CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 April 1917, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

EFFECT OF AMERICAN ENTRY.

Writing on America's attitude to the war just after the breach of diplomatic relations, Mr. T. P. O'Connor said:—"l have never lost the hope that before this war was over we might see. every free nation in the world joining in the hunt pf the mad dog. Apart from the effects of America's action on neutral countries I look with confidence to its effect on the German people themselves. Be it ■remembered that there is not even a small village in Germany which is without relatives and • correspondents in some parts of the United States. The. association between Germany and America is accordingly intimate and continuous, practically daily through letter and newspaper and relative. After all with all their insane self-conceit, the Germans are an intelligent and educated people, and assuredly it must have some effect on their 'belief in either the justice of their cause or the chances of their armies to find that the greatest of neutral countries, in spite of the millions of their blood among its citizens, has come out decisively against, them. I look to this declaration of America as being to the allies of as much worth as the winning of several big battles, Next to the pressure of famine, it. is the most demoralising factor yet brought against the staying power of Germany in this years fighting.

I find there is (speculation on the part which America may play in the conference that must follow the war. With obstinate optimism Germany may look to the entrance of America into that conference as likely to bring advantage to Germany. II is palpably the most delusive of hopes. What can then; be in common between the brutul arrogance of German autocracy and German militarism and the pure democracy with all its democratic ideals, of buc!i a country as the United States?" THE TURK UNFIT TO RULE.

Writing on the future of Constantinople, Sir William Ramsay says: "In regard to the Turkish people ami their fate, I write as one who has known thousands of them in the course of the last 35 years, and is on very friendly terme with many. I am indebted to .t'hem for much kindness. 1 have eaten the bread and salt of very many individuals and villages, arid there are few, if any, even among ,the Turks themselves, whose face used to be so familiar or so welcome in hundreds of Turkish villages as mine. I claim to speak on behalf of the people of Turkey, both when I have denounced the Armenian massacres and now when I maintain that Turkish domination on the great international waterway which ie coin : nianded by Constantinople is an outrage that ought to lie ended. Every plan for improving Turkish administration has' failed, and the conclusion must be drawn. The streets of Stambouh must be swept clear of blood. The. Young Turks swept them clear of filth and of fiogs). but th'j stain of innocent blood shed throughout the Empire is deeper than ever at the centre of government. No true friend of the Turks would keep them where they have to perform a grave international duty. It is a work for which they are not suited No one who knows and loves their good qualities from intimate knowledge can be Ignorant of the faults which unlit them to rule fft Constantinople They cannot use, but only misuse, the resources of civilisation Anything may happen in Turkey except what is reasonable and natural and possible, and ttie results are often comic, ! but sometimes tragic. Moreover, the people who suffer most from the governing class have been the Turks themselves, This sounds a paradox, but it is the plain truth,"