The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17, 1916. THE ABSORBING QUESTION.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 17 January 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17, 1916. THE ABSORBING QUESTION.

(With which is incorporated The Taihapc Post and Waimarino News).

A leader in the highest political position in Berlin has made a remarkable statement to Mr. W. B. Hale, and more remarkable still the Hun censor-in-chief allowed the statement to be cabled to the New York American. This great German statesman asks of Mr. Hale this question, “What is It the war-weary world wants, is it peace

with recrimination now, or a possible peace many years later with Germany crushed? The league of ten is momentarily triumphant, and Europe s political map will be a chess board for their complicated ambitions and sanguinary struggles during a hundred years to come.” The newspaper commenting on this statement says, “The fact that the censor passed this report is an admission of the crushing of Germany, and is an open indication of the despair of the Kaiser’s statesmen, that Germany is on the threshold of defeat, and must have a quick peace to prevent a debacle.” This cannot mean that Germany is going to suffer collapse from military action, but rather from what was suggested in these columns yesterday, that is, from a rising of the masses against the process of slow death by starvation. It is often asked, Is this story of want in Germany true? There can be no question about its truth to the person who reads, but it is only such messages from Mr. Hale that indicate its real intensity. Mr. H. G. Wells, in his book, “What is Coming,” has stated a view that is being reprinted in almost every newspaper v/ith any world prestige. He says: “After a long war of general exhaustion Germany will be the first to realise defeat. This does not mean that she will surrender unconditionally, but that she will be reduced to bargaining to see how much she must surrender, and what she may hold.” He thinks she will be deserted by Bulgaria, and that Turkey will be out of the fighting before the end. In the character of the settlement much will turn upon the relations between Germany and her present rulers. Mr. Wells asserts that all Europe outside Germany now hates and dreads the Hohcnzollerns. No treaty of peace can end that hate, and so long as Germany sees fit to iden tify herself with Hohcnuollern dreams of Empire and a warfare of massacre and assassination, there must be war henceforth against Germany. All the Allies need do, Mr. Wells thinks, is to plan laws and tariffs against German shipping, shei holders and immigrants for so lorg ns -ha German peo-

pie remain servants of that system. It is evident from reports now coming to hand that Mr. Wells has remarkable powers of prescience, or that he was possessed of information in which the world generally had no share. Whole articles appearing in the leading German newspapers cannot be quoted here, but it is certain, as may be gathered from the query propounded to Mr. Hale by the leading German statesman. Germany can no longer conceal the truth about the terrible conditions that prevail among the masses of her people. Our enemies have commenced shedding each other’s blood in the frequent clamours that are being made for food. Mr. Well’s prophecy about Bulgaria’s secession, and Turkey’s falling out are showing unmistakable signs of coming true. The reliable American journals are accusing Germany of hiding the facts to a positively cruel and inhuman degree. The New York Times asks Germany why she does not throw off the mask and save her people from further suffering. Germany is bankrupt, says this journal, and her people are starving without hope of improvement, but with every indication that conditions will rapidly become irreparably desperate. In urging Germans to waste nothing, the Berliner Tageblatt plainly states that the supply of wheat is only sufficient to give everyone about three pounds of bread per week; there are next to no potatoes; the wheat and potato harvests were partial failures, and in other articles of food the case is much worse. This was written last July; how much more accentuated must the shortage be now, and how very terrible must it become between the present and the ripening of the next harvest? The Hoheuzollern Wax’Party is assailed from within just as seriously, if not more so, than from without, and it now seems apparent victory is coming as much, or more from the work of the British Navy as from Allied land forces. In other words, Mr. Wells’ prophecy respecting victory from exhaustion has every appeai’ance of coming true. The feeding of the people ,the great food expei'ts of Germany have admitted, is the greatest task that lies before the nation. Without food comes' from somewhere Germany xnust succumb. To use the words of the New York American; “The Kaiser’s statesmen are in despair; Germany is on the threshold of defeat, and must have a quick peace to prevent a debacle.’’ Lloyd Geox-ge intexxds applying measures with all the force that Britain and her allies can exert to make that debacle as extreme and as complete as possible. The Allies must go on accumulating force, for by some chance Germany may yet acquire food from some quarter not yet apparent, which would enable her to prolong the struggle, but in no part of the world, not even in Germany, is victory for the Allies doubted.