NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16123, 11 January 1916, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

SMUGGLING THROUGH HOLLAND. A.v interesting sidelight on the smuggling of supplies to Germany through Holland has been furnished by the prosecution of Mr. J. C. Schroder, editor of the .Amsterdam Telegraaf. A recent cablegram stated that a Dutch Court had decided that Mr. Schroder's comment, " There is a group of conscienceless scoundrels in Europe who have caused the war," had not endangered tho neutrality of Holland. Another charge was subsequently brought against Mr. Schroder, the offending comment in this case being as follows : —" We shall not cease to combat a Government and a subservient press which under the mask of a 'worthy neutrality' supplies Germany with most kinds of necessary foodstuffs by an unjustifiable policy of export, thus enabling it to persist in war, and by this committing treason, not only to our own Fatherland, but to the cause of humanity, which would have been served in quite another way by a strong morally highprincipled Government." The result of the trial on this charge has not yet reached New Zealand. It appears from the London newspapers, however, that Mr. Schroder expressed no contrition. After his arrest bis comment was supported by the London editor of the Telegraaf, who said :—" A good deal of what was sent into Holland, consigned to the Netherlands Oversea Trust, was smuggled into Germany, so much so that tho Germans themselves boasted that the mild measures of the Dutch Government kept them (the Germans) alive. Even these Dutch papers which were unfriendly to tho allies had acknowledged that there was smuc"ling going on, and at length the Dutch Government had brought in a Bill in Parliament to prevent it and had sent a regiment of soldiers to the German Eastern frontier with tho same object. The Germans paid well for goods smuggled into their country, and a lot of Dutch people would do anything to obtain that money without caring for the moral dignity of their country." As an instance of the smuggling methods adopted, the following was mentioned : —" Some Dutch papas were allowed to express openly pro-German sympathies. These papers were sent in motor-cars to Antwerp. The distance would not require a motor-car to use more than 10 pints of motor spirit, but they took 16 times more than that every day, tho Germans receiving the surplus of motor spirit, which is one of the things they lack most. With the same motorcar secret information was smuggled into Belgium by German spies."

FRENCH WOMEN WORKERS. | A correspondent of the Morning Post | in France gives the following as typical of the conditions under which farm work is j now carried on in France:—"On the golden- slope of a hill behind the grey and . purple city, whoso clustered churches re- j call a more famous shrine, lay the lands ' of a little farm heavy with corn—oats, and wheat, and barley that looked as if they all meant to ripen together. To cut those urgent crops there remained only an old man, whose gravity of manner, distinguished appearance, and serene countenance, with its trim white moustache and imperial, suggested rather an ambassador than a yeoman, and two > pretty granddaughters. Of the three, only j the old man handled the cradled scytho and hook as though he were used to them, ! and he had to straighten his back pain- j fully at the end of every row. They were out in those long midsummer days from i the first light of dawn till the evening ' star was in the sky, and day by day one I could trace the strain upon them of that j unceasing effort. The old man's figure ' lost its erectness, and the prettiness I seemed' to drain out of the girls' sun- I burned cheeks. Yet, pathetically tired as | they often were, especiallv when their j mid-day meal in the shadow of a stook | was ended, and the long, hot afternoon lay before them, they never uttered one word of complaint against the war, which j had forced such exertions unon them, nor I lost the gaiety of heart which enabled the ■ girls to laugh at the irregularity of their scything, or the old fellow to make light of the stiffness of his loins, and every , evening they would joyously exhibit the j space which the day's work had cleared, I and compare it with the crops which were ' still standing. THE KING OF ROUMANIA. It is of primary importance, says Edward Legge, in tho Pall Mall Gazette, first, to remember that, although King | Ferdinand is a Hohenzollern, he is not a member of the branch of that House of iwhich. the Emperor William II is the I chief; and, secondly, that up to now he j has not developed any indication of a desire to kowtow to the Kaiser. In the I accepted usage of the phrase, then, he is not, as his Bulgarian namesake has proved himself to» be, pro-German. His consort' —Princess Marie, one of the daughters of the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh— has always been, and remains at this great ' crisis in Roumania's history, pro-British j and pro-Russian to the core. King Fer- ! dinand received his early education from a private tutor, in whose charge he remained for several years. He then pro- j ceeded to the Gymnasium of Dusseldorf, ; on whose books are to be found the names ! of very many of the Princely Houses of : Germany, and there passed his examina- I tion in the honours classes, and took his I degree in 1885, at the age of 18. He is exceedingly popular in Roumania, and his popularity is shared by his Consort, who ' was taken to their hearts by the Roumanians from the day of her first appearance among them as the bride of their future Monarch. Her delightful manner, her freedom from everything approaching affectation, her genuine desire to please and be pleaded, her interest in all around her, captured the simple-minded, warmhearted people of the new kingdom, who soon came to regard her as one of themselves. GERMANY'S VAIN HOPES.

It was asserted by two neutrals who recently returned to Berne, the one from Berlin and the other from an important German provincial town, that in October last the people of Germany believed thai the ■war would end by Christmas. Commenting upon the matter, the Berne correspondent of the London Morning Post says it may of course, be that the wish, as to which it is now scarcely possible to doubt, of the German people for peace is father to their thought, although it would be the height of folly to flatter ourselves that they are as yet really "war weary," or that Germany is ready to make peace on terms acceptable to any Power save herself. These assurances as to Germany's belief in the war nearing its end are borne out by various signs, in particular by recent events on the Berlin Stock Exchange, where the belief now prevails that, the brilliancy of "war industries" as an investment is distinctly on the wane. Berlin financiers apparently think that, as the war cannot last for ever, and as raw material is becoming scarcer, and a point may even be reached when it is all used up, it is imprudent to risk too much money in -war industries.