IS BRITAIN DECEIVED?

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 247, 8 July 1915, Page 3

IS BRITAIN DECEIVED?

"WAS WILL BE OYER BSPOSE WE KNOW IT." REASONS FOR PROLONGED STRUGGLE. (By Frederic William Wile.) When I hoar people talk about tin. 1 war ending in six months I fell like calling a policeman. I consider them just as dangerous to the security or the realm as any of the 160,000 alien enemies still at huge in London, and probably more dangerous than a good many who are where the rest ought to

With a British casualty list of 139,000 after eight months of fight [ng — fighting going on by the way, within five hours of these shores: with the Germans not pushed back a decisive inch, from positions occupied by Litem in France, Belgium, and Russia since Christinas, and longer; with' their battle fleet intact, though hiding; with their aircraft and submarines raiding British coasts and British waters at will, though impotently; with all these relentless facts staring England in the face, I say, it borders on sheer treason for people lightly to toss off the lopsided view that the war will be over by the end of autumn, 1915. Bills or Bullets?

Why is such drivel treasonable? Because it is turning the kingdom into a fool's paradise; because it is propagating a fiction designed directly and gravely to menace the Government's measures to fight and win tlie war. The war can be fought and won with jus* two things—men and shells. Anything which fills the country with the idea that neither men nor money are urgently needed because the war is fizzling to its finish is criminal. If the war-will-be-over-before-we-know-it bunkum were only heard on omnibus-tops it would be bad. enough, for I am sure a lot of Kitchener's stal-

warts come from those Olympian •jeights: yet I should shrug my shoulders and remember that one has no right to expect logic and perspicacity, ■is a rule, from the man or woman !n the street. He and she have been reading feverishly optimistic headlines in their favourite newspaper, and for ni.ont.hs have not seen a newspaper bill which has not had the Germans "retreating ignoininously hither and th.!t*:er and the Allies "gaining" irresistibly here, there, and everywhere. If bills'.instead of bullets could beat tne Germans, the Kaiser's forwarding address would have been St. Helena lonj, ago.

But it is not only in Omnibuslanfl that war-soon-over clapelap is talked. I hear it daily from men and women ■who can think and reason, as well as read. I hear it in the clubs, and in the restaurants where they charge, for ■'covers," and I hear it most vorclrer.•islv from able-bodied gentlemen w*u

•:-.s-o not exchanged spats for pattoes. V.'Vt is if I hear? They will tol* -<•>'•* tluit Germany lias" shut her bolt.** That sac has conquered nil of Franceand Russia and Belgium that she can conquer. That she has had to put boy«, cripples, and sexagenarians in uniforms. That she has abandoned all

hope of taking Paris. Warsaw, ar.c Calais. That she knows she is beaten

.That Krupps are short of copper and ; saltpetre, and Berlin is on r;ie brink ocat and dog rations. That the German people are seething with discontent and despair which tliey dare nt niter, am; hanker for peace at any price. That the Kaiser is a discredited and cllsI gruntled ruler of a muzzled and j baffled nation. That is collapse. (though shrewdly veiled, is in progress land that "starvation" will shortly i and decisively complete the wuj k which Ncuve Chapcllo began. Our G3,000,G00 roes. Now, I happen to know a bit about Germany: not everything, but a bit. I lived there the best part of a dozen "years. They were the years when Germania was finishing hr battle toilet and | crouching for the attack. She had been at the dressing-table for twenty-five to thirty years before that. Does any Briton who does not do his thinking tn has boots imagine that these toiling yens and decades of preparation fui war contemplated ''collapse" just be-

cause Goi many, after eight months of fighting and the loss of £1.000,000 e so of fighting-men, Juts only been able to conquer Belgium, the industrial provinces of France and most of Buskin? Poland? Do people in these unruffled is!-. know that storage of shot and shell nlithe other implements of man-killing is only a microscopic part of what Germany calls preparation for war? Do Englishmen realise that they are fighting not 4,000,000 or 5,000,000 uniformed, armed Germans, but 62,000,000 or 03,000,000 who neevr smelt gunpowder. Preparation? Viewed Teutonic ally, we here in Muddle and Meddleland don't know the meaning of the term. You are reading a good deal about "War Babies'' in England just now. Germany has been breeding war babies for half a crttury. If they are boy babies they grow into soldiers. If they are girl babies, they become motlierr of soldiers. Babies have always beer No. 1 in the long list of German preparations for war. That is the rea.-.-or: why Germany and Austria combine-* when the war broke out, are reliably reported to have had only 70.000 b\'„(rained soldiers than Russia, Fran*.. 'treat Britain. Belgium, and Servia cor.i'iTlH' a.

