NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16310, 17 August 1916, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

METHODS OF COLONISATION. Describing a visit to Tanga, a port in German East Africa. Mr. C. F. G. Masterman say;: Street after street, all at right angles to each other, all paved, all macadamised, ail planted and ail named, did ice cross until we happened on testation. This in its turn was huge and solid and permanent, with half-a-dozen railway lines. There was no one about, not even an official, which, perhaps, vanot surprising, as few railwaymen in Africa trouble to be at the station unless a train is expected. But what seemed more surprising for a terminus at a port, there was no sign that there ever had been any trains— trucks, no engines, no heaps of glowing cinders, nothing. It was as orderly and lifeless as a cemetery. Of course macadam and avenues and solidity are admirable things; only they are not colonisation. But the ratio of officials to settlers in Tanga must have been as about 25 to 1. I knew little of subsidised colonies or the chronic insolvency of the German colonial system, *>ut one could see it for oneself: it lay open to everv eve. Tanga would have had to 'boom'' abnormally to repay all that nonreproductive expenditure, and in those days at any rate Tanga was not "boomin;"' at all. The contrast with an English colony, Mombassa, which we saw a day :>r two later, was unmistakable. At Moraha?sa corrugated iron ruled supreme. The station, for example, ws ; a big shanty in c-bvious need of repairs. Mombassa was plainly not planned at all : it would probablv have done with a little more planning. It was extremely untidy. But it was " booming." it was very enormously alive. Wo dined with one of the officials, a charming man with a mild eye and a slow melancholy voice, who was plainly adored by the natives. A gang of them who were working at the station when we were there Hocked after him with beaming faces, like children after a favourite teacher. He stood on the verandah, and in a level tone explained that ''we hope to have the dry dock down there open next year —and up there is the site for the cathedral. Oh, yes- if things go ahead we shall be competing with the Argentine in frozen meat soon." And there were white women there, the wives of settlers and officials. That spelt more permanency than all the stone and avenues of Tanga. SERVIANS AT SALONIKA. Over 100,000 Servians are now encampec on the plains and in the valleys somewhere near Salonika. Perhaps, says a torres pondent, it has been a case of the snr vival of the fittest, but these tall, thick-sei fellows show no traces of the hardship! and sufferings of the retreat and exposure in Albania. Four months' recuperatioi in Corfu has driven away all marks o: sickness, toil and privation. These Ser vian soldiers look fit to go anywhere anc do anything. And the men are as eager a; they are fit. It is a new-born army, and entirely re-equipped with new French anc British uniforms, the men look exceed ingly smart and soldierlike. Very prone they are of their new clothes, especial]} of the general service buttons on the British uniforms. It speaks well for th< moral stamina of a people that can com( through such trials without losing cour age or becoming embittered. These sol diers are as cheerful and confident as though the tragic past were not, or hac never been. Artless, good-natured, anc genuine, their faith in their great allieis implicit. They are sad when the\ think of their homes in Servia, and of the women and children they have left behind Few have heard anything from their fami lies for over six months But there is z grim determination about them, an enthu sla-sm at the thought of the advance, thai bodes ill for the enemy that opposes them. GERMAN TALE OF VERDUN. It is very interesting to read in the middle of August the German account o; progress at Verdun, as dished up in the middle of June for American edification. The story ran : —" The Verdun campaigr is hastening towards its conclusion. Or the right bank of the Meuse the innei enceinte of forts already has been taker under German fire. After the capture o: Vaux Fort the German lines to the west of the fort extend to Thiaumont farm with Hill 321, southward to the village o: Fleury and Fort Souville, and south eastward to Fort Tavannes. The latter lie; south of the Metz-Verdun railway, anc forms the easternmost fortification of Ver dun. Between this ring and the fortress proper there are only Forts Belleville and St. Michel and the detached works o] Douaumont (not to be confused with the fort of the same name long since in German hands). . . . The forward move ments east and west of the Meuse proceed at an even pace ; in other words, as soon as a success has been gained on one bank, the line is straightened out by a subsequent advance on the other. The definite fall of Verdun will be forced from the north-east and north-west." And Verdun still stands. DIFFERENT NATIONALITIES IN BATTLE. According to an American writer, German army officers hold the following views of the qualities and characteristics oi the various non-Teutonic soldiers: —"The French soldier is gallant, nervous, and very brave, only it is difficult to make him return a second or third time into the same fire. The English fighter is dogged and individually resourceful. The Italian, though ferocious in assault, is discouraged by failure. He goes on one impulse and hates to repass his own dead for a second charge. That is how a German sees three of his adversaries. As to a fourth, he volunteers nothing, but if he is pressed, he will add: 'The Russian is terrible,' The meaning of that assertion develops slowly, with many hesitations. It is not that the individual Russian soldier is particularly terrible. No, that is not what he means to say. The Russian cannot be singularised. You have to think of Russians, infinite in "plurality, a slow-moving, ominous, imposing mass. They come in lines ten and twelve deep, heedless and heavy, so controlled by their own momentum that they cannot stop. Thev will go anywhere, into anything, again aid again as if they did not know how to be afraid.' ' The only thing you can do,' says the German officer, ' is to slaughter them and pray that you_ will have ammunition enough to keep it up.' "