The Cordova daily times., 1920-08-24
CONTROL OVER GRAIN SUPPLY
 MERE "FARCE'

ished government control of her dom- estic grain supply after bitter politi- cal fight ill which the advanced parties were defeated by an over wkelming vote of the combined Christian Socialist-Grosse Oeutsch parties. Government control, it was alleged, was farce"
 While the grain of Austria is negligible in the worlds supply and but a fraction of her own need, passage of the decontrol act is inter esting as a popular demonstration of the line of demarkation between the two great political factions
 The economic experts of the So- cialist wing declared the decontrol act a reactionary measure in favor of the agrarian element ana predicted that bread prices would rise because of it.
 Advocates of the measure. on the other hand, insisted that in spite of laws the former withheld his food stuffs from the government reQuisi- tion and sold to the '"left hand" trade, which in turn profited by the risk they undertook and ballooned prices. These men say that decon. trOl means normal adjustment of prices to demand and the sale of breadstuffs being legalized, the farm CT and the miller will again enter the market in open competition.
 The Decontrol act brought the resig- nation of Food Controller Lowenfeld- Russ. Under his leadership the Social Democrats fought the bill stage by stage. In it's final shape the bill provides that when the individual farmer has given up three-tenths of his crop the rest of it is freed. The bill also abolishes milling permits.
 Bountiful crops of early fruits and vegetables and promise of an abun- dance of hardier later yields from field and orchard with the big Amer ican flour credit still available for the ration of daily bread have given Austria a reprieve from the terrible hardships of last winter.
 Fats are scarce as ever, however, but in this gracious weather their need is not so keenly felt. Meat, too, is scanty and high, beyond the reach of the masses. The American flour credit will be exhausted this winter and no man in Austria knows from where or by what means it will be replaced. ."=.
 Strikes and disturbances in the Teschen coal fields, the situation in Silesia, virtual suspension of the Hun- garian supply, little as it was and, finally, Austria's inability to enforce even the meagre contractual supplies from Bohemia, have prevented the hoped for accumulation of modest fuel reserve during the summer months. Public utilities of Vienna are reported to have but a weeks reserve of coal power and light and less than a month of gas coal at a minimum consumption. The last Austrian pig iron oven in operation has just drawn it's fires for lack of coke -
 Into this situation has been injected curious business phase resulting from the increased value of the crown on foreign change. Tn the late win ter and early spring the crown dropped. as low as $50 to the dollar on foreign exchange. Encouraged by this small export trade was nour- isfed. Austrian factories, famous for certain forms of finished articles, began to resume operations on a Him. ited scale, foreign buyers seeing a good business chance in the low crown value against standard monies.
 Manufactures were able to get ad- vances of credit to secure coal and needed raw materials. It was a good speculation for foreign values. Then the Minister of Finance, Dr. Reisch, dropped a hint one day during a de- bate in the assembly that it would be wise if Austrian retail sellers, were to raise their crown prices to the equivalent of foreign values. They did it. A suit of clothes that cost from 5000 to 4,0O0 crowns rose in price to from 15,000 to 18,OOO crowns and everything else went up in pro- portion.
 Then the government, acting on the same principle, is reported to have gone on the Zurich exchange,