VEILED IN SILENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 January 1918, Page 7

VEILED IN SILENCE.

UXIIAI'PV IiKItMAXY DEATH, SICKNKSS, WANT, AND DKSI'AIR. The Central Powers have been for over three years in a state of siege, and every month the news that escapes from the beleaguered territories is less and less. The reason for tins is manifest. The German authorities have a v"ry leal dread lest the world should know how their internal strain is increasing. The belligerent countries on the Entente sido are freely open to inquiring neutrals; there U no dc.-,ire to hide their actual conditions; their press is free to speak o[ economic problems, and secrecy is only enforced of necessity, with regard to naval and military information. The Germans, on the other hand, have been compelled to veil the condition of their country from all curious eyes ; their press is gagged; their newspapers are frequently suppressed, and neutrals may not take any written matter out of the country. There is no possibility of mistaking the Herman motive; they iiave beeen forced to this isolation and darkness by the sheer fear of the truth. Germany is to-day terra-incognita, a land as secret, mysterious, and unhappy as some mid-African equatorial swamp. The who 0 land is veiled in silence, oppressed by a. cloud of brooding misery. Fear and famine, the gaunt twin spectre's, walk hand-in-hand among the holloweyed victims of militarist ambition. They are like the people of a city smitten with pestilence; a folk cut off barter and interchange and all connection with the outer world, a nation of outcasts segregated aloiie.

NEWS COMES SLOWLY THROUGH. Just as little trickles of water creep through the strongest dam, so, despite ali oppression of censorshin. all gags, and the ever-present menace of tlie machine-giins or imprisonment, news drfes percolate through to outside countries. Sometimes it is deserters who carry the tales, sometimes letters passed by food smugglers, sometimes an observant neutral, but slowly news comes through. One finds little anecdotes of apparently small importance in themselves which yet open up amazing vistas of thought. 'For instance ,at Dusseldorf there was a famine riot and the Jugendwehr was called out, fired on the people and killed some. The Jugendwehr is the organisation of German Boy Scouts, and it shows what a pass things have come to in that dreadful land when the very children are armed by the State to shoop down the citizens, possibly their relations, even perchance their mothers mingling in the crowd.

These events arc cross-checked by several letters captured in German trenches in which the soldier fathers writing home forbid their sons to have anything whatever to do with these boys' brigades. The German press is,, silent about these horrors, but it is evident that the serious news had reached the soldiers in the Flanders firing line. Then there are other points that occur in letters such as-. "Do not woriy about us, for we have learned that there is no escape from destiny. The lunatic asylums arc full to overflowing here. IJiscoijtent and despair have driven many mad, but it does npt help matters to run one's head against a wall. This terrible war, what bitter misery "it has brought us." Here again a few unguarded paragraphs in solid German medical papers bear out the substantial truth of the statement. Domestic details such as the following are of interest:—"The cheapest and shoddiest material costs 25 marks a metre, and a bit better quality double that price. Second-hand clothing can only b£ got through the Government Clothing Organisation, which means that it cannot be got at all. Shirting cost 3 10 marks a metre, and a shirt 20 marks or more. As for wool, stockings and darning wool oan no longer be had at all."

MISERY AND WANT. Sometimes one comes across a note of triumph; the clarion call of the food profiteer: "A few days ago X sold my fruit by auction; last year it brought 500 marks; this yea;r, though there is less of it, 4200 marks; a slight difference I" But the general tojje of those who have no food to sell is very dWerent. Thus: "At Leipzig there are only misery and want, empty .houses, no incomes, and rotten food. Hardly any butter or meat can bo had even at this time of year, and i! would be much better if we were all dead bo that there would be no misery. The .poor people all look pale and wretched, so does our brother, too; he is now always ill. v , , . Everyone longs for peace." From, over the frontier, in Holland, are .heard the same signs of famine and pestilence. "They (the Germans) are getting all sorts of a»\vful diseases, dysentery, 'Tuptions and ulcers from bad food, skin diseases from lack of soap. We have had to put up a quarantine barracks for German to prevent them carrying the infection to our country." Another frontier neighbor tells of a German who stood for half a dav offering 25 marks for a loaf of bread, and of the ever-increasing number of refugees who iljp over to escape the terror.

MORE SINISTER CONDITIONS. In the heart of Germany and throughout Austria even more sinister conditions prevail. One hears of "unrest" and executions, of riots, epidemics, and illnourished workers, dying at their tasks. Tales come through of how the authorities took away the church bells and the "voice of God was heard no more in the land." Black-edged mourning paper is commoner than any other kind. Death, sickness, despair form the material of most communications, and over all broods the oniinious silence which so many think is the calm before the storm of revolt. Despite the Iron censorship, one can read between the !iii"s that oven the German—the archtype of docile slave—i s wakening. The fourth war winter looms dreadfully near for these poor people. Winter is always an evil time for the poor, but the fourth war winter will be a memory that will brand itself for even on the most conservative German mind. There is no real reason to pity these folk, lint- it cannot ever be lorgotten that it was they who not only tolerated their evil system of Government, but ftpsired to impose it upon the world. The Allies have suffered, the whole world has suffered, but the Germans who brought the evil are suffering most. This is after all but a compensation—poetic justice, inevitable law—and. in any case, thev have r .the remedy in their' own bunds. Thev can force peace upon 1 heir Government. even if they cannot iinon their enemies. At the same time, t-lmujrh (lie German is verv I'uii'rry, verv dirtv, :nnl jverv miserable, he is not vet acfp-illv dving ofr v/nnt; he is snfTevvi2' enough to make him bitterly regret the day that W