SUSTAINING THE GERMANS.

Taihape Daily Times, 11 April 1918, Page 7

SUSTAINING THE GERMANS.

The following Incident was circulated by the wireless stations of the German Government early in February:—"During the whole of January the strikes in England have led to numerous riots and scenes in the streets. Hardly a day passed during .this month without the crowd coming 'into conflict with the police in English towns. Concerning one of these ! riots, which took place in London on January 17, and which is" typical of jthe state of affairs in England, our Amsterdam correspondent gives tne following details:—On January 17, at 3 p.m., there was a conflict between ithe police and the crowd, in which the police had the worst of it, anfi were put to flight. Then a detachment of Scotch recruits who were in barracks at Sheper Bush (Shepherd's Bush?) were summoned to their assistance. When they reached Oxford Street, where the principal fighting between the crowd and the police took place, and the soldiers were ori dered to fire, the majority of them recused, and about eighty men were arrested and taken to the prison at the Old Bailey. At Selfridge's great shop 1 in Oxford Street all the windows were broken in the riot. .In the evening there were other tumults near ThreaCneedle Street." "After all," says the London Times, in commenting on the report, "the fabrication and the issue of a fiction so grotesque serve a useful purpose. They give a measure of German mendacity and of the straits to which the German authorities must be reduced for sustaining public opinion. Only dire necessity at home could lead them to put about, lies so gross and palpable as these."