NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15830, 29 January 1915, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

NO HOPE OF VICTORY. For some time past American observers have been convinced that Germany is fight no longer in the hope of victory but to secure the most favourable peace terms possible in a desperate situation. Indications of the German desire for peace are particularly numerous in the American press. From the recent conference between the Imperial Chancellor and the leaders of various political parties in the Reichstag it is evident that the Chancellor sought to" prepare politicians for the eventual conclusion of a peace that will signify the abandonment of the vast ambitions with which Germany entered upon the war. The replies of the party leaders, however, left no room for «the Chancellor to doubt that the nation itself, unlike the Kaiser's generals, do not realise that the war is hopeless.lv lost. They frankly told the Chancellor that the "price of peace to-day will be a revolution in Germany," as the nation at large could not endure the acknowledgment that the stupendous sacrifices it ''made were doomed to be fruitless "in decisive results."

TAXING BACHELORS. Mr. J. B. Sharpo, Federal member for Oxley. Queensland, intends, if possible, to submit a, proposal to tax ba<iielors to the next session of the House of Representatives. Already his scheme, which has about it some element of novelty, has attracted much attention, and Mr. Sharpo is confident that a majority of the Federal Lower House is on his side. Chatiing on the -übject, Mr. Sliarpe said that he approached the matter from a verv serious standpoint, and that he had determined to put forth every effort to carry it through. He believes that by the imposition of a tax sufficiently weighty to make itself felt a gr?at many of the social evils of the day will be mitigated, if not altogether removed. Attention has frequently been directed to the fait that bank clerks are prohibited from marrying until in receipt of £200 per annum. It is my intention immedilately the House reassembles to ask that a request be made to these institutions that the- abominable condition be abolished. The bachelor, who represents only a unit in the community, Las nono of the responsibilities which often cripple the married man who presents the State with a quiver full of boys and girls tho State's best assets —who pays house-tax, baker, butcher, grocer, milkman, tailor, bootmaker, doctor, etc., etc. A married, man, because ho adds to the wealth of the country, is penalised, while the celibate, who p;;ys his board and buys a few suite of clothes per annum, goes scot free of any

of thess obligations.'' As a useful citizen, the bachelor, according to Mr. Sharpe, is practically valueless when compared with the married man. Ho cannot take the same keen interest in public affairs, or if he does the people are not so ready to give him the confidence accorded a married r.an. But it is from the moral point of view chiefly that Mr. Sha.rpe proposes waging war against the man who will not marry. " I have paid special attention to the cases of girls "employed in restaurants, hotels, and shops," he said. " These girls, pretty enough, most of tbem. to be attractive, and with inborn desiro for the soft j things of ife natural to all women, overworked, underpaid. starved for affection and consideration, fall easy victims to the unscrupulous bachelor with a plentiful supply of money. The water trips and the chiinpagno suppers at luxuriouslyI furnished flats do not fail in undermining the moral strength of those girls, the vast proportion of whom are material for ideal Wifehood and motherhood. Cheat ?d of their natural vocation, it is small wonder that they become victims of the shoals of spendthrifts and ro'K-s who frequent the houses of female employment."

EFFECT OF MODERN GUNFIRE

I One of the be. descriptions of the I terrible effect of modern gunfire is included , in the graphic story of " The Taking of I Antwerp," which is published in Scribner's Magazine. The writer, who was in the city throughout the bombardment, says:—"The first shell to fall within the city struck a house in the Berchem district, killing a fourteen-year-old boy and wounding his mother and his little sister. The second decapitated a street-sweeper as he was running for shelter. Throughout the night the rain of death continued, the sheik falling at, the rate of five a minute. The streets were absolutely deserted. Not a living being was to be seen. The few who had remained in the city were cowering in their cellars. Though .ns gas and the electric lights were out, the streets were illuminated by the glare from the blazing oil-tanks at Hoboken, which hdd been set on fire by the Belgians. The racket was deafening. The pavements trembled. Ihe buildings seemed to rock and sway. The very air vibrated to the incessant concussions. It was indeed a City of Dreadful Night. There would come the whistling shriek of a shell passing low over the housetops, followed, an instant later, by a shattering, rending crash, and the whole facade of the house where it had struck would come toppling into the street in a cascade of brick and plaster. Later, when the Germans brought their famous 42-ccntimetere guns into action the destruction -wrought was appalling. The projectiles they rained upon the city weighed a ton apiece. So terrific was the noise of their discharge that it seemed at first as though the German batteries were firing salvos. We hoard them as they came. We heard the roar in the air which they caused, sounding at first like an approaching express train, but rapidly increasing in volume until the atmospherequivered as before a howling cyclone. Then came an explosion which seemed to split the very earth. Huge geysers of dust and smoke shot high into the air above the shivering city. When one of these projectiles struck a building it did | not merely tear away its upper storeys or j blow a gaping aperture in its walls, the I whole building collapsed in utter ruin as l though flattened by a mighty hand. When I they exploded in the open streets they tore I out yawning pits as large as the cellar of a good-sized house, and wrecked every ' building within a radius of 200 yds. The I preceding shell-fire seemed insignificant ! and harmless. It eeemed as though in I another moment the whole city would : come down about our ears. The thickest • masonry was crumpled up like so much ! cardboard. Buildings of solid stone were levelled as a child levels the structure which it erects with building-blocks. It was hell with the lid offand I am not using the expression lightly, either."*