WAR NOTES

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 31 May 1917, Page 2

WAR NOTES

"MAD FOR PEACE."

INTERNED GERMAN’S AMUSING

TALES OE ENGLAND

The Hague

The Berlin Lokal Auzeiger publishes an article from "Our London correspondent, C. H. Stielow, ’ ’ who , boasts of "having lived for the |ast few weeks in the very heart of England," dealing with the alleged English desire for peace.

According to Herr Stielow, the peace party in England is gaining immense power every day, in spite of the "terrorism" exercised by the Government and the "terrible power" of the lead* ing newspapers, which act on the Government’s orders.

The widespread enthusiasm elicited throughout the whole of the United Kingdom by the Kaiser’s peace offer was hushed up, he says, for if the English people are mad for an early peace, England’s leaders are terribly afraid of it. England, Herr, Stielow declares, is used to the parliamentary custom of using big words and high-sounding threats, but these quarrels always end in a cordial champagne dinner. There;fore the English believed that after the German peace offer had been turnand they were terribly disappointed when they found that Germany took cd down, ngotiations would continue, the Entente’s rejection of her offer "very earnestly.”

In the same article the “London correspondent ’ ’ warmly praises the Labour Leader and the "magnificent commonsense’-’ with which its leaders are writ} ton. He also say that much can be expected from the thousands of peace meetings organised by the Socialists. Such meetings, he declares, arc always undisturbed, although the newspapers invent wild stories about riotous protest scenes Herr Sticlow adds that the whole of the English people are not mad for peace. The working class and the fartinuo because they are making heaps mers demand that the war shall conof money, but even these people have already been influenced by the Labour Leader’s excellent peace propaganda.

(Herr Stielow, who was the correspondent of the Lokal Anzeiger in London for many years, was at liberty until January last, when he was interned. He was recently permitted to re turn to Germany.)

GERMAN INVENTIVENESS HOPELESSLY OUTCLASSED

It is worth noting that in the realm of mechanical inventions the Germans, as far as this war goes, are hopelessly outclassed by the Allies. Their one success, quantum voleat, is the submarine; and the finality of its success has yet to be determined. They are hopelessly beaten in air battle; they have found no reply to the British “ tanks; ’ ’ and the Zeppelin, on which German hopes were built with such confidence, has proved a complete failure. It is interesting on this point to quote Mr. H. G. Wells. In his latest book, he says that the German faith in the Zeppelin seems to him "evidence of some fundamental weakness in the German mind..” The “gas bag machine,” as he calls it, was universally condemned; but Germany went on with her preparations, pinning her faith placidly to a device certain to fail. "It was,” says Mr. Wells, ;1 a supremely siiiy business, the Zeppelin, ’ ’ he says, 1 ‘ is the most conclusive demonstration of the intellctual inferiority of the German to the Western European that it should ever have, happened. There was the cleaiest a priori case against the gas-bag. I remember the discussions, ten or twelve years ago in which it was established to the satisfaction of every reasonable man that no gas-bag was conceivable that could hope to fight and defeat aeroplanes; Nevertheless, the German clung to the idea of a great motherly, an almost, sow-like bag of wild above him. At. an enormous waste of reSouiccs, Germany has produced these futile monsters, that drift In the darkness over England promiscuously dropping bombs on. fields and houses. They Pro now meeting the fate that was demonstrably certain ten years ago. ’ If they found us unready for them it was nicie]y that we were unable to imagine so idiotic an enterprise would ever bo seriously entertained and persisted in. We did not believe in the probability of Zeppelin raids any more than we believed that Germany would force the world into war. It was a thing too silly to be believed. But they came — to their certain fate. In the month after I returned from France and Italy, no loss Ihan four of these fatuities were exploded and destroyed within thirty miles of my Kssex homo.