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The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, September’ 17, 1914. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

The people of the British Isles cau be comfortably fed to day because the British Navy guards the seas, nor does the occasional sinking of a few British ships or oi a lew British fishing boats do more than emphasise the weakness of our enemies on the water. Germany with her ports closed must find the food problem an acute one. She began the war at a time not altogether favourable for her owu food supplies. Austria, upon which Germany is to some extent dependent for food, has just experienced a harvest seven per cent, below the average, and in a considerable portion of the Empire harvesting had only begun when the men were called to the colours. In Hungary, where harvesting had concluded when war broke out, the yield was 14 per cent, below the mean, while in the eastern part of the Empire, that lying nearest to Germany, the crops were considered barely sufficient for local requirements. All this means that if the war is prolonged Germany may' have to pa\ r famine prices to secure food, while Britain, holding command of the sea and in uninterrupted communication with her own Dominions and her producing ally, Russia, can confidently look forward to nothing more serious than the necessity of foregoing for a time of a few expensive and possibly injurious luxuries.

Thkkk is more in the re naming of St. Petersburg than might be seen at the first glance (says the Sydney Telegraph). It represents, in the Russianising of a name that was always a reminder of the hated German, an uprush of the national spirit which was carried with it even the bureaucracy by which Russia is ruled. The founder of St. Petersburg, Peter the Great, was obsessed by German culture, and his attempt at civilising Russia was, in effect, practically an attempt to Germanise it. He could not make the city he founded the real national capital, for that Moscow will always be, but he could, at any rate, give it a German name. Moreover, new things and institutions, whether of commerce or the court, or anything else, were also given German titles. The Russian for post office—“potchtam” —comes obviously from the German “Postamt,” and in the same way the German “Kamerherr,” or gentleman in-waiting, became in Russian “kamergerr.” To the Russian people, however, Germans were foreigners and fereiguers were Germans, and both were hated barbarians. They were barbarians exactly in the sense in which the old Greeks used the word. To these everyone who could not speak Greek could not be regarded as knowing how to speak at all; he was a despicable sort of person generally though, of course, he might be dangerous. That was exactly how the Russians regarded the foreigner, and the word they had for him, “nemetz,” meant, literally, “the man who cannot speak.” Nor, as they came to distinguish among the various sorts of barbarians, and realise that one sort was English, and another sort German, and so on, did their dislike of the German as a German diminish. There may be some indication of the extent to which they looked down upon him in the fact that they gave, his name to that most unpleasant insect—the cockroach ! At the same time the national feeling against Germany was not, until lately at any rate, shared by the rulers of the country, the court and the official caste, which used rather to follow Germany. But after the Bosnia Herzegovina crisis, in 1909, when Germany inflicted upon Russia humiliation, the attempt to repeat which was the immediate cause of the present war, even the court and officialdom turned round, and the general hatred filled them too. Now, at a time of crisis, when Russia is from top to bottom absolutely at one, the national feeling has flamed up everywhere so strongly as to demand the removal of even the symbol of the hated thing. And the official authorities, by whom the change is actually made, are no doubt in part playing up to this feeling, and in part filled with it themselves.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MH19140917.2.6

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1298, 17 September 1914, Page 2

Word count
Tapeke kupu
690

The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, September’ 17, 1914. NOTES AND COMMENTS. Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1298, 17 September 1914, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, September’ 17, 1914. NOTES AND COMMENTS. Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1298, 17 September 1914, Page 2

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