The Daily News. MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 1917. FACTS THAT GERMANS SHOULD KNOW.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 August 1917, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 1917. FACTS THAT GERMANS SHOULD KNOW.

Wlien considering the attitude of the German people in connection witli tbe war, most people arc .apt to lose sight of the conditions which exist in that country regarding the difficulty of ascertaining true facta as distinct from official distortions and misrepresentations. It is excusable to speculate as to what would take place in Germany if tin- press had the same liberty as in fSritain and the Empire, where not only is the truth laid bare, but fearless criticism of Ministers and war officials is constant and thorough. Therein is to be found the vast difference between a tyrannous autocracy and a 'ree democracy, and that is why 110 peace can be made until Germany is democratised. Do tlio mass of the German people, especially those under arms, know who began tho war, how it was engineered and what was the object? We have only to bear in mind tho mendacious pronouncements made on this subject by tlie Kaiser ami his underlings who have !>y dint of fervid reiteration made the people believe—or persistently attempted to do ro—that the war vti forced

on Germany and that the nation (not the militarists) is fighting ior its existence, and the fettered press has had to press home this deliberate untruth, while even tho clergy have bceii pressed into the same torrv service. In Germany tlie people :irc mere pawns in the game which their taskmasters—the military clique—are playing, to he moved or removed at will and to be led like sheep to the slaughter. It is hardly likely, however, that even the dazzling constellations of the house of Ilohenzollcni ca.ll retain their brilliance much longer in the face of the mighty smoke of the Allied artillery, and the dwindling lustre of these stars may in due time permit of truth being revealed so that the people may discover there has been no conspiracy on the part of the Allies to deliver a stab in the dark at an unprepared, peace-loving, and peace pursuing Germany as depicted with such vividness by the Kaiser. We agree with a writer in a southern contemporary thai "in these dark days, 'with the sword of doom threatening to fall on them, the Potsdam gang of royal and militant conspirators, should strive desperately to modify, if not wholly to avert, the force of the blow that aviaits them," is understandable. What must be the feelings of these arch-priests of frightfulness when the memory of the many horrors, outrages and inhumanities, committed in tlie name of war is revived once more in all their hideous barbarism? Some idea may be gathered from an incident related in a German paper last year in connection with the Soiume fighting. Before a hillock which covered the bodies of Germans soldiers the Kaiaer halted, looked around, then cried in & loud voice: "I call God to witness— I swear it —I have not wished that!" Observe how cunningly the autocrat selected his words. He had not "wished that," but he had willed "that," and it had been done, though when face to face with the gruesome result of his recklessness and crime his accusing conscience, seared with usage, revolted against the horror. The German people have been made to believe that Britain could have prevented the war and would not because of her design to crush the German nation. What they cannot surely know or realise is that the terms upon which Britain could have kept out of the war were so infamous that never again would she have been worthy of a place in the council of nations and that she herself and the Empire would have courted the fate of Belgium, Serbia nnd France had she not acted as she did. No other course was thinkable. Germany's aim in 1914 was vastly different from wlmt it is in 1917, but the same ambition remains—"Germany over all." In the former year her armed millions wore ready for what was expected to be a victorious campaign in which they were to be invincible. It was on the army that Germany's whole fabric of future greatness and dominance was built. To-day she is reduced to placing her hopes of escape from the doom she knows is awaiting her, by trusting to submarines. It was by this means Britain was to be starved into submission by July 1917.. and on that assertion the people were appealed to for war funds. Still tlie deception iactics are fully employed. According to the blatant ravings of the conservative von Heydebrand in June last the British attack at Messines was their last effort, for their last hour had come owing to the successful starvation work of the submarines. As a set off to this the Cologne Gazette made this sensational statement: "Our wholesale indiscriminate submarine campaign against the world's ships is not starving England, but, on the contrary, i 3 helping to starve Germany." That is exactly the position, but it can hardly be expected the German people will be allowed to grasp this truth. Germany blockaded /herself by going to war and cut olf her food supplies, and she turns her children's food into nitro-glycerine. For these and all other ills which tlio! German people have now to bear Britain ' is blamed, cursed, and hated, but" the day of disillusionment must dawn sooner or later and on that day democracy will triumph over tlie downfall of a military autocracy that has crumbled into ashes.