THE KAISER'S HARVEST OF DEATH.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 203, 25 August 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE KAISER'S HARVEST OF DEATH.

HOW MARIE CORELLI ASSESSES IT. "During the grim and ghastlystruggle at Verdun," says Marie Corelli in the "Sunday Times," "we are told the Kaiser, standing 'at safe distance,' watched through his field glasses the fiery mowing down of his countrymen to the number of 45,000? Does anyone, reading this, take the trouble to pause and consider what it means? Forty-five thousand strong, brave men in the flower of manhood (for let us hope we are { none of us so unjust as to deny our enemies their strength or their courage), 45,000 capable human beings fit for every sort of industrial labour—the blood and bone of future generations—slaughtered like vermin; and their Emperor, their sworn defender and "protector, looking on. "Voltaire is accredited with the saying that 'the only crime is stupidity.' According to this dictum, one must consider the "All Highest War Lord' the greatest criminal cf an epoc'i, his stupidity being almost without parallel in history. What man, not entirely mad, seeing a world of prosperity within reach of his hand, would clench his fist and knock the whole splendid sphere away from him at one blow! For it is not too much to say that before the war Germany was pushing quietly but surely through every branch of commerce. From triumph to triumph she moved easily onward; everywhere her ramifications were spreading like the vigorous roots of a fattgrcwing tree. In Great Britain she had possessed herself of many of our trades; her goods were everywhere; her cutlery, her glass, her woollens, her linens, her dyes, her silver and copper ware, her chemicals—why, even our very window frames were '.Made in Germany!' She was at work in our mines and coal fields: she was ahead of us in science, in invention, in industry, and gener.al 'thoroughness.' "And let us not forget that we were, or appeared to be, supinely indifferent to her inroads on all that we used to claim as our 'special line' and particular property. We were, like Hamlet, 'growing fat and scant of breath.' We gave the honours of heroes to our tennis champions, and played about while the Germans worked. They worked —as many of the British refused to work; they saved—as many of the British declined to save; they gained their ends, because by our very inertia we gave them every opportunity to do so. Mr. Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia, said in a recent speech that Germany 'had abused cur foolishly generous hospitality.' This is not quite accurate, since we were neither so generous nor hospitable as careless and lazy. Great Britain was lagging behind in the race; and had peace been maintained for another twenty-five years Germany might easily have mastered the world: and we might have lost all leading hold on commerce. WHAT GERMANY HAS LOST. "And now the rivers of gold that were flowing into Germany through her trade are replaced by mountains of British. French and German dead! The latest estimate of German losses, at Verdun is 200.00i0! Does the Kaiser, at safe distance, still 'look on?' " 'Trust in thy sickle and reap!' O Emperor of a brief and bitter day! The harvest of dpath. not life!—the harvest of curses, not blessings! The thousands of dead men—dead in the very strength of manhood —sacrificed in a holocaust on the flaming altar of the wickedest war the world has ever seen, may have their own story to tell to 'Unser Gotf: so may the bereaved and wretched women whose husbands and sons have been torn from their arms forever. May the true God help them all!—for in the unspeakable hell of inquity around us man is well-nigh powerless; though, like every evil thing, war has its good side. It shows us with each day heroism cf the finest, courage of the strongest, self-sacrifice of the noblest, existing among us all; and it has re-awakened the higher spirit of England. It has saved us from ourselves and from the enervating love cf pleasure and personal avarice which was slowly undermining our better qualities. "And even the Kaiser, 'looking on' at the legions of his own subjects falling like withered leaves in a whirlwind of fire, may one day shake off his frenzied nightmare of liattle, and repent—exclaiming with Judas: 'I have sinned, in that I have betrayed innocent b'ood!' "