WAR JOTTINGS

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 159, 10 March 1915, Page 7

WAR JOTTINGS

EDISON AND THE KAISER. WHAT THE GERMANS MUST SHORTLY REALISE. America’s famous inventor, Mr Edison, has just given his impression of the war to a New York correspondent, “The Germans,” he said, “are a 'great people commercially, industrially, agriculturally, but they have been brought up in an atmosphere of egoism. Everything in the country has been subordinated to the military caste, and I think the sooner this system is ended the better for the German people.” The inventor, says the “Telejgraph’s” New York correspondent, recently lost bis great manufacturing and experimenting works by fire.

“Are you worrying,” asked the reporter. “Not a scrap,” replied Mr Edison, puffing a e'£ ar contentedly; “we have a new standard of worry beside which all ethers seem trivial. I look from the ruins of my wroks here across the Atlantic, and I see the Kaiser on the defensive on both fronts of the immense battlefields.

“When you realise that the Kaiser has been living for years in the atmosphere of his ‘impregnable General Staff,’ when you knew he has been trained on the idea that a quick, smashing blow at France would enable him to rush to Russia and quell the Czar, and then you realise, what the Germans themselves must shortly realise, that final victory cannot be theirs —why, it is enough to make the gods, let alone mortals, weep.

“I have lost £600,000 worth of property by fire, but that is nothing to the Kaiser’s loss. Here is my New Year’s recipe for worry: ‘Think of the Kaiser, and realise that you are the luckiest dog imaginable.’ ”

KAISER FOUND GUILTY. HE PRECIPITATED THE WAR. VERDICT OF THE SUPREME COURT OF CIVILISATION. The London “Times” has published in pamphlet form a remarkable analysis of the case of the Austrc-German Alliance versus the Triple Entente, contributed to the “New York Times,” by Mr James M. Beck, formerly Assistant Attorney-General of the United States. He .examines as a lawyer the evidence contained in the British, German, Russian, and Belgian official publications on the war, and asks: “If there existed a Supreme Court of Civil, isation, before which sovereign nations could debate their differences without resort to arms, what would be the judgment of that tribunal upon the present war?” The following is the “judgment” which, in Mr Beck’s opinion, “an impartial Court would not hesitate to pass”: 1. —That Germany and Austria in a time cf profound peace secretly concerted together AV impose their will upon Europe and upon. Servia in a matter affecting the balance of power in Europe. Whether in so doing they intended to precipitate a European war to determine the mastery of Europe is net satisfactorily established, although their whole course of conduct suggests this as a possibility. They made war almost inevitable by (a) issuing an ultimatum that was ’grossly unreasonable and disproportionate to any grievance that Austria had; and (b) in giving to Servia, and Europe, insufficient lime to consider the rights and cblilg,aliens of ail interested nations.

2.—That Germany had at all times the power to compel Austria to preserve a reasonable and conciliatory course, but at no time effectively exerted that influence. On the contrary, she certainly abetted ,and possibly instigated, Austria in its unreasonable course.

3—That England, France, Italy, and Russia at all times sincerely worked for peace, and for this purpose net only overlooked the criminal misconduct of Austria, but made every reasonable concession mi the: hope of preserving peace. ■ 4. —That Austria having mobilised its army, Russia was reasonably justified in mobilising its forces. Such act of mobilisation was the right of any sovereign State, and as long as the Russian armies did not cross the border or take any aggressive action no other nation had any just right to complain, each having the same right to make similiar preparations. 5. That Germany, in abruptly reclarin(g war against Russia for failure to demobilise when the other Powers had offered tc make any reasonable concession and peace parleys were still in progress, precipitated the war.