NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16025, 17 September 1915, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

PRISONERS OF WAR.

So large is the number of military and civilian prisoners of war in the several belligerent countries that the question of making proper provision for them has become a difficult problem for the respective Governments. According to Dr. Herbert Bury. Anglican Bishop for North and Central Europe, who writes in the July number of the Contemporary Review, Russia has given a real lead in the solution of this problem. The enforced idleness week after week and month after month cannot but have a demoralising effect upon the prisoners. This fact has been fully realised by the Russian authorities, who have apparently done their best to mitigate the evil. The idea steadily kept before the Russian people is that the prisoners have been unfortunate, and now as non-combatants ought to be regarded as being enemies no longer, only guests. " Carpenters, joiners, fitters, tailors, cobblers and shoemakers, and others are all," says Dr. Bury, " busily at work. Russia is a rapidly growing population, and such work is very remunerative when ordinary workers have all been swept away by successive military mobilisations. At "the mines I have visited in the past they can easily and gladly find occupation for vast numbers of labourers, experienced and inexperienced, and all through these fewmonths of brilliant spring and summer those who are agricultural labourers, some of them being very experienced, will be cultivating the rich black earth of Siberia, preparing for the coming harvest. It is quite an ideal scene to picture this busy time of wholesome and productive occupation, in which bitterness and hostility must long since have died away between Slav and Teuton, and in which, far remote from the war, a good foundation is being laid, it may be, for that ' true and lasting peace ' for which we have so long prayed."

SALT AS CONTRABAND. A correspondent who recently wrote to the London Times, pointed out that although salt by old customs is regarded as contraband of war, yet in tho present conflict it is against the interests of the allies to consider salt as such. The Dutch fisheries use large quantities of salt, and when the salt, shipped for that purpose to Holland, is detained tho Dutch fishermen are obliged to buy the salt from Germany. Germany and Austria have enormous quantities of mineral salt in their mines, so they never need any salt from abroad, but they would be very glad if they could export their own product. The correspondent maintains that the German salt industry is assisted by the detention of salt steamers destined for Holland, as the practice will encourthe. Dutch salt importers to give their orders to Germany, while the more salt is extracted from the mines the more potash is produced, which is required for the manufacture of explosives.

GERMAN MISSIONS IX INDIA. For several months past the Indian newspapers have been urging the Government to take more strenuous measures against German missionaries. At the outeet of the war there was a feeling among British missionaries that their German colleagues ought to be trusted to carry on their Christianising work, and that there was no fear of their attempting to teach sedition. This feeling lias now entirely disappeared, and British missionaries are as urgent as the rest of the British community in India for the immediate internment of all German missionaries, male or female. One English missionary writes to the Madras Mail to say that the general feeling throughout the whole missionary body, both British

and American, is that the Germans have abused the confidence placed in them and that they can never be trusted again. They ought, he argues, to be interned at once and be sent back to Germany as soon as the war is over. A very similar judgment is expressed, from a different point of view, by Indians themselves. An Indian barrister, writing to the Statesman, of Calcutta, says — In the tribunal of the world's morality, the Germans have been convicted of the charges of murder, dacoity. savagery, and all inhuman acts expected from barbarians- . . .

We Indians do not like savages as the teachers of our children. . . . How

can the Government 6upport such men with the public money, which can better be used on right-thinking Indians and Englishmen?" The writer goes on to relate that within his knowledge a German missionary had been telling his Indian pupils that the " Kaiser is a little god, and therefore, cannot be defeated.

HOLLANDS OPPORTUNITY. In an article signed *' En Vedette." in the Fortnightly Review, the writer urges that the time is ripe for Holland to enter the war on the side of the allies. She would not only render great service to the allies, he : urges, but by fighting for the rights of the small nations -would safeguard her own interests. "As the Germans are showing in every way," he continues, " not merely their determination to retain Belgium, but their confidence in their ability to do so as a minimum result of the war, the Dutch nation must consider the contingency they so rightly apprehend. not as a remote possibility, but as a visible reality which may. by the fortune of war, become a permanent fact of very dread significance."' Holland, it is pointed out, could put 260,000 men in the field— twice the number Belgium had ready when the Germans crossed her frontier on August 3. 1914— at the present stage these fresh troops would prove a very powerful factor. The difficulty of piercing the first line in Flanders affords evidence of how long it must take to break through the inner lines in Belgium. The article concludes : —" Holland alone can provide the means of turning this formidable position, and of opening the door to a new theatre of war which would deprive the elaborately created German fortress of Belgium of any value. That is the real secret why Dutch co-operation would be most welcome and most valuable.''

