INTERESTING NEWS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 263, 26 July 1915, Page 2

INTERESTING NEWS.

GERMANY’S ECONOMIC PLIGHT

A Hamburg merchant nas given to a Copenhagen journalist a picture o£ life in Hamburg. He said, “Economic life is turned. All the factories are at a standstill. Magatme and shot mills are not working, and all docks and quays ar e empty. W e are in need of everything.’’ hhe merchant was asked about the dearth of copper, and said: “if it were only copper we wer e in need of, it -would be all right. But we want aluminium, which w e are now paying 530 marks for, as agamst the usual price of 160 marks. We want antimony, for -which w e are now paying 220 marks as against 45 marks. Nickel, which usually costs 135, now costs 620 marks, and tve are also in need of nitrates, petrol, wool, and, abov e all, grain. If the war lasts some time longer, I do not dare to . think about th e future. We can hit England by torpedoing, and we can hit her h/.'i’d, hut unfortunately, does not fill our stores. But we have sufficient to last us for three or four months, and we hope that that will be enough time for bringing final victory to our arms and breaking the iron ring which is squeezing us.”

MAKING THE MONEY FLY. It is too much, perhaps, to hope that any war could be conducted without wasteful extravagance,. but the ways of some of the British Government Departments are Just about the limit. A London man, who has had some experience of Government contracts, tells how his company recently had a vessel taken over by the Government at £2OO a day for hire. It lay idl e for three weeks after the contract was signed, then the interior was gutted and rebuilt for troops’ accommodation, and when all that had been don e it was discovered that the vessel was unsuitable. By that time it had cost the nation £30,000- Another company had a couple of old slips, no longer in commission, and cf so little consequence that they did not even appear ~ in the company’s balance--heet. The Government bought them to use as harbour barrage, and the price paid for them was actually more than the original cost. But the record transaction concerns a very famous liner which was taken over at the beginning of the ivar. Men w r ere set to work ■with pick-axes and crovr-bars to hew out her magnificent fittings,and after the job had been done with commendable thoroughness it was discovered that th e vessel was too big, and she was returned ,to the owners. It is going to cost the nation about £250,000 to repair the damage, and ther e is a colossal hire bill to meet in addition.

DEAL GENTLY WITH THE HUNS. We are a strange people (writes Mr Robt Blatchford). We hav e decided to use §om e form of asphyxiating gas. But we ar e not going to use a nasty savage deadly gas like that used by the Germans. We could not do anything so cruel. W e must make war “most politely, most politely.” The Huns us e a gas which kills our men, kills them by a cruel death of torture. And we reply by a gas which sends them to sleep, but does not hurt them, does not kill them. Why? If they kill our men ,why should we hesitate to kill theirs? Why not go one worse ’and kill more, Hav e we not learnt to understand th e Germans yet? We shall hav e to use poison gas before we hav e done with the Huns. And worse things. But we are so kind!

BRITISH V. GERMAN METHODS. An illustration of th e recent- methods adopted by th e British Empire and the enemy in waging warfare is provided in a return issued the toher day, which shows that 1252 members of crews of lost German warships have been rescued by British warships engaged, while German waft ships! had not rescued a single man belonging to British warships in similar circumstances,' although since th e -return! was compiled 6, officers and 76 men of His Majesty’s torpedo-boat destroyer Maori and 1 officer and 12 men from the Crusader, rowing in their own boats, had been mad P pirsoners by th e Germans. The largest- rescues were in connection.. with the sinking of the licht cruiser Main,7 in th e first month of the war, when 353 Germans were nicked up, and of the B.lucher in January, when 283 were saved. In the Falkland Islands fight, 222 men were rescued, but a few subsequently died. The list includes only rescues made by the British warshins no-aged.