ENEMIES AT HOME.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 1 June 1915, Page 2

ENEMIES AT HOME.

FOES OF THE FATHERLAND

The Frankfurter Zeitung declares that while the enemies of Germany in the trenches of Flanders and on the frozen plains of Poland are dangerous enough, there are categories of enemies at home whose insidious hostility can be still more- dangerous.

First o£ all there is the man who declines to send, his gold to the Reichsbank. He has a store in a stocking or on old trunk, and says to himself that should the Fatherland be ruined he 'will have enough to save himself, and that his couple of gold pieces don't matter. This is a most dangerous i onemv.

There is the farmer who when ordered by the Government to furnish an exact report of the quantity of grain in his possession is silent about a certain secret store which he is reserving for his cattle. A ton or two more or less, he says, don't matter. This farmer is also an enemy. There is the mother whose son of 17 or 18 goes to her and begs to be allowed to volunteer. He tells her that all his friends are either in training or at the front, and she replies with tears and tells" the boy that he is her all; and that she cannot part with him. Such mothers are enemies of the Fatherland.

But the worst foe of all is the man who takes a pessimistic view of the situation, and who despairs of the final victory of the Fatherland over all its enemies. He is a most dangerous foe, and is guilty of high treason.