The Manawatu Herald. Saturday, August 15, 1914. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1285, 15 August 1914, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Saturday, August 15, 1914. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

A report has been circulated that there are a number of cases of distress at present in Foxton. We are reliably informed that the number of such cases is not above normal average. If genuine cases of distress should come under anyone’s notice, the local representative of the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board, if communicated with, will be pleased to give the matter immediate attention.

If the flaxmills are compelled to close down for any length of time a large number of men throughout the district will be thrown out of employment. It is hoped, however, that work will be found for them in other parts of the Dominion. The places of the men who are leaving for the front will have to be filled and no doubt vacancies will occur sufficient to absorb the unemployed. Most of the local mills will run till the end of the month, but beyond that period nothing definite is at present known. The flaxmills employees’ union, although it has contributed liberally to funds for industrial warfare in the past, has not a fund to meet cases of distress resulting from non-em-ployment. While there is a tightening up all round, the industrial outlook is not as black as some alarmists would endeavour to paint it.

A terrible weapon of warfare has been invented. In the Naval Annual for 1914 there is a description of the Leon torpedo mine, which has now been acquired and is being manufactured by a British firm. This engine is so constructed that it can be set to hover between any depths below the surface that may be desired. When placed in the water it has a slight negative buoyancy, and sinks until automatically a propeller is brought into action which drives it upward again. It can be used in the open sea by any type of ship, or, in the case of tidal harbours, it could be released by a vessel outside so as to make its way with the tide into the anchorage, and perhaps destroy shipping there. A touch on the deadly steel “ whiskers ” which project from its upper surface, and

the enemy would be sent to the bottom, as were the Hatsuse and the Peptropavlosk in the RussoJapanese War.

Germany, Austria, and Russia have just sprung at each other’s throat. It is exactly 99 years next month since those three Powers made, to guide their relations in all luture ages, indissolubly and absolutely, for ever and ever, the following beautiful treaty : —ln the name of the Most Holy and Indivisable Trinity their Majesties the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, and the Emperor ol Russia, having in consequence of the great events which have marked the course of the three last years in Europe, and especially of the blessings which it has pleased Divine Providence to shower down upon these States, which place their confidence and their hope in it alone, acquired the intimate conviction of the necessity of settling the steps to be observed by the Powers, in their reciprocal relations, upon the sublime truths which the holy religion of our Saviour teaches; they solemnly declare that the present Act has no other object than to publish, in the face of the whole world, their fixed resolution, both in the administration of their respective States, and in their political relations with every other Government, to take ior their sole guide the precepts of that holy religion, namely, the precepts of justice, Christian charity and peace, which, far from being applicable only to private concerns, must have an immediate influence upon the counsel of Princes, and guide all their steps, as being the only means of consolidating human institutions and remedying their imperfections. In consequence, their Majesties have agreed on the following articles :—(.Art. x) Conformably to the words of the Holy Scriptures, which command all men to consider each other as brethren, the Three contracting Monarchs will remain united by the bonds of a true and indissoluble fraternity, and, considering each other as fellow-countrymen, they will, on all occasions and in all places, lend each other aid and assistance ; and regarding themselves towards their subjects and armies as fathers and families, they will lead them, in the same spirit of fraternity with which they are animated, to protect religion, peace, and justice.

The tragic isolation of Germany was the keynote of an interview, attributed to a prominent Continental statesman, which appeared recently in an English magazine. “You ask me to give you the key of the international situation. That key is in Germany, or, rather, in Berlin. For Prussia controls Germany, and will more and more and more control it in the future. The Germans are nervous and uneasy, and that is why they ceaselessly increase their armaments. They are nervous because the whole European situation has been radically changed, to their detriment. The whole balance of power has been upset by the results of the Balkan War. The are nervous because they are tragically isolated. Germany has no friends, no allies, and has, therefore, to defend herself on two, or rather on three fronts. She has to defend herself at once against France, against Russia, and against England. It is true that the Triple Alliance still subsists. But it subsists only in name. For Germany can count neither on Italy nor on Austria. She cannot count on Italy. For Italy is a hopeless coquette, and she transfers her erratic affections wherever her interest leads her. Nor can Germany count on Austria. No longer can Austria be called the ‘loyal secundant,’ For Austria has ceased to be controlled by her Teutonic population. She is at the mercy of the Slavs, both inside and outside of her empire. She is abandoned by Roumania, who is seeking the support of Russia. She is detested by the Servian®, who have the best organised army in the Balkans,”

Pkobably over four million men are actually at the front, while the total available war strength of the Triple Entente (Britain, France and Russia) is nearly g l /2 million men, and Austria and Germany have between them a military strength of about eight millions. In the Crimean War the allied British, French and Turkish forces numbered 58,000 men, and the Russians had about 50,000 men in the field, the total number engaged in the war being 108,000. In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 the French Army consisted ot 300,000 men, while the Prussians forces numbered 640,000, less than a million men altogether taking part in the conflict. In the Russo-Japanese War each of the combatants placed about half a million soldiers in the field, and it is estimated that 600,000 men took part in the Battle of Mukden, which is supposed to be the greatest battle which has ever been fought as far as numbers are concerned. The present war completely overshadows all previous conflicts between nations both as regards the size of tke armies engaged and the magnitude ot the issues involved.

The Kiel Canal, Germany’s great naval waterway between the North sea and the Baltic, was recently reconstructed at a cost of A 11,000,000, and was formally opened by the Kaiser. The canal has been so enlarged as to admit of the largest Dreadnoughts of the German fleet passing through it. The total length of the cau&l is

about 61 miles, a few miles longer than the Panama Canal, The sluices near Holtenau, which are some 1072 ft long and 146 ft wide, are the largest in the world. It was at the Holtenan locks, the gateway of Kiel Harbour, that the Kaiser took up his position while the imperial yacht broke through a ribbon stretched across the locks. At a dinner in the evening he said that Germany must be in a position to carry out one of the best sayings of the Iron Chancellor: "We Germans fear God and otherwise absolutely nothing, and no one in this world." Well, we shall see.