NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 71, 18 December 1918, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY

A frightful decline in the moral sense of the German public is reported by The Times correspondent in Berlin to have followed in the train of the sufferings of war and the subsequent chaos of the- German revolution. The vaunted kultwr of the German system of life has failed to withstand the test cither of war or of national misfortune. In the battlefield arid in the occupied cities the German soldiery became beasts. And now, a frightful decline in the moral sense of the public. The.years of iron discipline, of elaborate instruction in the civilised arts, which proceded the war have been the veriest and shoddiest kind of veneer. In Ilussia the autocracy of the bludgeon. produced in the end the same result. One wonders what fate would overtake the British nation in a like calamity. Reflection finds hope in the humanitarianism and spirit of cheerful philosophy which centuries of British tradition have ingrained in the race, and which ha,ve been the sheet anchor of the nation in all great crises. In the worst situations and privations' of 'tho battlefield the British soldier has invariably managed, be his voiceever bo feeble,- to ask of his brothers in discomfort: "Are we downhearted?" and always the answor has come, "No!" # * * * While the Dutch Government is' marking time on the question of yielding up the ex-Kaiser to the Allies, tho case against him and those who acted under his orders i 3 taking shape in a manner which admits only one outcome. No single count in the indictment more insistently demands an answer than that of the mothers of Lille, who charge the ex-Kaiser with being responsible for the abduction of their daughters by his officers. The story of the German occupation of Lille is «no long record of pillage, murder, and darker crimes which cry aloud for retribution. Soriie idea of what the people of Lille endured during four unending years is given in tiie following-passage from an article by one of their number which was published recently in tho London Morning Post: —

The people lived in constant terror of visits from the German officers, who ■would -walk into their homes at any hour of the day or night to bully and commit excesses. Many young girls were arrested and taken from their homes to be imprisoned for fnked-iip "offences," but after being sent back' homo it transpired that their retention had been for criminal purposes. All such cases have 'been duly α-eoorded for the "Day of Beckoning." It should 'be carefully noted that in connection with these infamous crimes an order was given out (in March, 1918) forbidding the locking of any doors of private houses. The "Day of Reckoning" has come, and it will be seen from the foregoing that the mothers of_ Lille will not lack evidence with which to support their charge. It is laid in the first instance against the ex-Kaiser, as the man supremely responsible, but without doubt it will extend also to the German Governor of Lille, • von Heinrich, and as many of the individuals whose foul crimes he. or his Imperial mastfi , countenanced as can be identified and located.

* * » * It is a far .cry from Polhill Gully in 1908 to a Zeppelin raid over London during the great war, but that is the achievement of a New Zealander's invention, referred to in a Renter message from London to-day. Six years before the war, Me. John Pomeroy, who came from Invorcargill, gave a demonstration at Polhill Gully of his explosive bullet before some interested spectators. The results surprised the onlookers, and Mr. Pomeroy wont to London to essay the long and difficult climb to the heads of the British • WaiOffice. That his journey was not in vain was proved by the demands of the war. His explosive bullet was the principal factor in destroying Zeppelin raiders, and is now used for destroying marine mines. Me. PoJiEROy had to wait six years for a chance for .justifying his invention. But it is patience and persistence that brings the inventor his 1 reward/

The extreme anxiety displayed by the Sports Protection League concerning the future of sport in New Zealand and the emphasis which it apparently, considers necessary to lay on the importance of its own future activities must be _ a little puzzling to the average citizen. In its annual report just published the

league speaks of insidious attempts to bring about a condition of oppression in relation to sport and recreation almost approaching Prussianism, and generally speaking its members appear to bo in a state of almost hysterical alarm. The league plainly conceives itself to be smarting under some act or acts of injustice, but who the perpetrators are, and what exactly they have been do-, ing to compel New Zealand citizens to rise up in protest, the league, unfortunately, does not specify. If it is referring to the conditions of life which New Zealand was placed under owing to the war, then it is denouncing certain measures of community sacrifice which the majority of the citizens of this country, in company with their kinsmen throughout the Empire, _accepted_ in good spirit as a patriotic obligation. The league-incidentally mentions the reduced railway service— "irritating and sometimes absurd restrictions affecting those paople who desired to use the ser~ ; ce for the purpose of attending _ sports gatherings." Apparently it has overlooked the fact that these "irritating and absurd" affected not only sports gatherings but all classes of the public in their daily comings and goings. The league vaguely hints at some lurking conspiracy behind these restrictions—"an attempt to bring a public Department under the influence of those who oppose what we consider to be a useful anl reasonable recreation." So far as one can see, nobody has any designs on the liberty of our sports bodies as long as their activities are properly conducted, and there has been no suggestion that such is not the case. What, then, is this dark and sinister conspiracy that is threatening British freedom in these blessed isles?