The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 1917. THE BLOCKADE OF GERMANY.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 30 March 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 1917. THE BLOCKADE OF GERMANY.

("With wliich is incorporated The Taihapo Post and Wairuarino News).

We now have it on the statement of Lord Robert Cecil that the blockade of Germany is really effective, as thorough as we can hope to have it, and as a consequence there is severe want of food and war material that must operate to Germany's disadvantage and bring the end of the war nearer. There has been whole-souled national denial, for a long time, even those passing as tolerably rich were content to wear wooden shoes, and suffer other and far worse inconveniences and privations that the nation might emerge victorious from the war. B'erlin newspapers that befor e the war were redolent with quips and sneers at those peoples who wore wooden shoes, are now fairly well filled with | advertisements setting out the virtues and advantages of the erstwhile despised sabot. In articles, newspapers I describe the regulation wooden shoe, with twin buckles. In fact the houseI llcl(1 °f Germany has undergone quite a revolution; just how the housewife manages to get along without very much of her former equipment is hard to say, but they have found that they cannot keep life in their bodies while the cupboard is kept empty by the

British blockade. Now we know that I the frequent reports of food riots in Germany are quite true and that there is no misstatement as to the extreme nature of the sufferings brought upon the people by the military excrescence they hav e allowed to develop on the national back. The blockading of Germany has been a very difficult task, owing to the attitude of neutrals, an atitude caused as much from fear as the desire for gain. Had Holland in the time of her plenty refused to sell food, or had drastically stopped German firms in Holland from pursuing their usual businesses, that country would have earned the displeasure of the All Highest, and would very likely have been subjected to similar treatment to that which Belgium and. Roumania have suffered from. Now that the All Highest is not quite so high and mighty; now that the Allies have put his glorious armies on the defensive on all fronts, and got them running for their lives out of France, where decision is prophesied, Holland and other neutrals have grown correspondingly bolder, and this growing courage has been given a great fillip by the fizzling out of schemes of Russian traitors and Hun intriguers at .Petrograd. When the war broke out, the name of Russia's capital city Petersburg, was too Teutonic, so they changed it to Petrograd. Had the traitors in high places succeeded, it would, presumably, have gone back to the old German name. Neutrals are, from whatever cause, selling the greater part of their products to Britain, and German sufferings are extending right into their first lines of trenches. The supermen of Germany caDnot fight without food any more than the ordinary brand of mankind can, and they are running, pursued and harassed by those they would have enslaved. Oversea importations have entirely stopped, and the neutral difficulty had been largely overcome, said Lord Robert Cecil, and went on to show the steadily increasing diversion of neutrals' farm pro-

ducts from Germany to Britain. He emphatically asserted that Denmark had honestly done her best to stop food and war material going to Germany; but getting nearer the point, Lord Robert said, he would be deceiving the country if .he did not say there was the "greatest shortage of food In Germany resulting from the blockade; also of wool, cotton, lubricants, and other war necessities. He was not inclined to doubt the repeated, wellauthenticated reports of food riots in Germany. Russian wheat that German intriguers had their robber eyes upon is now teeming into Russian cities to feed the people and armies of Russia, and to such an extent is this the case that bread in Russian towns is at prewar prices again. Germany's last hope of food- supplies has gone with the failure of her spying schemes, and the discovery and imprisonment of traitors to Russia. Russia had to choose between the bureaucracy of Germany and the democracy of Britain, and' her choice was fatal to Czardom and the coterie of Germans at th e Russian court. What Germany will do in this extremity is not easy to, see, ..but. to continue the war her people and armies must .have food. She must also take some other steps to avert quick defeat on the Western front. It is possible the closing of the waters at Wilhelmshaven has some significance in this connection. It may be that the Navy is to make an effort in full force to take possession of the English'Channel, cutting Britain's communications with France, but that is only conjecture. It is true, however, that Germany must have food to enable her to continue the war.