A WOMAN IN FRANCE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 147, 18 February 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

A WOMAN IN FRANCE.

♦ This is how Ala le'eio L. Rotv describes a woman's observations in France in "'The Xat: 11" ; It is the unreality of war that sustains men. Germans are not human beings—only tho enemy. For the French soldier loathes war, and longs for peace. Ho fights for one object—a pi nnanc nt peace. He does not want standing armies and giant navies. He fights to save his children from fighting. "Have you any children?'' I asked one soldier. "No, thank God I'' is tho reply. "But why?" I ask. "Because," comes the fierce answer, "if I had a son I would rather he deserted than see what I have seen." This man is not unusual. The soldiers—not the women —are beginning to say : "We will have no more children unless there is no more war." In the hospital the truth is spoken. Xo soldier wants to go back to battle. Yet be goes, and every man in France goes willingly. What olse is there to do? The enemy is in the land. The soldiers listen eagerly to my talcs of the Social Democrats in Germany. I suggest internal revolution rather than smashing by an outside force as a way of ending war and militarism. To th's they agree. But how reach the Social Democrats and start i evolution? That is their problem. Negotiations with the German Government arc impossible. The Government is not to be trusted. It would lie, and there would be another war. Germany must be defeated, because that means the defeat of militarism, and that means the end of war. Curious anomaly. In all Par's there is no Peace Movement, yet there as nowhere else one can talk peace. 1 hunted out Madame Somina, friend and comrade of the Social Democrats I had met in Germany. Hidden away in an attic of an old building in the Latin quarter I found her. She is a woeful tragic little figure in black. Alone and unbefriended, she seeks to stem the t de of hate, and send words of encouragement to the comrades in Germany. The Socialist manifestoes prepared at Berne last March had been found in [ the mail, and traced to her. "Take I care." warned the police, "or you will be arrested." Hut France does not. fear its Socialists They, like all Franco, fight willingly, in Germany it is different, for many of tho Social Democrats do not want war. Madame Somina felt the futility of her efforts. What an impasse! Germany bitter, relentless, ugly, and at bay, determined to prove to tho world her might. France tragic, heart-broken, proud, and resolute, determined to fight for a permanent peace. England annoyed, unwilling to see France crushed, and determine! that Germany shall not win. Is there a way out? When will it end? "i don't know when war will end," says a so'dier, " but I know where it will end—in the trenches." More and more it grows clear that the test is to be endurance—not v dories. Who can hold out the longest? As my train sped to A , soldiers were building trenches to tho railroad track. From clay to clay as battle rages, a trench may be taken. But how can either side boat back over nrles and miles of trenches? Meanwhile, human life ebbs out. The fields of the Maine are one big cemetery. The land is dotted with little white crosses. Yet from thir, land tho peasant gathers his crop. Never has the ground boon more fertile. With a crack of his whip the driver points to a great open meadow rich w.th grain. "There," he says, "four thousand Germans were burned to death." On one of my last clays in Paris I went to the Inval cles. Some wounded soldiers were being decorated. The place was packed. Weeping relatives came to honour their bravo men. A mother with a babe stood beside me. Tears are on her cheeks, but pride shines in her eyes, as a blind husband led to bis place. Then a band strikes ui), and out across tho court;-ard move a hundred legless, armless, and blind men. God! can this bo real. Yes, there is the Commander-in-Chief bestowing kisses and pinning on medals. I shut my eyes. I see France as she will be in a few years —swarming w.th enpp'es 1 .v e young men made old and helpless, lingo: ing medals.