TIRPITZ'S GLOOMY OUTLOOK.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 February 1918, Page 6

TIRPITZ'S GLOOMY OUTLOOK.

FEARS OF AN ECONOMIC WAR. (London Times Correspondent). Amsterdam, Dee. 3. The fuller report of Admiral Tirpitz's Essen speech in the Hamburger Nachrichtcn contains an interesting passage which was not published elsewhere. Admiral Tirpitz said that Russia's collapse represented for England security for India land India's communication with Africa and the Suez Canal. After saying that Germany must recognise that England had wdn far more in this war than she had lost, he continued.— "Not only has England taken our colonies and Mesopotamia, but everywhere she has anchored deeper and firmer the bases of her maritime and colonial supremacy. She has, further, to-day abolished German competition in almost all parts of the earth, and tarnished and trodden down the prestige and honor of Germany by an unprecedented system of calumny and lies. In the whole transatlantic world we are considered conquered and done for." The Admiral painted a gloomy picture of Germany's future in the event of a successful economic war against her:— "Without the existence of that vigorous industry which, after the shutting in of Germany, we converted mainly into a war industry, we should long ago have lost this war. This kind of war industry, however, must, after peace, become' relatively small* while millions of our fellow-countrymen will stream back into Germany from the trenches without finding sufficient work there and, in any case, wages corresponding to the enormously increased prices of the necessaries of life. Imagine, if we simultaneously had to ibear the burden of taxation which must fall on every German, even the poor—for the greatest exaction from property would not he sufficient even remotely to meet it—and further, if, in spite of the fallen value of German money, we must still buy the most necessary raw materials and food supplies from abroad, notwithstanding all the political and other hindrances which the situation would produce for all! Can anyone in his heart of hearts believe that under these circumstances, without an increase of power, without an indemnity, without security, we could avoid Germany's ruin?"