Arizona republican., 1920-08-16
GOOD CROP YIELDS
 WILL GIVE AUSTRIA
 NEW LEASE IF LIFE

VIENNA, Aug 15-Bountiful crops of early fruit and vegetables and promise of an abundance of hardier later yields from field and orchard, with the big American flour credit still available for the ration of daily bread have given Austria a reprieve from the terrible hardships of last winter.
 Fats are as scarce as ever, how ever, but in this gracious weather their need is not so keenly felt. Meat, too, is scanty and high. beyond reach of the masses. The American flour credit will be exhausted before the winter sets fairly in 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 meager contractua1 supplies from Bohemia, have prevented the hoped for accumulation of a modest fuel reserve during the summer months. Public utilities of Vienna are report ed to have but a weeks reserve of coal for power and light and less than a month of gas coal at a minimum con- sumption. The last Austrian pig iron oven in operation has just drawn its fires for lack of coke
 Into this situation has been injected ' from the increased value of the crown On foreign change. In the late winter and early spring the crown dropped as | low as $50 to the dollar private ex- | change. Encouraged by this a small export trade was nourished. Aus
 trian factories, famous for certain
 forms of finished articles. began to re-
 sume operations on limited scale, for
 eign buyers seeing a good business l chance in the low crown value against standard monies.
 Manufacturers were able to get ad
 vances of credit to secure coal and 1 needed raw materials. It was a good
 speculation for foreign values. Ther the minister of finance, pr. Reisch ! dropped a hint one day during de-
 bate in the assembly that it would be
 wise if Austrian retail sellers were tc
 raise their crown prices to the equiva lent of foreign values. They did it. 4
 suit of clothes that cost from 3, 1000 tC
 1000 crowns rose in price to from 15,-
 900 to 1S 900 crowns. Everything elst
 went up in proportion.
 Then the government, acting on ths
 same principle. is reported to have
 gone on the Zurich exchange, whicf controls crown quotations, with larg' amounts of foreign money and forced the crown up Their efforts were as sisted unexpectedly by an influx int Austria of foreign money speculators Appreciation of the monleS or the oth CT countries of Central and EasterI Fllrope made this their last field fo speculation. Pounds, dollars and franc became plentiful with small demand and the crown rose in value until tn official price was 130 to the dollar an' 15O in private deals, Retail prices con tinued to go up, so that with the ris in the crown cutting foreign value
 one half, the plan literally "cut its owl throat"
 | Foreign buyers quit. Retail trad l stagnated. Native Austrians did no | know whether to laugh or cry at 1 straw hat in a window bearing tn 1 price mark of 1000 crowns. But the. were not sold.
 | The next step in the reaction hit tn basic industries. The few factorie l running have begun to curtail or clos | down as orders are cancelled and nev contracts fail to come. The ministr, of socialization is besieged with re
 quests from manufacturers to be per