ENEMY SEEKS WAR PICTURES. Germany is endeavouring to obtain war photographs through England, as will be .seen from thn following remarkable letter, dated June 30, from Alexandrinenstrasse, 110. Berlin, S.W., 68, which has been received by a London press agency. " Dear Sir, —We beg to ask whether you could let us have such interesting photos of the English, French, and Italian theatres of war and current events as would be permitted to pass from one country into the other. We have already a large number of the most interesting and the most actual photos of the German, Austrian, and Turkish theatres of war, as well as of important personages and current events, of which we could forward you in return the same number as we should receive from you. Will you you kindly address all communications to the manager of the Presse-Photo-Syndikat, Herr Franz Otto Koch, Berlin ? We should ask you to forward your letters to the following address : Firma Ingeuieur Reichenbach, Berne, Switzerland. The latter firm will have the kindness to pass your parcels and letters on to us. Kindly enclose in your letters a coupon-response international, which can be obtained in any post office. The favour of an early reply will oblige, yours very truly, Presse-Photo-Syndikat. F.O. Koch." The general manager of the press agency in London, who takes a suspicious view of this cool attempt on the part of a Berlin firm to induce a British agency to trade with the enemy, makes the following comment : — The letter, passed by the censor, was delivered to us in the ordinary course. One cannot overlook the possibility that the real motive at the back of it may have been the hope of finding among a large collection of photographs from Englafid some of value to the enemy."

STATISTICS FOR NEUTRALS. The German wireless news received on August 1 by the Wireless Press, says the London Times of the day following, contained the following statement;—" The newspapers report the Central Powers have up to now occupied 70,312 square miles of foreign territory. The enemy occupies only 4281 square miles. The total of prisoners of war for the first year in Germany and Austria-Hungary makes a -round total of 1.695.400. Altogether the booty in Germany can be calculated at from 7000 to 8000 cannon and from 2000 to 3000 machine-guns." The Times adds the following pertinent comment:— their statistics of square miles occupied by the enemy, the German newspapers omit to include the area of German South-west Africa, Togoland, New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago' the Solomon Islands, the Samoan Islands.' Tsing-tau, and a considerable part of Cameroon. These German territories occupied by the enemy make a tot of over 450,000 square miles."

FRANCE'S GREAT GOLD RESOURCES In the course of a conversation that the Jans representative of a London paper had with one of the high officials of the Bank of France a few weeks ago. the correspondent learnt some interesting particulars concerning the results of the public request for gold by the Finance Minister. The reserve of gold will l>e able to sustain French credit until the end of the war without serious difficult notwithstanding the considerable payments effected abroad for munitions, foodstuffs, machinery, coal, and other manufactured roods and raw materials. The reserve of gold at the bank is now nearly £160,000.000, notwithstanding these heavy payments to foreign exporters, and the loan of £20.000,000 in gold to Great Britain. Gold was flowing into the bank from the public very freely, and at the bank it is believed that the* figure for the whole of France will considerably exceed the sum of £4,000,000 for the first three weeks. The town of Nancv alone gave £100.000 in a few days. "It may be difficult." said the writers informant, " to induce some people to part with their gold hoards, especially peasants in remote districts, but if the public brings a milliard (£40,000,000), that means credit in the form of fiduciary to three times that sum. Hence the £40.000,000 added to the £160 000.000 in gold, means the acceptation of French paper money at its face value to the tune of ,000.000, without counting the remaining gold in tho country that will surely come in gradually to cover the outgoings. In regard to Russia, the gold reserve at the Imperial Bank is noc tar short of £160.000,000, and Russia has great stores of wheat ready to sell for gold. The Russians are in no need for money now; they want munitions of war. As far as France is concerned, we, who surely know who keep the French purse, can state that this country can well fight out the war financially to the end."