NEWS AND NOTES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 58, 5 September 1914, Page 11

NEWS AND NOTES

[The following items of intelligence have been selected from files received by the latest mail.] Tho Prussianisation of SchleswigHolstein, the two duchies annexed by Germany, was pursued with unrelenting severity up to the time the last mails left. As early a 9 10th July notices were served on all Danes and Danish sympathisers to leave the country. German domestic servants and other employees of Danes or people of Danish extraction in Schleswig-Holstein were ordered bj| the police to leave and obtain work with German families or employers. Many of the Danish employers were farmers. Danish and other tourists were shadowed by the police, and in some cases ordered to leave the country, and this began nearly a month before the war broke out. It- was but a fortnight before the war that Berlin newspapers were giving prominence to a telegram sent by the German Crown Prince to Lieutenant-Colonel Frobenuis, the author of a militarist pamphlet caJled "Germany's Hour of Destiny," in which it is declared that the military preparations of France and Russia will be so far advanced in the spring of 1915 that an invasion by such mighty armies a* have never been seem before on earth must daily be expected. The Crown Prince wished that the pamphlet would have the widest circulation among the German people. At the came time the St. Petersburg paper Vetcherne Vreraya states that Austria and Germany had concluded in May last a definite defensive understanding against Russia, and France. "k" k The claim of the self-governing Dominions to fuller representation in tho councils of the Empire was urged at a recent meeting of the Imperial Organisation Society in London. Mr. Arthur P. Poley said the people who left England for the Overseas Dominions were no more lost to that country than if they moved from Kent to Lancashire. Under a United Empire it would be no loss if a man chose to migrate from Yorkshire to New Zealand, or from Surrey to Australia. But at present what voice had the great Dominions on the subjects of peace and war? Admitted into the arena of world politics, they were privileged to listen and learn, but no record of long^ experience, no honoured wisdom or intellectual eminence entitled a citizen of the Dominions to take part in the administration of Imperial policy. Was a Dominion like Australia, which had inspired the idea of federation, trained her youth to arms, and built a navy, unworthy to share the responsibilities of Empire? There were five millions of people almost entirely British and yet without representation. What had the Briton done, who left his native land to settle in the self-governing Dominions, that he should be deprived of his full Imperial citizenship 1 With a view to filling the gap in th© finances left by the failure of the milliard war !evy to show a, surplus, and ■ also to meeting other shortages, the German Government prepared a Bill creating an Imperial monopoly for , the manufacture of cigarettes. If the ' Federal States approved of this, it was to have been presented to the Reichstag in the autumn, provided that ail enquiry showed that the majority in the i House was in favour of the measure. ' Existing manufacturers weTe to be bought out for a sum of £25,000,000, and I the monopoly was expected to #ield a J revenue of £6,000,000 annually to the I State.

As arbitrator in the claim brought by Lord Eendelsham against the War Office for compensation for 1249 acres of land at Kings Marshes, Orford Ness, Suffolk (required for aviation purposes), the Hon. E. G. Strutt awarded £12,107. At the arbitration proceedings expert witnesses railed on behalf of the claimant valued tho land for aviation purposes at £25 an acre, or £33,620 155, after 10 per cent, had been added for compulsory acquisition and an agreed amount fol- outgoings deducted. On behalf of the War Office the land was valued at £6689. "A pendant to Lieutenant Bilse's wellknown book describing life in a small garrison town in Germany is published by Retired Captain Poramer, who served for twenty years as an infantry officer in Alsace," says the Daily News' Berlin correspondent. "Captain Pommer says that to maintain discipline amongst German soldiers of the twentieth century methods are employed which may have been suitable for feudal armies, but in a modern army must be considered as a mockery of the elementary rights of human beings. He asserts that suicide is frequently the end of barrack martyrdom, raw recruits suffering bullying and torments because they fear that if they protest through the ordinary channels a black mark will be set against their names. Captain Pommer describes the vandalism of the aristocratic officers of the cavalry regiments. 'At every farewell dinner of officers of the Cavalry Division at Elsenborn Camp I was witness of their crude love of destruction, which wrecked not only all the crockery and glass on the tables, but also the stoves, statues, "pictures, tables, and chairs." A French Roman Catholic priest was arrested at the end of July last near Bemay. in the Department of Eure, on a charge of espionage. For some time past the Abbe Heurtebout, cure of FontaineLaloudet, a village near Bernay, had repeatedly asked the stationniaster of the place, which is an important railway junction, to give him access to certain becret military documents concerning railway traffic at this point in case of war. The priest, it is said, offered a considerable sum of money to the stationmaster if the latter would allow him to photograph these documents. The stationmaster informed the railway officials, who communicated with the police, and the lat> ter laid a trap for the cure. The stationmaster informed the priest that he wouM show him the plans on receiving a sum of £20. An appointment was accordingly made at the station. The cure duly arrived with a camera and was handed the documents, which he prepared to photograph. A police inspector who had come down in a motor-car stepped in at the right moment and arrested the. cure, who protested that he wanted thß secret plans only as a matter of personal interest, and that he had no intention of selling them to the German Government. The rumbling of the storm before it burst seems to -have been heard in Vienna. The Berlin correspondent of the London Daily Chronicle, writing on 22nd July, learned that the Austrian police had them warned all newspapers to abstain from giving news of the movements of troops on pain of confiscation. The correspondent added that the Lokal Anzeiger claims to have authority for the statement that no mobilisation of the Austro-Hungariau Army has taken place, and that it is anticipated by Triple Alliance statesmen that no mobilisation will be necessary. "It, is, of course, well known that SeTvia is supported by Russia. Practically every German newspaper, mentions the fact that Germany stands by Austria-Hun-gary in this matter. Austria-Hungary is urged to remain firm, and is reminded that the slightest sign of yielding on her part would be interpreted as the defeat of the Triple Alliance, especially in view of the meeting of the French President and Puissia.n Tsar at Peterhof."