GERMANY'S SUFFERINGS.

Evening Star, Issue 16352, 19 February 1917, Page 3

GERMANY'S SUFFERINGS.

REMARKABLE AND WEIGHTY TESTIMONY.

A DELUDED NATION.

BIG DISASTERS LOOMING.

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.

LONDON, February 17. The ' Daily Telegraph's' Paris correspondent, from interviews with members of Mr Gerard's party, gives the following collective opinion of the internal state of Germanv :

Their first surprise on reaching Paris was to £ee taxi cabs. They gaw more motors in an hour in Paris than they had seen in. months at Berlin, where they run on iron tyres. The- second surprise was the wellfed horses. In Beilin the horf.es arc all emaciated, and it takes six to draw a load which two would draw normally. The abundance and variety of food in Paris was asto.mding. There was no comparison with Berlin, wlwrc only the rich could eat, their fill, and that at enormous prices. Milk is terribly scarce, and the children's death rate has risen to an extraordinary degree. The German people arc not merely on short commons, but literally suffering from burger; nevertheless, the .-norsJo of the. people keeps up. it was a. fact, though it am.izxl the pru-tv now they were iu Paris, that the Hermans were absolutely convinced that the poop o ot France and England were .suffer--11l £ the same or worse from food ylmrta'-e. :\ow they were in Paris thev saw an amazing difference between the' German conditions and thee of the French. Probably the military elk-fs knew that Germany, was irrevocably beaten. -\n oid Lrerman officer told them that if the Allies pierced the front a complete retreat would probably be inevitable, and might lx-come i rout, but the } eople ha 1 no idea of .-uteri 1 possibility. They believed implicitly in •-he Hi-my. rhcy knew that the Germans wve lost 1,500,000 in killed, but the people vera convinced that the submarines within nx weeks would force England to sue lor peace. What woukl happen when those beliets v.-»re exploded no one know.