WHAT THE PAPERS SAY
Observer, Rōrahi XXXVIII, Putanga 23, 9 Huitanguru 1918, Page 3
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WHAT THE PAPERS SAY
AGAIN and again the Germans have tried to demonstrate that by all the rules of war the Allies ought to own themselves beaten, and to accept the blood-stained hand of the barbarians, and agree to the peace terms formulated by the Potsdam plotters. We know, that it was part of Germany's "world-policy" to try to shatter the British Empire before it became an organic whole. But by this_ war Germany has done more to knit the Empire together than the ._ nation could have hoped to accomplish in a generation of peace.— Oamaru "Times."
If anyone thinks that we have not many stern lessons yet to learn he need only let his eyes, rest on the vast crowds, that day by day. tihrong the shops! It is bewildering here in London. Oxford Street is one solid block of buyers; the pavement is impassable; round the windows people swarm like flies. It is the same everywhere; all over ■ the West End there are the same keen, pushing, tense, greedy multitudes. It is an ugly, unpleasing vision. The whole place smells of coin. No price is too high, no bargains too. stiff. Everywhere Mammon is master and vulgarity ascendant. And this shopping mood bodes ill for the future. It is morally arid financially disastrous, and flatal. to the virtues that alone can build the better days. Will nothing sober us? The best mind from the front loathes the whole scene. — Melbourne " Commonwealth." '..','
It may be that the Bolsheyik> have discovered in the German character a stratum of culture that has escaped other observers, but that view would be more convincing if it had passed the test of experience. It was Cromwell's way to trust in God and keep his powder dry. The Bolsheviks are neglecting the powder and trusting in German nature. — Wellington "Post."
Can one wonder, then, that the business girl buys pretty things, vainly trying to make them serve two purposes, the office and the holiday. It is only in human nature that it should be the office that goes to the wall. Just so long as public opinion exacts nothing of uniformity in the dress of our business girls, just so long may she please herself without hindrance. Change all that, and in the twinkling of an eye, so to say, she will stand dressed for her part even as the American business girl of to-day.—Wanganui "Chronicle."
Now. imagine a Germanic victory such as Wilhelm, Hindenburg, and Co. contemplate. The result would be the annexation to Germany's colonial empire of Australia and New Zealand. And in these countries the wliole of the property, industrial and landed, would be handed over to Germans; all the British inhabitants would be deprived of every pennyworth of their property, and of political rights, and their employment would be limited to temporary unskilled jobs, at a rate of wages which may be imagined from the political powerlessness of the people concerned. Confiscation and slavery-v-that is the combination that a victorious Germany intends for New Zealand and Australia. That is why New Zealand is doing her fair share of figritirig with all her might.—Wellington "Times."
