NOTES OF THE DAY
No doubt a very warm welcome will be extended to the French' Mission which is now on its way to the Dominion in all the centres it may visit. Its leader, General Pau, is a soldier who worthily represents the. finest. qualities of his heroic nation. He is a veteran of the war of 1870-71, who was enabled, in spite of his years, to play a distinguished part in the vastly greater conflict which opened in 1914. When a French army got into difficulties as tho result of a venturesome advance into Alsace in the opening stages of the campaign, it was General Pau who extricated it and established a stable front.
One of the first tilings necessary if Germany is to recover orderly internal conditions is the convocation of a National Assembly, but as yet there is' no evidence that any party has seriously attempted anything of. a-representative nature. Guided no doubt by the experience of the corresponding faction in Russia which dispersed the .Constituent Assembly by the use of armed force, the German Bolshevik elements are frankly opposed to the summoning of a National Assembly. For the rest, reports which otherwise might have thrown some light upon the attitude of the Ebcrt Government irt this matter have been extraordinarily contradictory. Some time ago it was announced that the Assembly would not be called together until towards the middle of next year. It is now stated that the date of meeting has been set down for January 19, but had them j been any prospect of a National Assembly worthy of the name meeting ■on that date it is liKcly that more would have been heard before i now about the methods adopted in selecting its members. Any body of national representatives assembled in Germany would have to be brought together by means of improvised machinery. The Reichstag is not a representative body, and there are neither electoral rolls nor electoral machinery in existence which would return members ori a truly representative basis. The best course open to Germany would bo to. adopt the plan; followed in j France at the time of the Revolution, when the people of villages and of .limited areas elected c7o!cgates, and these in turn elected representatives of larger areas to sit in the National Assembly. Thus far there is nothing to ehow that any attempt has been made to pave the way for an election on these lines. The suggestion is rather that the struggle-for supremacy is between Bolshevik extremists and those who arc more or less in sympathy with the old regime.
The recent influenza epidemic has given rise to all sorts of fantastic themes as to its nature and origin, and amongst these is the.suggestion that_ the Germans are responsible for it. A cablegram this morning tells a circumstantial story of two Germans, dressed as nuns, who were caught with a'supply of germs in their possession. It is easy to understand, in the present state of public feeling against the Germans, how such a statement .might gain credence amongst unthinking people, kit tho history of influenza pandemics and the nature of its infection are dead against such a theory. The Italians in the seventeenth century ascribed influenza epidemics to the influence of the stars', hence the name "influenza." Epidemics occurred in 8 1580, 161'6, 1703, 1732, and 1737, and their cessation was supposed to be connected with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. "-The disease," states'one authority, "is referred to in the works of the ancient physicians, and accurate descriptions of it have been given by medical writers during the last three centuries." In • 1782 Kempenfelt's squadron, patrolling the coast of France, had to return to England in consequence- of the disorganisation of his crews by influenza, iln all great pandemics the general symptoms and the rate of mortality have corresponded to the characteristics of the visitation which has just run its course in this country. So much for history. The , story of the disguised Germans liberating influenza germs takes some swallowing. Once liberated the microbe of influenza is no respecter of persons or nationalities. The Germans, ifc might reasonably be assumed; would think not twice but many times before they proceeded to put into practice a form of germicidal .warfare which, though conforming in general principles to tho approved standards of Hunnish deviltry, possessed the attributes usually credited fo the boomerang. '
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Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 76, 24 December 1918, Page 4
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733NOTES OF THE DAY Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 76, 24 December 1918, Page 4
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