Show LANG BUTTER LINES picturesque scenes witnessed in berlin today people resort to all manner of tricks to get extra supply of butter working classes get it well todo to do go without the hague picturesque and somewhat pitiful scenes where long lines wait at the doors of 0 german butter shops are described in a dispatch to the new rotterdam courant from its berlin correspondent As this newspaper Js sympathetic with germany it cannot be accused of presenting an excitable and exaggerated account such as the germans complain of in allied journals the correspondent begins by quoting from a story told him by a friend 1 I got in with a little persuasion A line was waiting they would not let me go in front of course but I 1 pretended I 1 only wanted vegetables so I 1 got through the line and after securing vegetables I 1 asked with a very innocent face for a quarter of a pound of butter I 1 hid it in my coat went out and joined at the end of the line without much more trouble I 1 got a second quarter of a pound the correspondent comments that is how we get along in berlin today that is what we must do to capture a little tat fat or a little butter boniv only with cunning or patience can we butter our bread in long straight lines the people stand for hours before the butter shops some got nothing some welter in butter he who has no need of butter goes out on the hunt for it as for sport housewives tell with pleasure and pride how much butter they have captured 1 I myself with my family had to go without but ter for days till I 1 tumbled on a cunning ruse whereby I 1 secured a pound and how I 1 bragged about it many butter and cheese shops are closed practically practically the whole day A paper in the window announces when the sale will begin and long before the specified time a crowd collects mostly mothers and children some little ones are there to capture a quarter of a pound on their own hook did the salesman know there were several se veril from one house they would get nothing so they cheerfully ignore each other during the long wait A policemen keeps order in the waiting lines in the good old days such lines collected to buy tickets for a caruso concert now butter or some other necessity is all we think of the cause of this singular situation Is not tar far to to seek in peace time to say nothing of war time germany does not produce enough butter toi for home consumption lack of fodder and speculation combined to drive up prices A scarcity of fat accompanied the scarcity of butter to do without these two would be a disaster for the german we working aring people so the government took the matter up and as butter buter like tat fat is free from pluto cratic influences the government de aided the butter shall should id be fairly dl di vided aided and fixed low maximum prices priced accordingly tho the result is that the working classes get butter and the well toda to dc go without the working mans wife goes herself or sends her children to stand for hours in line sho she has the th whip h hand and now that patience and not nol money Is tho the determining factor the social side of this regulation has thus reached its goal but not sc the financial the prices are so low that imports from denmark and hoi hal land are almost out of the ques question and the government is now faced with the dilemma plenty of butter at panic prices alces or little butter at low prices in official circles it Is hoped that thai tho the situation will soon be easier they hope soon to got get the benefit ol 01 a big potato harvest the increase ir in tho the farm stockland stocks stock sand and the imported booc from the balkans but how to deat dea with the disagreeable fact that the fix ing of maximum prices 3 dimini diminishes tho supply available stil remains an all unsolved problem |