ADVANCED POSTS OF KULTUR.

Taihape Daily Times, 12 March 1918, Page 7

ADVANCED POSTS OF KULTUR.

In view of the British advance, the German Press shows great solicitude the German colonics in Palestine, "those advanced posts of German Kultur in the Middle East," as the , Hamburg "Frerndenblatt" calls them. It seems there are about 4000 settlers, the descendants of Swabian peasants who left Wurtemburg in search of freedom and wealth. The papers speak of these "pattern" settlers at Saron a and near Jaffa, Gaza, and Beirut, alluding to their affluent condition, their industry, and the excellent example they afford to the surrounding native population. We hear about the orange and olive groves they have planted, and of their magnificent vineyards and tobacco fields. Their schools are the finest in the land, and had they been left in peace they -would have multiplied and established "a solid and abiding centre of German influence and power at a spot of the greatest importance on the route of German progress eastwards." But, as the "Frerndenblatt" says, "the further march of the British will put an end to all these hopes. These flourishing settlements will be destroyed, left to the mercy of our implacable foe, aud the fair German gardens will Jbe turned into wilderness. The thous(l ands of true German men, women, and children,, who through all their vicissitudes of fortune have remained faithful subjects of their German btote, will be interned or got rid of in some ruthless fashion. It is indeed with the gravest anxiety that we i await the fate of those German pioneers at the hands of the advancing British forces. If worse does not befall them they will certainly be driven from house and home at the most critical time of the agricultural y ear. We also await anxiously word of the welfare of the numerous German colonies of artisans and traders in Jerusalem, and of the members of our religious and charitable institutions there." Of course the "Frerndenblatt" and other papers who write in this absurd state of panic know perfectly well that no evil will befall these German colonists. It suits this class of paper, however, to represent the British forces as Turks or Huns, as ruthless and unprincipled as the torturers of Belgium and as savage as the murder ers of 'Armenians