WEARY OF WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 May 1917, Page 6

WEARY OF WAR.

,„ AN INSIDE VIEW. .- / SPIRITUAL EXHAUSTION OF fERMAN MASSES.

VIEWS OF AMERICAN CONSUL. f "Spiritual exhaustion of the musses is, in my judgment, the gravest problem before n fche German leaders to-day. Tliero is no doubt that the majority', of the reople is woefully fagged,, Then* patriotism has lost its fervour, its eagerness. The great body of tiie wage-earners sees no end of its privations and sufferings. Euin, decay, want, and sadness oppresses one on every hand. War had turned one of the happiest, busiest, brightest lands I know into a misery-drenched nightmare. The resulting exhaustion of spirit is a cancer gnawing at the strength of Germany's war machine. It sends its impulses from the ranks of the sufferin;; poor to drug the energies of the whole nation. Its progress can only be stopped by lightening t'j.> gruelling pressure that the working people have been called upon to bear." A. Curtis Roth, American Vice-Consui ut Plauen, Saxony, thus summed up to an American newspaper representative that which he holds to be the most important phase of Germany's situation. By reason of his wide acquaintance and long residence among the Germans, he has been a privileged observer since the beginning of the war. Counting his w'iends among all classes of the people, he has been freely admitted to share i heir sentiments, their hopes, their opinions. ~ . . ~.. '.. . - 4 I/, h ; „..

PEOPLE BECOMING REBELLIOUS. "Germans of all classes are utterly weary of war. The working people are becoming rebellious towards the conditions of the suffering. Once the present struggle is ended, in my opinion, it will be impossible to move the people to remember the horrors of the last two years to take up arms again. They will make short work of their war agitators the future, as long as the appalling memories of wholesale death and maiming, of ugly famin.-. of the dri " gery of tender women and children, and of the uncanny silences of factories stores remain with them.

"Germany went to war as though to a national picnic. An avalanche of laughing, joking, singing, flower bedecked troops poured through iny district for the Western front throughout the first eleven days of the war. ..uen fought to enlist, and flushed, strained faced women cheered each crowded train that thundered through the statim. There were flags, music, exultation. My friends said 'Good-bye till winter.' The war vas to be a short war, and was to make Germany's position secure once for all. "All this confident, exuberant spirit is* £one now. The change began when the wounded and the men on furlough brought back the news of the debacle on the Marne. The change, from enthusiasm to depression was accelerated by the. reports of unfavorable neutral opinion, by the startling casualty lists, and by the shutting down of numerous mills and factories dependent on export trade. The numbing monotony of a. growing hunger completed the change.

SULLEN RESIGNATION. Now the spirit of the people in general is one of weary resignation. The spirit of the laboring people, however, who have borne almost to th.s limits of their endurance, is becoming one of sullen protest. The home atmosphere reacts upon the soldiers back on furlough. In the beginning, they hurried eagerly from their homes to do their duty in the field. Now, they go with dread, with reluctance, -with foreboding. The faces in the ranks marching out to entrain to-day are downcast or expressionless. The wreaths around accoutrements are missing; the songs are .iiissing; the un< forms are frayed and patched. And beside these sombre columns, stream wrt eyed, fearful women' nnd children, choking over last farewells to soldier husbands, fathers, sons. It is not a.pretty Bight. "Ruin, misery, pWation stares one Out of countenance everywhere- in Saxnnv",- Even upon the spectator apart, the weighs ; like a, leaden thin* What makes this atmosphere? Streets,filled with' white-faced, holloweyed, brooding wonicn in black, witu piteous, hung'er-pinched poor, with sightless legless, armless, livid scarred war cripples, mirthless' silence where formerly all was life, deserted stores and roadbeds free of troinV, empty factories, drawn blinds, the dry .sobbing of the newly widowed, set faces, vacant faces. FEAR ECONOMIC CHAOS/H

"TCven the intensely patriotic well-to-do are filled with dread before an approaching financial chaos. I havo listened to many apprehensive discussions as to how the staggering war costs are to bo borne and the frightful economic wounds healed. To-day every semblance of a luxury remaining to the nation bears it* war tax. The tax polleetor is bringing into the coffers of the State'every pfennig that a bloodless land can spare. I believe the Government will be forced to take- up tiie war loarf without interest and that the people will themselves with the repaynionf\of the principal. War business is not a prdiitable business at least not so far as" Saxony is concerned. It has brought'' about a stagnation of industry, a marked diminishing of the land's income, an' accontunateil disequalisation of income, and the piling up of an enormous debt. building and construction work'has been at a complete standstill for more than a year. Even much of the necessary repair work is neglected. i>ar industries boom and ttirob, but the life-giving industries of peace are wasting. The* greatest business in my district to-day is that of charity, a ceaseless outpouring of pittances in vain endeavor to.stauncn an- ocean of miserable want that .threatens' 1 to overwhelm the land. ■•._

SOLDIER MATERIAL SCARCE."-, '•'Soldier material is becoming scarce. The young men arc gone. The married men "are gone. The fathers of families are gone. The physically fit men, who, at first, were passed by the military authorities on account of being needed in their civilian cmployinieiits, have, by now, practically all been replaced by wives, daughters, old men, and prisoners. The bureaux of city, country, and State government were slowly taken over by the women and the- male clerks; messengers and petty officials thus freed were hurried to the insatiate battle fronts. The police have Deeri replaced by old men. Boys and young girls clean the streets and collect the trash. Women drive the post wagons and the street cars. Russian prisoners repair 'He roads and farm the fields. 1 The man-

hood of Germany has but one task—thai of endless fighting and dying. "I am not imaginative and my nerves are good; but the continued living in the midst of this barren life of tears, of hunger and decay, almost drove me frantic. \

"I cannot imagine that life upon the firing line can be as trying as life anions the dumb, suffering, waiting, helpless people back home. To relieve the strain I spent a brief vacation in England at the end of 1015. There the air I breathed was different. The resolution of the people there was buoyant, hopeful, cheery. The contrast was one of black ■and white. It was soul healing." AIDED ENGLISH BUSINESS. Mr. Roth, on the occasion of his trip to England, received .'narked courtesy from the English oifoials, who had learned of several encriiciic actions he had taken in behalf of their countrymen in .Germany. He retained, after difficult negotiations, a lightening of the burdensome regulation." affecting the Englisv women in his district. He effected the release of a number of English boys under the age of 17, and, at the beginning of the war, it was due to his insistent representations that the English were not confined in a gaol, but in a hotel pending the preparation of the /internment camp ad Ruhlebon. "Every one in trouble came to the Consulate sooner or later," lie said. "There was a rush of young Germans to the office with their first American papers when the war broke out for passports. Of course, we could not help them. Among those who sought our help was the famous Russian 'cellist, Casini. He went through some bitter adventures trying to get out of Saxony at the beginning of Ce war. He and his priceless instrument are now waiting, disconsolately, unfeted and unbefriended, in Plauen for the ending of the war. "Germany's food stows will undoubtedly hold out until next harvest. It is astonishing with how little one can get along and exist. One gets weak and despondent, but bread, potatoes, turnip . salt, and occasional herring suffice to maintain life. The really problematical question is, Will the German spirit endure ?"