Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1915. GERMANY PRESSED.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVIII, Issue XLVIII, 20 February 1915, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1915. GERMANY PRESSED.

A COMBINATION among all the neutral nations for the purpose of protection against unlawful molestation by German submarines is the next danger that Germany is likely to bring down upon her head by her piratical attacks upon non-combatant trading vessels. The "Telegraph'' puts the case clearly and definitely when it says that the mere Tact that Germany is driven to such an expedient provide eloquent testimony to tke severity of the economic pinch which she is already feeling. For now that Russia, France, and Britain have come together, and agreed to pool their gold reserves and their national credit for the purpose of carrying ou the war in common and financing any smaller Powers that may join with them against Germany and Austria, the straits to which Germany is put in order to provide metal for ammunition, wool for clothing her troops, and food for her fighting forces, as wall as for her civil population, become glaringly conspicuous. There is Mo lack of soldiers, but the point is, as the "Telegraph" emphasises, the national resources which are necessary to maintain tho!se armies in a state of efficiency in the field are being most visibly depleted, and as the Bi-itish Navy has sealed up all the German ports, there, is no way of securing fresh supplies of war material, except by smuggling them in through neutral countries, a task which is becoming increasingly difficult as the war progresses and as British diplomacy, backed by Britain's naval power, gradually blocks up one gateway after another through which contraband of w r ar can get into Germany. Probably, the writer proceeds, the realization of this gradual ebbing away of the stored-up national resources of Germany, while the free interchange of commodities keeps all the Allies well stocked with munitions of war and every other necessary article, may account for the desperate and even savage efforts of. Germany to inflict as much loss as possible upon her enemies without any regard to the law s of war. In a military sense, it is. pointed out, she is not only still unconquered, but is a very long way from being reduped to such a pitch of weakness as would compel her to treat' for peace. If she could supply, herself with food, clothing, and the thousand and one commodities that are necessary for the production of modern guns, ammunition, and war material of every kind, she might, it is

stated, defy the Allies for years. But the pinch of poverty is upon her. According to the estimate of the Swiss "Bankverein." the war is costing her £3,000,000 a day. It is a large expenditure, and she is no longer making progress. The sum of all these considerations, concludes the writer, possibly provides the cause of the desperate and ferocious, but comparatively useless methods by which she is attempting to damage the people rather than the Governments of the great nations that she has stirred up to resist her intolerable pretensions. _^—__—i«.