We laugh hereabouts at German tlior •ugliness and far sightcdness—haver ■ailed it over-organisation. In the orgy of efficiency in which Germany normally has its being, I used myself in ante bellum days to thank Heaven that 1 came from a clime where eosy-golm--while not exactly a venerated, was a tolerated virtue. It. needed the reC perpective of war to permit me to ser the real meaning of it all —to understand the actual goal in view. I know now why Germany foy vstance, has been laboriously card-'"-. forcing not only oil her own docile j>r«--

de. but every foreigner who arrive--? .fit):'') her eates before he had Iteev

there long enough to change r. colli;-. I kuow noAv why Germany for yea—has taken the trouble to keep track othe pedigrees and whereabouts of ever pig, bullock, sheep and horse, every waggon , motor car, van and lorry »n the eountry. I know now why the Gov

ummcut at Berlin was able :-l tiiij lime to figure, almost to a bushel, liott much wheat, rye barley, oats and con: was at the dspusal of the population or would bo at any given date in the future. .1 know now why the Imperial Government Bank for more than two years before last August-—for all Britain 1o read and ponder if it only would v policy of systematic "cnan eiul mobilisation'' which found C(i5,000.000 of gold reserve in its vaults tin' day Belgium was violated. It is nearly double that nmount —£115,000,-000-—now. Germany's Reserves. Genuany has had tragically heavy losses in the field; true. Her colonies are gone (which is a good thing- for nor and her merchant marine and export trade are done for; true. She can only replenish supplies of vital things like copper, cotton and petroleum with difti culty, if at all; true. People can only get bread on ration tickets; true. But you don't need to be a Senior Wrangler to figure out that an Empire which lias grovi n so fat and powerful as rapid ly as Germany has done in the lifetime of up all must have vast accumulated reserves which are only scratched X>y two-thirds of a year of war waged armost exclusively on The enemy's soil.

The trouble with the war is ending rabble is that they insist on thinking

about the war from England's not Ger inany's standpoint. 1 suppose it is fair to assume that if England, loose-jointed politically, militarily and economically had been called upon to put up the fight that Germany is putting up, she would be in a very much worse way than she is to-day. But it needs to be remembered and remembered again that Germany is not England. The Germans knew perfectly well that a great European war would terribly dislocate their economic machine, but.the machine wao built and gcarcd-up for dislocation.

The point I am trying to labour is that the machine, while creaking, *j still a colossal potent engine. Prophecy about war is a fool's prerogative, Tmr I honestly believe that the pruno-stica-tion that the war is toppling to its finish—to Germany 's finish —represents the last word in cruel self-deception and arrant nonsense. I cannot help thinking, if my knowledge of German vitality is worth tuppence, that Germany is only beginning to fight. She has had time to convert Belgium into a vast fortress. Supposing the Allies do begin really to push her out of it. Let us imagine her being shoved out of France, too. Bare we suppose that Germany, fighting on her own soil, with a dozen Titanic defences like Metz and the Rhine fortrcsses-to fall back on, is going to be crushed in six months? It is too grotesque for words. I read the German papers—every •lay. I am seeing neutrals who have just returned from Germany—every day. i would not believe the papers if what they soy were nor echoed, and echoed four- and live-fold, by unprejudiced people coming out of Germany. Ear from considering themselves boaten, the Germans are certain the Allies are beaten. Germany is not 'hard up." She is not going hungry. She is inconvenienced and she is frugal, more so than

you have said that, you have said 1 I all. Far outranking all these uncanny. stored shot and shell, the war nabictf, the trained legions, the tabulated livestock, the gold reserve —far above aiJ j these physic;!.] and material war assets ! —is the indomitable spirit of the GerI man people. It is that which the Allies j have to break before the war will be won.