The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. "We nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice." TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5. 1918 THE GERMAN STRIKES

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 7, Issue 350, 5 February 1918, Page 2

The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. "We nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice." TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5. 1918 THE GERMAN STRIKES

Labour troubles on a large scale have occurred in Germany, and are increasing. This is as interesting to the Allies as it must be -embarrassing to the enemy. It may be taken for granted that the news which has filtered through to neutral countries and thence to Britain and America has not done so without much censorevasion. It is more likely to understate the real position than to exaggerate it. That being ?:o, the fact that the upheaval has assumed serious proportions may be taken for granted. Were the strikes merely movements to obtain higher wages or better food conditions for the strikers though the latter is said to be one of the causes of the trouble—the unrest would not interest the Allies to the same extent as it does now. We are told that at the back of the'labour unrest is the people's opposition to the Fatherland Party's policy. The people fail to see why they should continue to suffer in order to gratify the ambitions ot the ruling caste. The promise that victory would speedily crown the German

arms has failed to materialise : month after month the nation's privations have been increasing : and a German victory is obviously receding into the mists of impossibility. The war has therefore lost whatever glamour it may once have had. More than that ; despite the Government's efforts to prevent it, Bolshevik propaganda is .evidently spreading amongst the German people, who are beginning to ask why they should not share inthe "triumph" which revolution lias secured fur the Russian people. The German must be learning that a boomerang is a very awkward j weapon. Germany undoubtedly j brought about the Russian Revo-!

lution and the breakdown of the j Russian arras, and she now finds that the propaganda she threw at J Russia has come hurtling hack ! gainst herself. It is too soon to expect decisive results from the German labour upheaval, and it were folly to predict immediate j widespread disaffection in the i army as a sympathetic response ! to the people's movement, for we ' know what discipline in the Ger- \ man armv is- At the same time,

the position is distinctly interesting, and it will be not at all sin j prising it dramatic events aie i soon reported, I