AUSTRO-GERMANY.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 January 1917, Page 5

AUSTRO-GERMANY.

ECONOMIC CRISIS FEARED.

AN APPEAL TO THE NATION. TO KEEP UP ITS SPIRITS. Received Jan. 18, 12.35 l.m. London, Jan. 1< Tho. German Genera! Staff, evidently fearing an acute economic crisis, appeals to the nation to bear their internal diflicu'tic-s anil to curb discontent. It admits that internal conditions are bad, and that it is a wonder they arc not worse. Everything depends upon keeping up the national spirits, otherwise Germanism itself is endangered. The appeal recalls what their forefathers endured during the Napoleonic wars, and urges the nation to .show equal fortitude, and to abandon , complaints, grumbles, and suspicions anti-Semitic policy. A SCANDALOUS GERMAN ORDER. Received Jan. 17, '>■■> p.m. Amsterdam, Jan. 10. The German-Hebrew Defence Union publishes what it describes as a scandalous order, compelling the Jewish members of an Artillery Regiment, now employed as secretaries and orderlies, to go to the front immediately. The Union declares that the Prussian Army system of sending many Jews who are unfit for service into the front trenches is part of the anti-Semitic policy, and appeals to the Kaiser are fruitless.

BEER RESTRICTIONS !N BAVARIA. UNREST OVER POTATO RATION'S. Received Jan. 17, 5.5 p.m. London, Jan. lfi. The Daily Telegraph's Rotterdam correspondent states that beer stamps, issued to secure equal distribution, have been instituted in Bavaria. No beer is sold in Munich after 8 o'clock in the evening. The authorities are anxious about the popular unrest in the mining and industrial districts following the reduction of the potato ration to 31ba. SCHOOLBOYS TOR WAR IN IERMANY. Received Jan. 1", 5.5 p.m. Amsterdam, Jan. 10. The Kaiser has ordered General von Stein to organise all the boys in Germany, and to fit them for war service. Schoolboys are compelled to attend military drill daily, and to take part in long night marches. The order amounts to compulsory war athleticism. The" object of the training is ithat every German boy should be a soldier at the shortest possible notice.