The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-09-18
r--Two Ireland. and the WnseOnd Of Three Artdss--- TI
 Easy Going Dublin Tightens Belt
 As Wars First Pinch Grips Fire
BY PAUL MANNING

NEA Service Staff Correspondent [ Dublin, Sept. l8--The winter oi lo4l-42 will not be easy for the lpeople of Ireland. Food there will be and coal, too, but both will be harder to get. So for the first win ter in many years the thoroughly charming, but beautifully illogical, people of this Emerald Isle will tighten their belts.
 White bread is no longer obtain able and the wheat on hand, which includes the crop just harvested and the boaloads from Portugal, is sufficient to last only four months.
 From England they will obtain no food or coal because Britain herself needs every ounce of food and all the fuel she can get, m order to maintain the 44,O000 people of Wales, England and Scot- land. But If the seven boats which Ireland controls can be kept afloat and are able to ply unmolested be- tween Dublin and New York and other neutral ports then they should have enough wheat to last out the winter.
 Coal is 1reland's number one problem of the winter. At night all Dublin is a city of half-light. Virtually unaffected by war, tlie city nevertheless knows what par- tial blackout means because the giant electric power plant which generates current cannot get enough coal to light Dublin properly. TORESEE PRIVATIoN
 FOR CITY'S POOR
 What worries many groups in Ireland today, however, is not the lack of proper lighting in the large cities, but what will happen to the poor during the cold months of deep winter. These groups, some of them government officials, visual- ize a shivering, bitter cross section of the city's poor holding public demonstrations because their gov- ernment had not the foresight to lay in large supplies of coal.
 So during recent months, the government has put an extra army of unemployed at work digging peat blocks from bogs. But this belated effort may be even too late for this winter because the vast piles saw drying in the sun were still too green and too moist to be efficient.
 Gasoline is more severely ra- toned than in England because Britain will not permit large ship ments to Fire.
 The effect of this British policy of just letting sufficient gasoline for the bare necessities of Irish civil life filter into the country is easly noted. Few automobiles trav- el the streets of Dublin or the hign- ways outside and the bare number of taxis you can get in this city charge such exorbitant rates that most people either walk or ride bicycles.
 Yet despite the potential lean- ness of the coming months Fires way of living is still so much bet- ter than life in England that the luxury of 1t forms a vivid contrast. Three-q quarters of the people live close to the soil, so although they lack wheat, potatoes are abundant and in Dublin you can get bacon and eggs for breakfast, with butter, jam and a modest portion of whole wheat bread.
 And you can still walk into any store and order cheese and roast beef and steak and sugar and chocolates and cigarettes and all the other commodities no longer easy to obtain in London.
 But scarcity will bring rising prices, which will compel ration ing.
 Meanwhile Dublin continues to live well. The theaters, restaurants, soda fountains and pubs are ale ways crowded. There are laughing boys and girls, who would be of conscription age in England, drink ipg the matted milks that are now