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Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1719, 31 May 1917, Page 4

gravest and most terrible events. There was astonishment when the Prussian Diet speeches in the last few days disclosed enough to indicate that the German people were in a desperate condition. Revolt, starvation, suicides, diseases, were openly admitted. This morning comes another grave warning, that the next months are regarded as finally decisive on the question of life and death for the German nation. Handelshblad’s Berlin correspondent is made the vehicle for this latest confession, which is tinted with the fear that Germany may not survive the coming ordeal. “We approach the end of the bloody drama,” says this writer, who writes behind the strictest censorship, and he goes on to say that the final scenes will exceed in terror and horror all that has passed hitherto. “A PAROXYSM OF MISERY.” After enumerating all the known means of fighting, the correspondent adds, perhaps significantly, “ and heaven only knows what new and cruel means of destruction and mutilation” will be produced. He continues : “In belligerent countries, perhaps also in some neutral countries, but worst of all in Germany in the spring, when the products of, the last harvest are finished, the army of home workers will have to struggle against lack of foods. It will become a paroxysm of misery, compared with which all aspects of war hitherto are as nothing.” Germany, the correspondent remarks, has harder trials before her than any other nation, for in her case it is certainly life or death as a nation of the first rank. The German press refers especially to the declarations of the Socialist deputy, Herr Hofer, that the situation is more serious than is generally known, that the number of suicides from desperation is increasing, and that some parents have killed their children owing to the great difficulties which they encountered while endeavouring to supply them with food. The London Morning Post remarks that with regard to the extraordinary allegations about suicides and infanticide, it should be borne in mind that such stories are often given currency by Germany in order to deceive her enemies and impress neutrals.