HOW LONG WILL THE WAR LAST?

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 179, 2 June 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

HOW LONG WILL THE WAR LAST?

IF DEATH SHOULD "LAY HIS ICY HAND ON KINGS."

How long will the war last? " Nobody realiy knows or can know," says the "Times." ''There are far too many uncertain factors to permit anybody, no matter how well-informed or shrewd or authoritative, to forecast the course of events with any approach to precision.

"In this war there are two contrasted influences at opposite ends; of the human pole, both of imnicu.se potency and both subject to sudden change, i'hev are. tha personality of certain individuals and the mood of the masses. The two have never before been present toe, ther oq the same scale. History is full of in v.hich each iias played a tremendous part in the world's drama, but here we have borh. " With regard to the first, one of the sources of the enemy's strength is the unity of purpose represented by the person of the German Kaiser and in a secondary degree in that of the Austrian Kajser. No one can say what would happen if death, who 'lays nis icy hand on kings," were to approach either of these thrones. And death is a contingency which is always liable to happen to any mortal at any moment. "We are not speculating ou the chance, bat protesting against speculation which leaves it out of account. The mood of the masses is more calculable than the life of any individual, but it, too, is uncertain, and we do not possess the knowledge for calculating it, though we know it is undergoing a change in enemy countries sufficient to be an influential, if not a determining factor in their military poli.y That very fact should remind us that the duration of the war does v.t depend only on the military elements "But even if it did there vou ! 'i Meli be no certainty, though it might be possible to make an approximate calculation. The repeated falsification of the German calculations is a sufficient warning of fallibility: for the German authorities, who have the threads of all the campaigns in their own hands, are in a far better position to judge than we are.

"For all these reasons, then, there can bo no certainty about the duration of the war, and therefore it is unwise to count on any prediction: but it is obviously more unwise to con it upon a short than upon a long duration. "The. belief in an early co'lapse ct the enemy is deadening. On the other hand, the view that the war must ini vita My last a long time yet is dangerous, because it encourages the easygoing mood in a different form."