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Show ANARCHY MENACES VIENNA AS FOOD VANISHES SEtfJ 1LL1S HUE IK DANGER of srpi Austria's Entire Population Is Facing the Worst Food Shortage in Its History. Bank Notes Have Sunk to Such Low Value They Are Used as Beer Labels. BY LUCIEN JONES. Special Correspondent International News Service and London Dally Express. VIENNA, Oct. 15. 3even million people I are in danger of death by starvation in Austria owing- to the country's credit for foodstuffs being exhausted. Austria now has no food and no money to pay for outside help. The pound sterling today reached the record value of 450 crowns about 577.76) which means that for every ounces of foodstuffs needed eighteen times its value must be paid. The last ship of the allied food mission discharged its cargo five days ago at Trieste. The Austrian government has six days supplies in hand, and after that, unless further supplies and credit are .forthcoming .forthcom-ing from Great Britain or the allies the Austrian republic will be ravaged by hunger and typhus. Almost any country under such conditions con-ditions would be the prey of revolution and anarchy, and it would be surprising if in Vienna, which is without coal, food or warm clothes, communism, with its attendant horrors, does not appear. Condition Explained. A high official of the British food mission mis-sion to southeastern Europe, explained the situation to me today. "Vienna promises to become in a few weeks' time a city of anarchy, even worst thau was Budapest under the Soviet government. gov-ernment. "Under the present arrangements Austrian Aus-trian credit is exhausted and no further supplies are forthcoming, but even if Austria cannot pay can Gre A Britain stand by and see 7,000,000 human beings slowly die of starvation? Personally, I could not show my face in Vienna if I thought that were the case. "Austria up to now has been supplied with chedit in foodstuffs in small doles. What is wanted now is a large credit o!f $1'50,000.000 to buy coal and raw materials to start her factories. "Facilities must be given to Austrian officials to travel to neutral and allied countries to arrange credit for their country. coun-try. As matters are now application lor a permit to travel to England has to be made to the director of military intelligence intelli-gence in Whitehall, which entails a delay of three weeks even in the most urgent cases." The wild scramble for foreign money continues in Vienna. An Austrian one crown note has less value in Zurich than the paper on which it is printed. Money Used as Labels. A wll-known brand of '-'Kroner'' beer is now" being sold with a crown note stuck oi. the bottle, in place of a label, this being cheaper than paying for printed labels. Owing to the acute financial and food situation the shops are refusing, whoij possible, to accept crowns, demanding A leading firm ot tailors offered to make me a suit of the finest English cloth, lined with silk, for 535, provided that an English food parcel containing milk, tea and sugar was thrown in. A great many firms in Vienna will now only sell goods for pounds, dollars, or Swiss or French francs. One firm with an enormous trade in Austria and a turnover turn-over of many hundred thousand crowns yearly today went into liquidation owing to inability to pay a debt of 54,320 contracted con-tracted before the war with an English firm. This sum in Austrian money now amounts to nearly half a million crowns. Prices have doubled everywhere in tho past ten days. If an Austrian buys a suit of clothes it costs him in his own money the equivalent of a pre-war price of 5850.40. |