IN THE FATHERLAND.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3185, 3 April 1911, Page 3

IN THE FATHERLAND.

- THE FOOD OF THE GERMAN WORKER. When feeling runs high in the Oiu Country one party points to Protectionist Germany as a modified industrial paradise; the other party asks, "What about brown bread and horse flesh ?” it is quite impossible to get an accurate opinion from such a source in such circumstances. An illuminating series of articles are now appearing in the London Labor Leader descriptive of industrial life and conditions in various parts ol' the Continent: After treating the position of the German worker in a general way the writer (Air J. F. Alills) asks:- —"But what about thj&idiet of die German, workers. What about brown bread and horseflesh? The socialist friend with whom I stayed laughed at the idea, and the broaching of die question at various*hospital boards proved a huge source of entertainment. Brown bread, I was assurer!, was a staple article of diet throughout Germany, preferred on account of its nutritious qualities by both workers and middle-class, and I can vouch that I saw no evidence to the contrary. As for the eomsumption of lmrseflesn my entertainers positively laughed the idea to scorn. Nevertheless. a little investigation showed the truth of the old adage that one half of the world doesn't know how the other half lives. On paying a visit to the Vorwarts establishment (which is a great credit to the German Socialist Party). Hermann Alolkenbuhr showed me s-one official figures which are worth | reproducing. According to these figures I the number of horses slaughtered for : human consumption iff Germany during recent years was as follows: —1905. , 147.737: 1906. 147.424: 1907. 166.274: I 1906. 137,247: 1909, 161,357. Even in Berlin in the year 1909, there wore 11.606 horses slaughtered for human consumption, although as yet there is no department in the Berlin municipal slaughterhouse for this sort of thing: a circumstance which helps to account for the official ignorance of the figures when I paid a visit to the establishment and made some inquiries. Doubtless it is only the lowest wage-earners who are driven to a diet, of horseflesh; but this notwithstanding, the figures are eloquent.”