GERMANY’S REAL CONDITIONS.

Taihape Daily Times, 5 March 1918, Page 6

GERMANY’S REAL CONDITIONS.

DETERMINATION REVIVED BY VICTORIES. Paris, Feb. 28. Mr. G. H. Holman, of Fort Wayne, Indiana, who has just arrived in Paris from Germany, declares in an interview in the Paris New York Herald, that, although Germany is suffering untold hardships as the result of the Allied blockade, “all classes and creeds, permeated by the idea, carefully nurtured by the Prussian military clique, that their various existence is at stake, are still willing to endure further privations and misery.” Mr. Holman has had three years’ first-hand knowledge of wartime Germany. Before America’s entry into the war he travelled throughout the Kaiser’s empire and visited Bulgaria, Austria Hungary and Turkey. He was received by the Sultan in Constantinople and was allowed to chat with General Townshend, who, he says, lives in a spacious villa just outside Constantinople, and is in excellent health and spirits. : “After my experience in Germany” declares Mr. Holman, “I should say that France has not yet begun to feel the pinch of war as far as foodstuffs are concerned. The British sea blockade has Germany by the throat. The country daily plunges deeper into the mire of despair. Everywhere you go it has the same story—wan, want, want.” Quesioned regarding the growth of revolutionary feeling, Mr. Holman observed that the recent Italian victories and Russian armistice negotiations have checked the spread of this propaganda for the time being. The spirit of rebellion is smouldering, but even should this winter prove as trying as the last one he does not expect to see any outbreaks with, which the German Government will be powerless to cope for a long time to come.