GERMANY’S VAIN HOPES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1496, 13 January 1916, Page 2

GERMANY’S VAIN HOPES.

It was asserted by two neutrals who recently returned to Berne, the one from Berlin and the other from an important German provincial town, that in October last the people of Germany believed that the war would end by Christmas. Commenting upon the matter, the Berne correspondent of the London Morning Post says it may, of course, be that the wish, as to which it is now scarcely possible to doubt, of the German people for peace is father to their thought, although it would be the height of folly to flatter ourselves that they are as yet really “war weary,” or that Germany is ready to make peace on terms acceptable to any Power save herself. These assurances as to Germany’s belief in the war nearing its end are borne out by various signs, in particular by recent events on the Berlin Stock Exchange, were the belief now prevails that the brilliancy of “war industries” as an investment is distinctly on the wane. Berlin financiers apparently think that, as the war cannot last for ever, and as raw material is becoming scarcer, and a point may even be reached when it is all used up, it is imprudent to risk too much money in war industries.