Feilding Star, Oroua and Kiwitea Counties' Gazette MONDAY, JULY 16, 1917. SAYING AND DOING.

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 3293, 16 July 1917, Page 2

Feilding Star, Oroua and Kiwitea Counties' Gazette MONDAY, JULY 16, 1917. SAYING AND DOING.

Tber_ are two outstauding items of interest in to-day's news. One tells vi tha.t the Germans are preparing to attack Petrograd, the capital of Russia, and the other reports tho success of the swoop of General Korniloff's Eagles, cutting the Austro-German ai'my in two in Galicia. These two records demonstrate the differences between the protagonists. The German is primarily a sneak and a boaste.\ He spies and intrigues, and then ho comes out into the open as a bully, firmly believing that his battle is halfwon by the fearsomeness of his threats. Psychologically, this is interesting. It is tho way of the bullyin tho school playground, in the workshop, and in the barroom, as*£well as in the othics (Hunwise) of warfare— to believe that bluster and bluff are thj best part of his stock-in-trade. Tbe Germans in authority fully believed that bombast would count for much in this war. Hence the policy of Fright'fulnoss and the due publicity given to it. " That wan worked into the general plan it, was thought out all those years! before'the war. It eeems to us, however, that - the only people Frightfulnoss has scared into j submission have been the neutral nations of Scandinavia—and it is still opo.: to doubt whether greed of gain has not had more to do with their submission to the Hun rather than tho horrors inflicted by the Hun,s upon tha people of the invaded countries. Wo shall'get the inside knowledge if America plays up strictly to her promise to Britain not to allow food supplies to go to the Scandinavians fori export into Germany. Meanwhile, Germany pursues her policy of boosting her boantfulness. This threat to invado Petrograd is a year old. The great difference between the German and tho Russian ia shown by their actions. Kaiser Wilhelm and Co. boasted that they had set out for the occupation of Paris, Calais, London, Verdun, and Petrograd. They are not there yet. The march on Paris was badly smashed, and disasters have followed the' repeated efforts to achieve Calais and A'crdun. A German naval and military expedition many months ago set out for Petrograd, and was brought -to nought by'the big battle in the Gulf of Riga. Is it to bo expected that the Russian navy in the Baltic Sea is any weaker to-day than it was two years ago? It has been reinforced by Britisli submarines, and whether the Hun voyages to the Gulf of Riga or to the Gulf of Finland, he will find the Russians prepared. As against the German boasts and threats, we have never yet had any record of what the Russians were go-

in_ to do. Brusildff and Co., like Brer Rabbit, kave kept, on saying nothing—but they have struck swiftly and unexpectedly. We&ave but to remember in this connection the great disasters the Russians inflicted this time last year upon the Austrians, the Germans, and the Turks; and the cableman is telling us daily how the_ unexpected is again happening to our enemies along tho eastern front. Even after three years' experience, tbe Kaiser and his warlords' 3 —the vaunting Hindenburg, Ludendorff,- and Mackensen—have not learned wisdom. Their contempt of the British and the Russians has cost them dear—and will cost them more dearly yet. Remember General French's "contemptible little army"—what it achieved in spoiling all the Kaiser's elaborate plans for the invasion of the west. Remember the Russian revolt —and how the Austro-German leaders thought the war-sting had been extracted from Ivan. Now we read that Ivan's army has thrust itself between tho two great armies of his enemies in Galicia, and once more the Russian roller moves freely towards Vienna. Petrograd looks an easy proposition for invasion. But so did Paris nearly three years ago. Fritz, looking fierce and frightful, is getting fits, instead of creating them; Ivan, looking meek ari-l mild, smiles—and strikes. So docs Tommy Atkins. The Hun has yet to learn the true inwardness of the beatitude that "the meek shall inherit the earth." The boaster and bully shall lose even that which ho bath.