GERMANY’S SUFFERINGS

Evening Star, Issue 16350, 16 February 1917, Page 8

GERMANY’S SUFFERINGS

SILENCE AND INTERNAL DECAY. On the day on which the American Embassy in Loudon received for transmission Germany’s peace proposals the ‘ Daily Telegraphs’ New York correspondent cabled :

1 aat the American Government should I'd low the example of Spain and Switzerland and transmit Germany’s Peace Note without comment lias bitterly disappointed the Germans here, who predicted that President Wilson would at least express a hope that the belligerents would “ come together and talk it over." Count Bcrnsi irlf was instructed by Berlin to snare no elfort to secure Washington's endorsement, and to this end ho has worked night and day, using many fair words and big promises.

Apart from the political motives which Berlin has to serve, it is known here that at the liack of the German Peace Note is undoubtedly the pressure of the distress among the German people. Report* received here in America, are insistent and detailed, and prove conclusively that the strain upon Germany is terrible and the suffering ot her people acute. The " New York limes’ to-day, reviewing the conditions in Germany, says: “ li England and Franco do not know the actual conditions there they arc loss well-informed than we are in this country, and the wireless despatches that tel! of abundance in Germany, of bountiful crops, of captured stores, of new rcsourcas ample for many years, sound hollow in our ears when we have most direct testimony of foot! scarcity in the rich German cities, of want that pinches and hurt* and comes to the very verge of famine. Appalling losses in men and a degree of financial instability that no statistical quibbling can conceal add to but do not complete the picture. 1 here is wonderful patriotism, there is the resolve to give united support to the Imperial Government, there is fortitude, but there is also misery and mourning beyond the power of words to describe."

i Apropos of the conditions in Germany, there is an interesting article to-day 'in the ‘ New York Tribune,’ by Madeline idoty, who lately resumed from Germany, where she was one of a. party of neutral journalists shown round the country bv h’-gh authorities in muen gold laeo and or a id. Attempts to impress the journalists with champagne and cigars every day. ami almost eyery hour, signally failed, because, despite the personally conducted tour of selected places, it was impossible to conceal the evidence of hunger and decay on eyery side. Miss Doty concludes;

“ This is tho tragedy of Germany: its interna! silence and decay of activity, except to create necessities! (Smoke comes from hut one factory in four; supplies and workers are giving out There is little leather, children in Berlin going barefoot. Blankets to go under horse saddles are giving ou t. Linen and cotton for fuses are running low. All tho linen in Belgium has been appropriated. Lubber is scarce. In a dark corner of a munition factory I saw rubber tubes from hospital douche bags piled high to lie turned into munitions. Every family has given all the brass or copper it had. What use arc outer victories when internally the kingdom cracks and crumbles? The soldiers at the front push forward, but at home death lurks. Under such circumstances, of what avail are military triumph and militarism?'’ J