Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 1916.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLI, Issue 11650, 19 August 1916, Page 4

Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 1916.

THE prophets are busy again endeavouring to The War And enlighten us as to Prophets. ■ the date at Which

the war will end. There are some who fix it in November and others who incline to the view that the struggle will continue till well on in the spring of 1917. No event, however, has so discredited the seers and the prophets as the war. When it commenced we were practically deluged with predictions from spiritualists, somnambulists, clairvoyants, astrologers and the man in the street, all equally valueless and wide of the mark, because they were all prompted by hopes instead of by a knowladge of the facts. The only prophet of the kind that people were inclined to listen to with respect, and whose prophecy has not 'yet been falsified by facts was Lord Kitchener and ho placed the duration of the war at three years. We are inclined to thinx that his estimate will prove to be a fairly accurate one, not because he had the divine afflatus, [but because he had made a thoroughly exhaustive study of the situation. It was the result of calculation based cn facts rather than of exceptional prescience. A prophet who does not already know should he cautions about precision in dates. For that he would have Biblical example. In one case duration is given ns a time, times, and the divulihg of times. Anyone who adopted that method would he able to say, “I told you so” whether the actual period covered ten years or a century.

THE Kaiser is evidently becoming afraid of be,“l Am Hot The iag called to Man.” account for his criminality in initiating this awful war. He is eager to enter a plea of ‘‘Not Guilty” before the court sits, though, of course, he knows the world is full of witnesses against him. His melodramic exclamation to a neutral personage, ‘‘l am not the man !” is not likely to reverse the judgment of the world that he played the principal infernal part in the tragedy which is;now depopulating Europe. The statement made by him, too, that the whole of the men of Europe must be debited with a share of the guilt of it sounds like the wail of an overloaded conscience. What we hope for is a great assize, something like the last judgment, when William Hohenzolleru and his gloulish entourage by tens of thousands shall be cited before the world, condemned and hung on a line of gallows stretching through the hundreds of miles they have made desolate and have soaked with the blood and tears of its people. Mr Asquith talks of reparation, but there is no adequate reparation possible for what they have done, and the only punishment that can be regarded as partially sufficient is their utter extermination.

THE information given us yesterday that the GovernThe Loan. ment had decided to extend the time for the reception 'of subscriptions for the great lean would have been a wise one. How, however, it seems

that the extension 'onlj* covers the bond issue. We cannot help thinking that the period as first announced was totally insufficient to .allow of the proper response being given to the appeal. As we have said before, the raising of a loan, and especially one of such magnitude, is a novelty in New Zealand. Placing a loan in London is quite a different matter to raising oue in New Zealand'. There the larger part of the money is generally subscribed by groups of financiers who need very little time for decision as to whether the invest* ment is’sufficiently attractive and to what extent they will go in subscribing. But the appeal-''in this case is to hundreds of thousands of people who have not lent a penny in their lives except, perhaps, to friends, a great number of whom will need some time to clearly understand the conditions and advantages. There is probably some good reason for the early closing of the bond issue, for it is unlikely that Sir Joseph * Ward is nervous lest be should get too much money. It has probably something to do with undertakings regarding the flotation of part of the loan in London. It now remains for those who desire to participate in this great national undertaking to make use of the little time remaining. We are aware now that the issue of bonds will definitely close on Monday.