UNITED STATES.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 February 1918, Page 5

UNITED STATES.

INCREASING FORCES FOR ■;;.:- FRANCE. -■-.- GOVERNMENT CONSIDERING QUESTION WHEAT BREAD ALLOWANCE. Received Feb. (i, 5.5 p.m. Washington, Feb. ">. The Government is considering increasing the forces in France by training and equipping troops at an English campThe food administration has limited wheat bread for hotel and restaurant ■neals to a two ounce ration, the same as in England. GERMAN PROPAGANDA. THE BEST WAY TO TREAT IT. New York, Feb. !i. Lord Northcliffe, interviewed by the Wall Street Journal's London correspondent- said: "It is obvious that the. simplest way to delay America's war preparations is for the' Germans to suggest that peace is imminent, and that preparations are therefore unnecessary. We pay no attention to such German propaganda." THE LABOR QUESTION. Washington, Feb. 5. The United States and Canada have agreed not to import laborers from each other without the consent of the respective Governments. NEW ENGLAND ALL IN. x A PROPER WAR FEELING. From Boston, Hamilton Fife writes to the London Daii.v Mail:— Outside the Public Library of Bos,*.n, the library made famous by Sargent and Abbey wall paintings, the library which lives sweet in the recollection by reason of its delicious Florentine courtyard, there is a huge placard asking the people of Boston to subscribe "a million dollars (£200,000) for a million books for a million fighting men." An effort is being made this week to raise the money. "We shall get- it all right," one of the principal organisers tells me. That gives an idea of the scale on which New England's war imagination is working. Even the authorities, until this week, had not risen to a full comprehension of the feeling which sways this downright, go-ahead northern people. For the day of the departure of the city's first contingent of conscripted men there was arranged a meeting in the .big theatre., Long before the hour fixed for the meeting to open the theatre was crammed, and a crowd of 20,000 persons, disap* pointed of admission, surged outside. The Mayor could not get in. He solved the difficulty by moving an adjournment to the historic Common. It was carried by acclamation, to the delight of all except those inside tho theatre, who, instead of having front places, now found themselves at the back.

This crowd, nowever, was only a handful compared with the masses of men and women who turned out to see the troops march through the streets and leave the railway station. Ail were quiet. There was no exuberance among them. All they wanted was to bid the boys farewell and show them that their home -city understood what their going meant. So they lined the roadways six deep. They blocked the whole neighborhood in which the station stands. Again the Mayor found himself unable to force a way through. The ordinary train traffic was stopped. Boston, I am as> sured, has never seen the like before. The people took everybody, including themselves, by surprise. These New Englanders keep their enfotions as a rule well under control, but they certainly are thorough when they let'themselves go. Wherever I have travelled through their pleasant, friendly landscape I have found the same spirit. It is a serious spirit, as becomes a serious race descended from Puritan 6tock. They go to wat ■ without enthusiasm, without expecting it to be anything but a disagreeable job. But they are grimly resolved to make a complete job of it. They talk of it, without ceasing. Hourly one meets with evidence of their preoccupation with this one theme.

In Gloucester fishing port, where landed a little company of seafaring men ami farmers from Dorcliester, in Dorset, Eng land, who were the first colonists of Cape Ann, there still lives a stubborn resolve to be free from every kind of tyranny. There, is small activity now in Gloucester Harbor, usually *o busy with salt sEiips from Europe which carry back cod. But I heard no grumbling. The prevailing sentiment was one of satisfaction ll.at American soldiers are going to have an opportunity "to smash the Kaiser.'' Everything which concerns the war is followed with interest. T stumbled by chance upon a meeting called to hear Mr C. Lewis Hind, the well-known English art critic, explain a plan for turning wounded British olliccrs into farmers wherever suitable land can bo found. That idea is specially welcomed in this part of the country. At one of the many beautiful seaside homes set on this rockbound Atlantic coast amid those lovingly-tended woods, meadows, and gardens which lend Magnolia and Mtiu-ehcster-by-the-Sea their unrivalled charm of polished picturesqueness, I learned that a "Back to the Land" movement in Xew England is hoped for as a result of the war. I met a senator who looks confidently forward to a change from the spirit which lias been sending young New Engenders of British origin into the cities and leaving agriculture more and more to the foreign-born. "Parents have been obsessed," lie said, "with the notion of having their girls and boys brought up to be ladies and gentlemen. Tlicy have urged school committees to teach French and piano-playing and have not wanted their children to work with their hands. Portuguese and Italians have been taking the place of British stock us tillers of the soil. The war has come just in time to serve as a tonic which we badly required." There are already many signs of a reaction due to effect ot the American stand for liberty, both national and individual. Iwas introduced tcuan..old,.gentleman, the.master of one of"tlrfe&- seaaide homes -where life rolls

along on its air-cushioned castors, tastefully and without ostentation, as the New. England way is. At 0,5, afle> many years ol" scholarly retirement from business, lie ha,; returned to the lirm which he founded, not as a partner but in a humble station, so that a man of military age may he released. Ha is the exact type both in feature and speech of the English country gentleman or the English banker of the 'seventies His friends call him all'ectionately now "the otliee hoy." lie spoke, to me of Harvard, and advised me to go there. 1 went the next day, and spent an unforgettable afternoon in and about the university, dignified by so many memories of much (hat lias been best in the life of the United States. Term was just beginning—such a term as Harvard had not known hefore.

The change in the spirit of the place was vividly illustrated for me. A few minutes after my arrival I heard the sound of bugles and drums. Down the streets on either side of the Memorial Building came columns of voting- men in sailor uniform. There were men from the Wireless Telegraphy School which has been established here, hundreds of expert wireless operators being turned out, many Harvard men among- them. They were now marching to dinner, and for the time being- have ousted the undergraduates from their dining- hall. The whole atmosphere of the place is martial. I went round will; "a student guide," who told me that he had sold til) his rooms, said good-bye to classes, a.nd. was off to France as a sergeantinterpreter. 'T couldn't have stayed comfortably," he said; "I am in my third year. Nearly all the fourth-year ;nen are in the Army and a great many of my own year. It will soon be as unpleasant in this country for young men not in uniform as it is in France and England." .Here, as in other New England universities, the number of freshmen is normal, but freshmen are below the military age—at present this is only America's first year of war! In the mellow autumn sunshine, with the dry leaves crackling underfoot, the undergraduates were greeting one another. But there was, so my student guide told me, little of the usual talk of vacation pleasures, little making of th&se plans which are commonly made at the beginning of the term. Some of these undergraduates already thought of friends dead beneath the soil of France. Most of them had the vision beforo their mind's eye of mi officer's responsibilities. All felt the shadow and uncertainty that lay across their path. L..ring the last few months' life lias revealed itself in a sterner aspect to American young men.