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Show People Standing in Long Lines in Bitter Cold for Rations. NEWSPAPERS REPORT Wealthy Charged With Getting Get-ting All They Want and Poor Suffer. LONDON, Jan. IS. increasing attention at-tention is being given by the newspapers newspa-pers to food trouble and popular impatience im-patience with what is regarded widely as avoidable privations. The Times today prominently calls attention to I the "persistence of the unequal dls-' dls-' tributlon of food and its offspring, the queue svstem." which, it says is beginning be-ginning to tell on the tempers of numbers of persons. It refers to numerous protests and the demands for rationing which are finding an outlet in some instances in outbreaks of disorderliness. It writes sympathetically of people standing in long lines in the bitter weather prevalent pre-valent in parts of England, including London, and says It would be folly to ignore the obvious symptoms of unrest. un-rest. Numerous paragraphs appear in tho newspapers recording demonstrations, unsatisfactory distribution, queues' suffering, prosecution for hoarding and allegations of profiteering. Grave Situation Imminent. The labor correspondent of the Times says that It is evident that a situation is imminent which will tax the food department to the utmost. He says there is no occasion for alarm but a need of complete frankness and prompt action. The writer re-states the view of the workers that not only are the wealthy people able to escape queue troubles by the power of their purses but they are getting all the supplies they require, while the poor stand for hours exposed to the weather and then, often get nothing. The workers also are convinced that an artifiical scarcity has been mado by the farmers, dealers and speculators. The unrest, the writer continues, will be allayed only when the food controller convinces the average aver-age workingman that curtailment is unavoidable. |