NOTES ON THE CABLES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16348, 3 April 1915, Page 10

NOTES ON THE CABLES

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THE FALABA AND STATE MURDERS. The Germans have gained little and lost much through the murderous torpedoing of the Falaba. The submarine's deed has been announced in Germany through the press of that country, but it may be taken for granted that the repast was well cooked by the German Press Bureau before it appeared in print. : The detail of deliberately firing the • torpedo before the boats wero launched ahd tho crushing of the boat and killing of portion of the crew and of many passengers,—women among them—will have been carefully concealed. There will have been no report of the submarine circling around the drowning or of its crew jeering at the last struggles of their victims to save themselves.'' All : that sort of detail is hidden from the German people, while the least thing that can prejudice the populace and stir up. the hatred against Britain is carefully . published with every exaggeration possible in the columns ot the obedient -press.

It will probably be made out that the Falaba was an armed transport carrying men and munitions, and consequently tiie conscience of the German peopic will not be troubled over the sinking of the' vessel. It must not bo supposed that there are. no Germans who would not decry tho act of the submarine. There are, for the Germans proper, prior to 1870 were noted as a kindly and hospitable people. They have, however, been so poisoned with Prussianism (ihrough all the channels of which the Prussian species of autocracy has control, that they really have become a peculiar nation of a kind apart from all other nations. They have become so befogged in their moral and mental outlook as regards the rest of tho world that they have now 110 moral standard of a. universal kind that the ages have been so long evolving for mankind. They have been so morally blighted and blinded that they accept as gospel everything, with which their dear ±iohenzolleriis and their Prussian masters titillate their palates. • There are few German men or women who do not believe that the Belgians committed all the horrible atrocities that their own soldiers have committed, and that their army is composed of tho gentlest, manliest, most tried, and most suffering troops that ever went to battle with a gross and cruel, foe. Every lie is published with malice aforethought. That is wise policy for the Prussians as a means to an end, that end being to get the Germans to fight to death to keep the heavy hand of retribution from that curse of Europe, Prussian militarism, a barbaric kind of feudalism that, for the welfare of mankind, should lmvo died out 400 years ago. The extraordinary belief of tho Germans that their achievements are such that tho whole world has lagged far behind them, and is indebted to them for moral and material modern benefits in tho matter of progress in art, science, and invention has become such an obsession that they believe that "the glory that was of Greece" sinks into utter insignificance beside their own. From what the Germans say of themselves and their magnificent development in art, science, and learning, with their versatile Kaiser as a patron and judge, it would seem that the Hohenzollerns have been trying to arrogate to themselves a position analogous to that of the Medici in tho city and State of Florence in the 15th and 16th centurifes. The Medici kept the people in a state of abjection by the glory of their State and by their patronage of the art and learning that were so feverishly cultivated during the Italian Renaissance. They kept the people amused and befooled while they were gradually sapping their independence and rights as freo citizens; but all the time they were true lovers of art, scholars, and in manners the gentlemen of their day. It is in the latter respects where the analogy fails to fit tho Hohenzollerne. It is worthy of note that the author of refined scounciralism. Machiavelli, was a Florentine of the Medici period. He has become an accredited and a sanctified model of Teutonic culture.

THE HORROR IN THE EYES OF THE WORLD. The censure of the Gorman murders by 6ubm;trine is expressed in the leading papers of the world in language that is unmistakable. In the United States the m-eat dailies felt it almost necessary to emphasise their condemnation of the FaJaba. incident with a few .good round American oaths, but just fell short of such an extreme. The Swedes, who were inclined, from fear of Russia, to side with Germany, and the Dutch have, through the press of their respective countries, expressed their detestation with intensity ; but it is reserved for a Russian journal to put the matter in such terms that give the greatest satisfaction to our outraged feelings. There is a sincere and determined feeling that expresses without sayin.? the deepest, sympathy of Russia for Britain and her abhorrence of the cowardliness and the grc® brutality of these Statesanctioned murders. The Novoe Yremya says: "The hour of reckoning is near when the enemies of humanity must pay to the fullest extent." That means th.lt Russia will, if she is well backcd up, see that " the punishment fits tho crime."