and
tired. and there was an epidemic of dancing One
dance was attended by 1000 people, half Of whom
had had no dinners. Refusing to go home, they
danced until exhausted. One hundred thousand
school children were underfed and diseased as a
result Of food shortage, lack Of fuel and made
Quate hospital facilities. Crime was increasing
among the child population. hunger sometimes
driving little boys to attempts at murder. The