CURRENT TOPICS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 18 December 1916, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

Some of the Swedish papers have been poking fun at British manufactures which are said to have taken the places of those formerly imported from Germany. English hooks and eyes are stated to be no good after being worn two or three days, and linen shirt buttons are claimed to doable up after a few days' use. We are sorry to disturb a piece of fiction which no doubt is very pleasing to the vumerous proGermans in Sweden, bur the truth is that English hooks and eyes and English shirt buttons have always enjoyed a world-wide reputation for being the best in the world —so much so, indeed, thai the German productions have usually failed to find any market to speak of in discerning quarters. Tli e bully is always a bully. Brutal in victory, threatening when opposed, fierce-looking when he would frighten. The cableiuan tells us that the Huns say they will ruin even the ruins of Belgium if the Belgians do not accept his peace terms, and that Britain is bullied to the extent of a threat of being raided by 400 airships, which will drop germ-laden bombs. The Germans are adepts at poison plots. Poisoned sheets and garlic infected with cholera germs were dropped in Constanza early in October last by German aeroplanes, and large stores of disease germs were found in the garden of the German Legation at Bucharest. Irrefutable evidence was adduced that Germany deliberately sought to infect prisoners with tuberculosis, and both in France and Africa she caused streams to be poisoned with arsenic. Early last month a plot was discovered which had for its object the introduction of foot and mouth disease into the herds in Canada. As to the threat to raid England —the Hun has attempted that times without number —and failed. * * * * It is well known that Sir Douglas Haig objects to the sendiiig-out of middle-aged men, or even those approaching middle age. He is never weary of pointing out that this is essentially a young man's war. What are wanted are young men of eighteen to twenty-five. From twenty-five, onwards the fighting value of the human unit falls just as much as it does in the case of the professional footballer. No one would think of recruiting a." crack football team from players much over twenty-five, and a great deal of the fighting on the Somme calls for the same qualities of endurance extended, not over eighty minutes but over many hours. Experience shows tliat increase of age is accompanied by increase of susceptibility to various trench complaints, such as rheumatism, lumbago and sciatica, and our object is not to fill the hospitals with rheumatic patients of thirty and forty, but to find stout and tough recruits for the firing line. * * * * An influential English journal says: Various amateurish definitions of what th e Allies' peace terms are likely to be have appeared from time to time, but they bear no relation to the facts. What are the real terms of peace which the Allies would be prepared to accept? Thev are. it is understood, as follows: .1. The withdrawal of the German forces from Allied territory before any discussion takes place At all. coupled with the retrocession of 'Alsace and Lorraine to France before conversations take place.

2. An indemnity of five hundred milliards of marks. This, of course, is twenty-five thousand million pounds. 3. Ton for ton of all shipping destroyed by German submarines.

4. The rehabilitation of the destroyed factories of Lille, Roubaix, and the various towns of Belgium.

5. A receivership on all German railways and mines until the final payment of the indemnity has been made.

b\ Retention by the Allies of cap tared colonies.

A large section of German public opinion is said to favour these terms rather than that there should be a continuance of the increasing slaughter on the Somme, the grim facts about which are gadually becoming known throughout Germauy.