GLEANINGS

Horowhenua Chronicle, 10 February 1915, Page 4

GLEANINGS

DUTCH AND SWISS NEUTRALITY

A London correspondent of the Sydney Sun (probably the ablest of the oversea writers to Australian papers) makes the following remarks on Dutch and Swiss neutrality in a recent letter :—Holland is supposed to be neutral; in the eyes of all nations is neutral. But it is neutrality which "is very serviceable and valuable to the Germans. It gives Germany a buffer tStato, which prevents the Allies landing armies of invasion at convenient places on the North Sea coast, and "t lias also enabled the German Headquarters Staff to feed its western armies without drawing very heavily upon the supplies of the Fatherland. The railroads, the rivers and canals at the rear of the German legions have been almost choked with trains and ships carrying Dutch foodstuffs for Teuton stomachs. The Dutch, notoriously keen on money-making, have profited enormously by this custom, and tho Germans, knowing the trading propensities of the Dutch, have made every use of their neutrality for their own ends. Holland is practically Germanised Switzerland is also Germanised. The influential cantons, are controlled by the German population, whose every sentiment is in sympathy with that of Berlin. The Swiss' press, subsidised by German gold, daily extols the valour and victory of German arms. The Swiss peasants, swift to take pieces of silver, are covertly conducting trade for German manufactories. Goods bearing the brand "Made in Switzerland," and therefore innocently neutral and allowed to circulate through Allied countries, have more often than not been made in German factories. It is a pretence to speak of Switzerland as a genuinely neutral country.

HOLLAND'S WAR. TRADER

Holland's chief nope, we are told, lies in & little man in simple, dark and unassuming, army uniform, the only relief being a military decoration. The little man is Lieutenant-General Snyders, Commander-in-Chief of Holland's army and navy, sturdiest hope of lie small nation in those hours of peril. Lieutenant-General Snyders is probably the first army officer entrusted with tho general command of both army and navy in time of war, arid this unique distinction which involves n somewhat extraordinary combination of responsibilities, shows to what extent his services are valued by his countrymen. Hp is known to be as brave as 'is sword, and every man in Holland knows him to be one of the most promirent tacticians of the day. His name has long since passed the boundaries of the Netherlands. Hollanl would be the ideal naval base for Germany in the Anglo-German naval war, and the Dutch harbours would constitute the safest shelter for the German [ships after a. great battle in the North >Sen. One thing, however, is certain; Germany cannot carry on this war "n----dcfinitely. Whatever were her hopes of success to begin with they certainly have not reached fruition, and seem as far off as ever. She certainly had a .strong army to begin with, but with even the censored accounts of the fighting to go by her losses in killed and wounded must have been huge, and the ranks of that certainly strong a l iny must have been fearfully depleted.