New Zealand Opinions

Horowhenua Chronicle, 9 January 1917, Page 1

New Zealand Opinions

"There is at the moment no prospect of the war ending aft-er a few months longer unless the peace negotiations take a sensational turn. The reply of the Allies is so 1 crushing and so definite that there seems nothing for it but to 'carry on.' The Central Powers are, however, in a desperate condition, and the pangs of hunger may drive the populace to revolt. To avoid this tihey will probably offer concessions which might in the end lead to the ending of hostilities. In this, war nothing has happened as was expected, and peace may come even when tlie conditions seem hopeless. The entire British Empire will hope that there will he nothing in the mature of a premature peace. So lomg as the war lasts 1 the demands for our special products .must continue, and it is not unlikely that prices will go higher even than they are to-day." —Mercantile Gazette.

"The Tiwkisli Empire being doomed, Constantinople is the iguairantee for the continuance of the Russian effort till the end of the war. For Turkey the hour long feared' hais struck. In all former wars in the Near East Tiwikey had on her side champions who professed to believe in her good intentions and upheld her integrity. But in this war Turkey stands alone in upholding her integrity. And the ma'rvel is that she is ranged on the side of some belligerents, who are swoern to save her blood. The legerdemain of diplomacy has brought her to that pass under the belief that her ancient glories are to be restored. Nort improbably the Turk huge the idea that the great conflict will give him a chance to claim his own—some chance in a general melee of the nations all bled white to stab fatally his Teutonic ally, whose treachery to him is the most obvious thing in the war. No other hypotheses will ex-plain the Turk's presence in the war, and his recent crime of Armenian massacres makes it possible to believe in his reliance on massacre as his principal weapon. The Teuton who knows him and measures him by his own standards is probably very wide awake.' - —New Zealand' Times.

"The great defect of the Salonika army has always seemed to 'be that it was too small to be really effective. ■If it could be increased to a million instead of the present half-million, it might be able to shake things up m the Balkans to the advantage of the Alliijes. Its reinforcements would then be of assistance to Rumania, and might eventually lead to the over-running of Bulgaria and an attack on Austria. Its withdrawal would be a confession of weakness which at this stage strikes one as most undesirable.' '—Cliristchurch Evening News. "Newspaper criticism, to be of service to the community should not be merely destructive, but constructive. Any fool behnd a gun can bring about the destruction of life and property after the fashion affected by the Huns in Belgium, Serbia and Poland; but a certain amount of wisdom and ability. is necessary for their subsequent rehabilitation."—Manawatu Standard.