CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 November 1916, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

GERMANY'S LAST MOBILISATION. If it can hardly be said that the war which lias reconciled -.democracies to dictatorships is infusing into German despotism the spirit of democracy, the pro mature summoning of the Reichstag, which has only just been prorogued, certainly does suggest, if we can accept it as a fact, that for once the Kaiser and his advisers are contemplating something in which they regard it. as desirable to secure the consent of the governed (remarks the Wellington Post). It is nothing less than the "mobHiring the entire civil population for a pigantic winter effort" that the German Government is said to have in view. If the Berliner Tagoblatt is correctly inspiral, children in arms and even boys and girls in their early teens will be exempted, but between the limits of sixteen years and sixty-five neither ago nor sex will be, spared. The. object of this so-called "general obligatory civilian service'-' will be military no less than economic, the raising of new armies and the filling of gaps in tlic present ones being a part of the programme. How much of this extraordinary proposal will actually be carried out remains to be seen, but there is every reason to believe that neither the Government nor the people of the Fatherland will stick at anything that is considered likely to avert the defeat of which they can no longer conceal from themselves the possibility. Tlic warnings to "war brides' not to ■live up work in the. factories in order to live 011 their husbands' separation allowances, the warning to ladies in more exalted stations not to allow false ideas of lank to prevent them from serving their country in the factories, and the intimation from the officer commanding at Munich that women who put pleasure first will be compelled to do their duty, indicate that the country is being prepared for the conscription of its women, The rest of Europe will be bankrupt before it can starve or scare the Centra! Powers into surcndcr. Their smashing defeat in the feld will alone secure that end, and meanwhile the provision of more men and more munitions, the husbanding . and development of every material and moral resource, and the discouragement of false hopes,.continue to. be paramount duties of Britain and he: Allies.