The Daily News. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1913. GERMANY HARD PRESSED.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 December 1915, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1913. GERMANY HARD PRESSED.

Yesterday's cable messages- contained a wireless communication from Germany in which it was stated that the peace debate would probably disclose "that our enemies are still blindly believing in the starvation of Germany—and other illusions." By the irony of fate a later message, from Berne, which appears in this issue, reports that a demonstration of Berlin workers, in consequence of the scarcity of food, was broken by the military, the soldiers tiring on the crowd, with the result that two hundred are reported to have been killed and hundreds wounded, This cannot be set down as an illusion of Germany's enemies for the news comes from an independent source and bears impress of truth. Intermittently there have been reports of the state of affairs existing in Berlin in relation to the scarcity of food and the desperate efforts of the masses to obtain a share of the scanty rations available. The rigid eensorsltip over German news renders it next to impossible for the truth to creep out, and it is only from extraneous sources that the existing conditions of life and the .struggle of the people to keep body and soul together come to light. For months past the food problem in Germany, so far as the poorer classes are concerned, has been growing more and more acute, and now that the blockade in the Baltic has practically closed up Germany's last avenue for imports the pressure is becoming more intense. It is only natural that the usual policy of German bluff should be in evidence, but the fact that matters have reached such a stage as to produce food riots necessitating the slaughter of the unfortunates who have been driven to desperation by the pangs of hunger marks a stage tliat indicates the "inability of Germany to carry on the war for any great length of time. A further insight into the waning strength of the enemy is afforded by the fact that the famous bronze statues in the Franciscan Church at Innsbruck are to be melted down for cannon. Germany must, indeed, be in desperate straits for war metal when these twenty-four historical stat\te9, which are supposed to represent the progenitors of the Hapsburg family, have to be cast into the melting pot for conversion into artillery. It will be interesting to> know how Austria views this desecration and destruction, but

that is a matter which is not likely to be made public. Moreover, Austria is also feeling the economic pressure worse than her ally, so that the plea of necessity will hold good with her. As a matter of fact, the German high authorities have not a particle of sentiment. They would call on a son to shoot lii= father and he would have to obey or be shot himself, and the greater the pressure of circumstances the more ruthlessly cruel and barbaric are their actions. The people may starve and cherished monuments may be reduced to molten metal, but the war must go on. It is interesting to note that the (London) Daily Telegraph, commenting on the German wireless message regarding peace, sees an indication that Germany feels that if any bargain is to be made on the strength of her successes over the whole line, it must be done before those successes begin to be reversed. If, however, German successes are analysed, what do they amount to? Here trifles. Towards the accomplishment of her original plans not a single success has been achieved, but if devastation, tortures, and abominable cruelties count, then her tally is heavy. Well may she intrigue for peaee, for she is feeling that the strain is growing intolerable, and she knows that the strength of the Allies has been growing month by month. Now that the winter is upon them the Germans will feel its relentless grip, especially as they know that in the spring they will have to face the full force of that strength that their foes have been building up. For this reason, if for no other, every available man in the British and Russian Empires, as well as in France, Belgium, Italy and other allied countries should be in the firing line, and then the bombastic Teutons will know what it is to make war on the world and have to face the day of reckoning.