A GERMAN VIEW OF POLITICS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 96, 15 October 1915, Page 1 (Supplement)

A GERMAN VIEW OF POLITICS.

NORTHCLIFFE PRESS AND MR. LLOYD GEORGE.

In a survey of the political situation in England, the "Frankfurter Zeitung" deals with the creation of the Coalition Government, the furious ragings of the Northcliffe press, its alleged friendship with Mr. Lloyd George ami the scare about munitions. The following passages from the article are quoted by the " Westminster Gazette" : There are indeed no more parties m England—ostensibly, at all events. So the party truce has been announced and the Coalition Cabinet, which is a kind of political Noah's ark holding every kind of beast in the Parliamcutary zoology, calls itself the National Government.

In the meant'nie, a strange thing has happened to this party truce. It is a mt'.'.r that concerns the Liberals most, for the Chauvinists and the mis-chief-makers, protected by the benevolent attitude of the Censor, care little about the truce. Above all, the Harmsworth Press, the "Times" and the "Daily Mail," rage so furiously against the political leaders that there might be no National Government at all. Northcliffe certainly played an important part in the creation of the Government. . . Hut he was not contented with his success, and for some time past there has been a new and strong movement against the Government in the Harmsworth Press . What lies tiehind it? There is one man in the Government who has found grace in the eyes ot these papers. That is the forager sansculotte Lloyd George, who has handed over the Treasury for the time being to McKenna, and has placed himself at the head of the armament business as Minister *>f Munitions. When one remembers how Harmsworth and Lloyd George used to attack one another, the one with his poisoned articles and the other with replies that were quite equal to the occasion, the new harmony between them is not without charm. The Harmsworth Press raised the cry a few months ago that the English Army had no ammunition whatever. The poor Tommies had been sent out as naked as their parents in the Garden of Eden, and that alone explained the pummelling that they had received from the Germans. They were sacrificed. And now comes the cry, "Wake up, England!' We have also read the tale in Germany that England, after sleeping for nearly a year, has at last wakened up, and that now it will show the world what it can do.

We don't believe it. England has not been asleep until now. Its Army has, like the other armies, failed occasionally here and there in ammunition, and the great Herr George will not put a new complexion on the war. The whole business is a shibboleth created to give heavy headlines and an increased circulation to an extraordinarily vulgar Press —even in the crisis of its Fatherland. r