SIDELIGHTS ON THE WAR.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 160, 10 July 1916, Page 3

SIDELIGHTS ON THE WAR.

. A CAUSE OF THE WAR. One of the great causes of the war was the world’s failure to recognise human communion. Such is the opinion expressed by Mr. Laurence Housman to ' an interviewer. “But,” continued the author 'of “An Englishwoman’s Love Letters, ” “we are now discovering human communion. ’ ’ An intense humanism is taking possession of us more and more as the world progrcscs, and humanism is the most spiritual liing in the universe. The war is bringing to our life, and therefore inevitably to our literature, the spirituality which is our greatest need. “I don’t suppose,” he said, “that such a catastrophe as the war was necessary to awaken the spirituality of the world. Contact with any tremendous actuality always hasi that effect. But the war has brought about this spiritual awakening. And in literature one of its most conspicuous manifestations is the new enthusiasm for poetry. More and better poetry is being written, and more poetry is being read and appreciated in England to-day than has been the case for many years. The war lute made young men read and enjoy poetry who before had absolutely ho use for it.” “A SCRAP OP PAPER.” One of the Gallipoli warriors, who is just back in England, states that the following tale was a favourite one with the lads out there: A certain Tommy suddenly developed something like a mania for picking up loose scraps of caper. Wherever he was, in the reaches or/ out of them, he spent most f his time looking for any stray bits ,f paper and gathering them up. This ocih became a nuisance, but drastic i-.lers to refrain and long terms of .C.B. like failed to cure him. He went on hiking up bits of paper. Finally, in iesperation, they sent him to France, kinking a change of scene might elect a cure, but arrived there his mania :or gathering up paper fragments got ‘,verse instead of better. Finally he •vas removed to the base, where he coninued his “paper chase.” At last, giving him up as a hopeless case, they sent him to London for examination as co the soundness of his mind. A board iat on him They decided that he was dotty, and should be invalided but of the army. They gave him his discharge written on a neat piece of paper. The soldier surveyed this with gratification. “Aha!” said ho, “This is the bit of paper I have been looking for! ” GERMANS IN LORRAINE! i ‘ In a little pamphlet by Maurice Barres, an eloquent member of- the French Academy, is given a pathetic revelation of the courage and endurance displayed by those who have suffered under the bestial brutality of the Germans in the invaded districts of Franco. Mr. Barres, who has revisited familiar scenes in Lorraine since it has passed under this tornado, records many touching , incidents which reveal the unshakeable and patriotic spirit of the people. He ,tells of one

village, where the Germans killed the parish priest because one of the staff maps had been found in his house, and dragged to the place of execution two old people, one a woman, who had dared to interpose. They were made to kneel down side by side, and the priest sang “Libera nos Domino,’'' as

the rifles were loading. Then he was shot, and the other two sent back. The details of the savage cruelty and stupid ,vandalism are so numerous,” declares the Minister of Justice, speaking of another village, “that it would be impossible to enumerate them—arson, deliberate and senseless, the inhabitants thrown into the flames: a Bardic vengeance wrecked on the innocent and all helpless creatures.” and to any remonstrance agar ns t such outrage, the. German officers in command would reply, “What can you expect; this is war.” Yet those who suffered were steadfast throughout all their troubles. Thus, as it. Banes says, was the soul of 1 ranee revealed.

“ War has revolutionised us. There may be shirkers, slackers, and strikers, but the masses of our wage-earning people are as loyal* and self-sacrificing as any in the land.” —The Bishop of Liverpool.

As the German Bed Cross Society has definitely refused to express regret for the torpedoing of the Russian hospital ship Portugal, the Russian Red Cross has recalled its delegates from the International Commission on War Prisoners at Stockholm. A Belgian was recently taken with a heart seizure in a tram car. A German army doctor sat in solitary state in the first-class section of flu car. The conductor drew his attention to the case. “It’s no business or mine,” was the reply; and the sick man died. A painful story comes from Switzerland of the timidity or pro-Germanism of the Bai? police. To escape service in the German army a young French Alsatian from Mulhousc named Lallemand, escaped across the Swiss frontier, but the Swiss Federal law permits the police to conduct refugees to the frontier of Switzerland: —though, apparently* it- does not specify any particular frontier —presumably that they may not become a public charge. But the delivery of them to the police of their own country was expressly forbidden in 1894 by the Federal Government. liven the extradition of alleged criminals is only granted by it on the condition that they shall not be punished for military default or desertion. However, the Bale authorities saved themselves trouble. ..by; taking LaJk* mand to the Alsatian border, where there are plenty of German patrols to deliver him to certain death.