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Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16404, 26 December 1918, Page 6

There is nothing actually impossible in the story received in Sydney from America regarding German agency in the distribution of influenza germs. The discovery in Bucharest, before Roumania's surrender, of a quantity of dangerous disease germs in the possession of Gormans who had no professional excuse for owning such perilous property, is too well authenticated to admit of doubt of its truth. A people who would not scruple to drop poisoned sweets from an aoroplane as the Germans did in Bucharest and elsewhere, and poisoned wells and springs, would not hesitate to mako use of fatal opportunity permitted. But some of the details of this latest story from America bear so close a resemblance to legends current in England in the early part of the war as to make one doubt its accuracy. Of these legends none was more popular or more widely believed —except possibly the mythical passage of a Russian army through Britain to the West front—than that of the German (usually an officer) who, disguised as a woman, was caught in the act or shaving and thereby had all his nefarious schemes spoiled. The spread of influenza was so amazing and so disastrous that it created a tendency on the part of the public to believe all sorts of stories about it, though, both its widespread distribution and its effects were easily explainable by scientific reasons.

Many theories were current at Home as to the cause of the epidemic. They varied from "war rations," which seemed feasible, to the poor quality of the beer brewed under Government restrictions, while there was'a general tendency to believe that the disease was the inevitable sequel of the war and arose from the bloodstained battlefields of Belgium and France, a theory which disregarded the fact that the epidemic started its world-carcer from Spain, which was untouched by war. A medical writer found the cause in tlio state of the nation's nervous system after four years of war, "with Bcarcely a family free from heavy bereavement and none from aching anxiety." The moral of tho nation was feeling this strain, and the lower the individual moral the less the individual power of resistance. That being so, obviously, as the writer said, tho best antidote to the epidemic was the uplifting "news that in October was reaching the Old Country from all fronts. The weak point in this theory, which otherwise seems strong enough, is that the severe form of the epidemi'c raged through New Zealand after we had had the news of the armistice. 1 6 One or two recent cables if they can bo accepted as accurate, the possibility of further trouble with Germany. The proposed establishment by Hindenburg of a new front > some six miles behind the neutral zone, and I the German Government's acceptance of his plan to form a People's Guard or National Army, tho details of which are to be kept secret, may mean , nothing or they may mean much. Whether they are trivial developments of the unrest in Germany or the fruit of some wild notion of regaining military power, they are, no do.ubt, being watched by the Allies, and will come to nothing. Tho schemes, however, lend force to a recent statement by the Paris "Matin," which, after pointing out that tho German army had not yet been reduced .to a peace footing, went on to remark that while the Germans were making a show of demobilising, they might in Toality be engaged in regrouping their forces, and that it was the business of the victors to fix. tho enemy's military establisliment during the peace negotiations. • More than one of the correspondents with tho army of occupation has ex-

pressed the opinion that such courtesy as the onemy shows is merely on the surface, and that underneath it is a very real hatred of the Allies, and especially of the British. Such a feeling is so natural, under tho circumstances, that no one will blame the Germans for entertaining it, nor is it inconsistent with their request that we should keep order in Cologne. Between a welldisciplined Allied force and a mot> of Liebknecht's Bolshevik followers, quite ready to declare war on the bourgeoisie, nobody concerned for his comfort and safety could hesitate in choosing. "This is an unbeaten unrepentant people." says a correspondent with the American troops. "They rofer with proud affection to thoir 'unbeaten army.' They are already dreaming of a Tutiire great republic of Mittel Eitropa, comprising all Germany and Austria surpassing in greatness, wealth, and power, the former German Empire, becoming a great military democracy, absorbing Russia, and making a fresh bid within a generation for the world's .supremacy." Proof of the continuanco of tho Pan-German spirit is 6eon in the popularity of a paper which makes a specialty of English and American news, distorted to suit German tastes, and of anti-Allied propaganda. It is more than probable that this is one of tho papers which has come undor the censorship of the Allied Commanders in Germany. , •

For ourselves, we do not think that any serious danger is likoly to ariso from the now somewhat pathetic iroiu £ dreams of Pan-Germanism. ror on© thing, it is fairly evident, so far as one car. learn, that the German soldiers are not casping to renew the war. Stav-at-homes mav acclaim them as un- , , , . i i . ii beaten, out they know only too well that if + he appeal from the ilhelmstrasse for an armistice had been reftisod, nothing could have saved them from the most disastrous and crushing defeat, or their from invasion. In the second place, tho compulsory surrender by Germany of an enormous

quantity of railway rolling-stock is a most powerful deterrent against her embarking just now on any mad scheme of a 1 renewed offensive. "Without the many thousands of engines and trucks vhich sho has had to hand over to the Allies, her nieans o f transport are 60 severely diminished that sho could neither move nor victual her armies if she* were to attempt to place them in the field again. That Germany in her present condition, or for years to come, will wage war with all or any of the Allies is unthinkable.