The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1920-06-17

clothing are insufficient to make life tolerable.
Particularly in the broad belt lying between the
Baltic and the Black there is appalling mis-
cry. This great 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 tremen-
douS number of idle people. Many of them want
TO work But there is q 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
fty of exports under existing conditions that these
countries have nothing, either money 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
the brink of utter ruin, from which nothing but
helping hand them.
The depreciation in the currencies Of some OF
these countries, valued in dollars is unbeliev-
able. According to market quotations of April 10,
it follows:
AuSIId .SI00To
Hungary .97.4S%o
germany SZ.oZI0
greece ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS -4o-z6]O
Rouman1a -....................9 1.S1%
Poland $685.
CZecho-Slovakfa .................9 2.7S%
In other words if the peoples of these coun-
tries tried buy materials and supplies in Amer
lea at the present market values of their curren-
times the normal cost, Germany 13 times, Greece
just double, Czecho-Slovakia IA times and Po-
land so.
These figures are official and are the only In
dex which briefly give any comprehension of
the economic conditions inside these countries
Their currencies deprecated because they
have neither gold 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 maintain itself, either from within by
importing in exchange for gold goods, it can
not hope for normal conditions, If indeed it
hope to survive. There is nothing difficult of
comprehension about the situation. Somewhere,
somehow, time, those countries must be
come possessed of food clothing, materials
and the of transporting them, they
must perish. Economically and politically they
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-worn and undernOurished
population has reached the proportions which
Mr.. Balfour called appalling"
Men, women and children are dying by thou
sands, and vast civilized areas there are
neither medical appliances nor medical skill sufi-
Gent to cope with the sanitary crisis.
In the Ukraine, winter of 1853, typhus and
influenza affected most of the population. In vii
lagos Of 1900 and 5000 half the people would be
i'll of typhus at the same time. Many physicians
attended territory 20 miles In diameter. Some
who had 10000 10 $4,000 tyQhus patients could
get medical supplies whatsoever and could
give only oral encouragement TO their sick. And
this year the condition is worse. Pauperism
is becoming more and more intense Prices have
advanced steadily.
In Austria. according to q report dated Feb
ruary II. there were IN Vienna rations for three
weeks. People were apathetfc, fatalistfc and
tired. and there epidemic OF dancing One
dance was attended by 1900 people, half Of whom
had had dinners. Refusing to 60 home they
danced until exhausted. One hundred thousand
school children underfed and diseased as
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