The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, September 10, 1914. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1295, 10 September 1914, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, September 10, 1914. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

General Pau is reported to be the popular hero of Paris at the present time. General Pau is the Lord Roberts of the French Army. He is 66 years old, but as a French writer puts it; — ” Amongst his fellow-generals—-those who will be called to command the different armies in war time —General Pau is the man that is taken for granted.” He showed what he was like 44 years ago in the previous war against Germany, when as a young lieutenant, only just out of the military school of St. Cyr, he fought splendidly at Froeschweller, and lost his right wrist. This misfortune might have been allowed to place a less willing man on the retired list, but the authorities knew the stuff that Pau was made of. He commanded his battalion by 1881, was a colonel in 1893, a brigadier in 1897, a general in command of a division in 1903, and general in command of an army corps at the chief French camp, Nancy, in 1907. When General Joffre wanted a man with the dash and activity of a boy of 18 he picked on this veteran, which only goes to show that the rule about age and activity does not always hold good. The historic exception is the old Prussian Field-Marshal Blucher, whose tremendous dash and activity had a good deal to do with the winning pf Waterloo.

In discussing the cost of modern war, Colonel Repiugton, the wellknown English military critic, puts his finger on one of Germany’s weak points. He says ;—“The vast numbers placed in motion by modern war, and the frightful costliness of war itself, whether waged on laud or sea, make it a

primary need for a country circumstanced as Germany is that the campaign shall be short and sharp. These are considerations which, with their consequences, must never be left out of sight. The mobilisation of the elite of the population of a nation in arms will suspend many activities and paralyse others. The cost of a land war to Germany has been reckoned by Dr Kiesser at ,£900,000 a day for 3,000,000 men under arms, and the cost of the first six weeks of war has been estimated at £122,000,000. By using her floating money, by issuing Treasury bills and bank notes up to three times the amount of the cash reserves, and by some additional taxation, it is supposed that Germany will be able to meet the initial cost of a great war, but the time will soon arrive when internal resources will be exhausted, and foreign loans will be required to meet at least two-thirds of the cost of war. Given the present grouping of the Powers and the not too brilliant financial position of Germany’s chief allies, the placing of loans to any considerable amount abroad in time of war is likely to encounter insuperable obstacles. Even in a purely maritime war, though the immediate outlay will be less, the losses, both direct and indirect, will be severe, and it will be necessary for German strategy to bridge over by resolute and decisive operations a period full of danger for German trade, sea-borne commerce, and possessions oversea.”

The new Pope, who is 59 years of age, has been Archbishop of Bologna since 1907. Previously he was Papal Nuncio at the Court of Spain. He was born at Pegli, in Italy, on November 24th, 1855. For a time he studied law at the University of Genoa, but later, receiving a call to the church, he entered the Collegio Capranica, in Rome. He was ordained priest in 1878, and shortly afterwards entered the Academy of Noble Ecclesiastics in Rome. In 1882 he became secretary to Cardinal Rampolla, who had been appointed Nuncio at Madrid. Della Chiesa accompanied the Cardinal to Spain, and in 1887 when Rampolla was appointed secretary of State, Della Chiesa succeeded him as Nuncio. In 1907, upon the death of Cardinal Svampa, he became Archbishop of Bologna, and on May 25th of the present year he was created a cardinal. The new Pope is the fifteenth to take the name of Benedict. Benedict XIV. was, like the new Pope, Archbishop of Bologna when be succeeded to the Papacy. He was elected on August 17, 174°. after a conclave which had lasted for months. In 1741 be issued a bull demanding more humane treatment for the Indians of Brazil and Paraguay. He died on May 3, 1758.

Speaking last month at New-castle-on-Tyne, at the annual dinner of the Institute of Naval Architects, Lord Charles Beresford said submarines and air vessels were new and important auxiliaries in naval warfare, but they must be counted more in the nature of defence than attack. Danger existed to us from the submarine, and to other nations, but no war existed without danger. Our business when new danger appeared was to meet it and beat it. It was folly to suggest ceasing battleship building because of a new auxiliary of defence or attack. A submarine on the surface was an easy objective and it was defenceless. The remedy against its attack would be a fleet of small, speedy craft. They should not form hasty conclusions because of incidents in manoeuvres. We heard too much of defence and not enough of attack.

A cokrksi’ONDKNT who wrote recently 10 an Australian paper to ask whether this was a "capitalists war,” was answered that no doubt there are a few people who always talk in these catch phrases, and who are not likely to leave off doing so simply because it is obvious to anyone, who uses bis sense at all, that capitalists are tremendous losers by this war. To talk of "a capitalists’ war” at this juncture, it was added, is merely to utter sounds without meaning. "The capitalist has always feared this particular war more than anything else in the world, except perhaps, Socialism. The first breath of it shut down the Stock Exchanges throughout the world, closed the banks in some foreign countries, scared business to a standstill. Scores of capitalists have already been broken by the war, some have shot themselves ; thousands will be broken beiore it is finished. If anything is clear in the world, it is that this war is the outcome of racial differences, which have nothing whatever to do with wealth or the absence of it.”

Dkspitk the serious depreciation that has occurred in British Government securities, they still command a higher degree of credit than any Continental country. The best guide to the comparative credit enjoyed by the various Powers is afforded by this statement of the yield of interest obtainable on their leading stocks at prices current when war was precipitated by Germany : Interest Yield at Present Price.

This, roughly speaking, means that Great Britain can raise

money on terms In per cent, cheaper than Germany. Moreover, in considering the comparative ability of European countries to raise it must be remembered that the a great war in Europe limits each Power’s credit to its own territories and those of its friends and allies. Austria and Germany are not able to raise money in France or England. And England and France are the world's great lending countries. The amount of money raised in England and in France year by for the use of our own enterprises and those of foreign countries is immeasurably greater than the corresponding amount raised in other European countries. These great credit resources are now entirely at the disposal of the British and French Governments, for in no countries are the holders and controllers of the pursestrings more It is in the light of these actual new credit resources that the existing national debts tabulated in the following statement should be considered: £ Austria ... 794,000,000 France ... 1,315,000,000 Germany ... 741,000,000 Great Britain ... 707,000,000 Russia ... 900,000,000

£ s d Austria 4 18 0 France 3 18 6 Germany 4 3 0 Great Britain ... 3 10 0 Russia 3 0 0