San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-08-20
Situation Is Critical for
Working Classes in 0c-
cupied Towns.
PRICES MOUNT DAILY
Wage Increases Cannot
Keep Pace With Them
and People Suffer.
~ WILLIAM Z. NASN.

t'oryright. 10y the san Antonio Light.
Dusseldorf. Aug. 2O.-Food ploD
lemS-how to buy enough Saur krait
10 feed six hungry children dur
ing the next 81 hours. for instance
interest the average man on the street
here far more than politics. ChancCi-
Tors may come and chancellorS NAV
go. but the struggle for livelihood goes
en- forever.
The food situation in occupied Ger
many is critical II is impossible to
imagine how hide0uS it may becom5
this winter. EmisSaries from Berlin
today are comforting with the munich
pal authorities of Dusseldorf as TO
The best means Of wardins off this dis
aster.
The cost of living rose GOO per cent
during the first two weeks of Angus:
Food worries have been at the bottom
! of every riot that has occurred late'y
Z in occupied Germany. When mobs OF
city folk rush out into the country 10
steal potatoes from the fields. some
: thing is radically wrong.
Can't Make Ends Meet.
Despite the rises in wages ut least
once or twice a week. wOrkmen simply
, do not receive enough marks to make
i. DOlD tIluS ulttA. NuAitli il- I'ShAAH iipi
so much from lack of food rs from
: lack of money TO pay for food. Prices
90 up three or four times n day. ac-
I, tually as often as once an hour at
Z fines to keep pace with the mad down
ward rush Of the mark. Wages can
not possibly 90 up more than two or
three times week. Consequent,y
: there is always n discrepancy between
H,.pinac onl IN thn dot r mant nj
1.-THE latter 4 man goes to the bakery
,jn the morning to buy a loaf of bread.
she finds it listed at 100000 marks
,pound. He returns in the evening or
next morning to find it listed at 100.
1000 marks pound. He simply has
mot the money TO pay the new price
I He is furious at everybody and any
body
What is true of bread is also true
of meat. fats. potatoes. milk ami
sugar. Moreover, marks have growE
50 worthless that farmers, retailers
and wholesalers no longer wish to sell
for cash. Before they can reinvest tne
kmOney the value of the mark has fall
zen by 80 per cent and they are losers
thereby. As a result, they hoard their
: food and the poor consumer is ex
plotted at every turn.
Reduced TO Beggary.
Bad Us the situation is for the
fvOrking man it is nothing compared
with the situation of the intellectual
CLASSES. those who are used to living
on their incomes. These people now
find themselves reduced to beggary or
starvation. To make things still
worse. prices are higher in the Rubr
and the Rhineland than anywhere
else in Germany. Meat. which costs a
million marks a pound here brings
only 100000 or 100000 in Berlin. 70.
tatoes which bring 10000 here bring
10000 elsewhere. The discrepancy Is
due largely to the expense of trans
portation.
Food supplies come into the Ruhr by
automobile. with gasoline costing a
million and a half marks per liter or
by water down the Rhine.
Coal and potatoes promise 10 be the
scarcest articles for consumption tins
winter. Famine in both appears in
evitable.
- As for grain. the city fathers Of
Dusseldorf believe they can scrape
through until spring because Of pur-
chases made some time ago in the
United States, Holland and the Ar
gentine, while the mark was bearing
some resemblance 10 real money.
But the fat. meats and margarine
ioutlOOk here is not favorable. Food
conditions are understood to be better
in Dusseldorf than in Essen and other
cities.