The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 1/Situation in the old country

SITUATION IN THE OLD COUNTRY

 

Recently news from Bohemia has been scarce. The keynote to the situation there is given by the failure of crops, which has intensified the long-existing political discontent of the people and caused serious strikes and riots. At the end of August 80,000 workmen, principally of Prague, quit work as a protest against starvation rations doled out to the Czech people, while the government was permitting exportation of grain from Bohemia to Germany. Many conflicts occurred between the strikers and the German and Magyar garrisons. At the meetings of striking workmen resolutions were adopted demanding immediate erection of a Czechoslovak republic. The government declared martial law all over Bohemia.

A correspondent in the Prague “Právo Lidu” relates an experience which is typical of the straits to which the war has reduced people of cities and villages alike. He says: “For three months we did not see a potato. We had to support life a whole week on one kilogram of bran flour and three little loaves of bread for four persons. Recently I got hold of two packages of tobacco; I put them at once in my pocket and took a train out into the country to trade the tobacco for something that could be eaten, potatoes, bread, milk, or anything. I came to a village where I had friends, but found no one at home, except an old fellow smoking a pipe. Whatever he had in that pipe, I knew it was not tobacco. When I told him what I had, he dragged me inside and wanted to know what I would take for it. I said “eats”. All he could find in the house were two eggs, a pint of goat milk and eight potatoes, but he was so eager to get that tobacco that I let it go at that. When I asked him where one could buy some potatoes, he said that it was no use; nobody would take the paper and iron money, but for sugar, coffee, soap or tobacco one could always get something to eat.

“As I was passing by a little later on my way back to the depot, I saw the old man in the shed puffing at his pipe and milking the goat; no doubt he want ed to have the milk at least, when his wife returned and wanted supper.

“When I got back to Prague, I figured out that eight potatoes, two eggs and a pint of milk cost me nearly five crowns.”