"THESE CAME A TIKE WHEN THE TEUTH HAD TO BE ACCEPTED."

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16889, 29 December 1916, Page 7

"THESE CAME A TIKE WHEN THE TEUTH HAD TO BE ACCEPTED."

A REMARKABLE AMERICAN ARTICLE.

No more striking description of the way in which British feeling had been compelled to elter ia its attitude to Germany, owing to its Crimea,' has been penned than tho fallowing from the New York Tribune. It surely ie only a baro statement o£ simple fact. That it was written by a neutral American adde to its vaJuc — Mtinsterberg's Proposal.— "A few days ago Professor Munsterberg, who remains our most eminent exponent of Teutonic ' Kultur,' broke a silence which has been more or less complete since the Lusitania time, to inform his American and ence that he foresaw an Anglo-German-Ainerican alliance as one of the logical and necessary consequences of the present deplorable conflict. "As if to give point to this profundity the Germans executed Captain Fryatt, and there was an interesting expression of British opinion thereafter," says the New York Tribune. " Now, oddly enough, there is no reason to doubt this particular statement of Professor Munsterberg—that is, to donbt that he bel eves he is accurately forecasting the future. — A More Impressive Hatred.— " But Mr M'Clure, who > has only recently been in Berlin, and has since sent de patches from London, tells us that, nil things considered, ho finds the British hatred of the Germans a far more impressive and feir.-ome thing than the German hatred of Britain, and his belief is that it will prove more lastingly so. And this is about the conclusion that must be reached by any visitor to England ■who takes the trouble to look about hm.

".As a hater the Briton is totally unlike the German. He is incapable of producing a hymn of hate, such as delighted German hearts in the early days of the war Hβ doesn't hato as a race or as a group, he doesn't hate to order, and he is very slow in bestowing his hate upon anyone outside his own immediate vision. Above all, he is hopelessly inarticulate, and his professors have failed to supply him with any inspiration. — A Sporting Spirit.— "Thus, when the war began the Briton had only the most confused notion about ' Fritz,' as he then named his foe. He certainly did not hate Fritz, and taken in the mass he was a good deal puzzled about the whole affair. He had no emotions about a ' place in the sun,' he •was not highly impressed with the ideal of a British ' Kultur' to be imposed on the out ide world. Being at war he went somewhat blindly and slowly towards the job in hind; his opinions,' so far as he had opinions, -were wholly tentative. "As for the British soldier, he went to war in a frankly sporting spirit. Thero is something enduringly pathetic about the fashion m which that slender expeditionary force sailed awav to stop the avalanche, the ' Tommies ' singing ' Tipperary' and promising to be back by Christmas.

" Even when the first British troops had been well-nigh exterminated, when the reports of German atrocities, murders, burnings, and unspeakable' abuse of women and children were general, the average Englishman held his peace. He did not believe what he heard, and his characteristic explanation was ' such things ajie not done any more.' He did not easily come to hatred.

— There Came a Time.—

" But there came a time when all through England the truth had to be accepted. Too many Englishmen had seen with their own eyes, had beheld the actual German fact at first hand to admit of farther doubt. If you should settle on the date of the German gas attack, the first one at Ypres, you would not be far from the date when the Englishman actually made up his mind about the German, and about that time, too, the Englishman—taking him by the million—went to war. "After that there came the deluge. The execution of Miss Cavell, the sinking of the Lusitania, the Zeppelin raids, these accentuated, but did not greatly accentuate, the feeling. The British soldier had made up his mind on full and sufficient evidence that the German soldier did not fight ' clean.' — Straight through the Nation.— " Slowly, amazingly slowly, this process of education went forward in England, this education of hate. It was not a matter of governmental activity, it was not fed by professorial eloquence, it did not come from the classes to the masses or from the educated to the ignorant. It marched straight through the nation, and it was at all times traceable to individual decision; it grew out of the experience of the mass of Englishmen, either direct experience at the front, or through authentic chronicle of the experience of those they knew and trusted. 'And it became universal. Probably never have Englishmen of all classes so completely hated and loathed a, foreign nation as do the British now hate and loathe the German. " But to-day the German is for the Englishman th"e man who abuses women and children on land and murders them on water. He is the man who brutally maltreats British wounded and prisoners. "He is the author of the Zeppelin raids, and he is the criminal who employs ihe submarine for assassinaion, not for war. Above all, and this is comprehensive, he is not a ' clean' fighter, he doesn't 'play the game,' he recognises no rules of humanity, of law, of sport. Wherefore the Englishman hates him. "A hundred years from now there will still be .some Englishmen who hold to the notion as to Germans that prevails in England now, and, knowing the English, one would say that there would be a goodly number. — A Pathetic Thing.—

" The most pathetic thing in the world j'u't now is the German who wants to see the war end and have everything forgiven and fo gotten. " He naturally doesn't believe what the Englishman knows to be true about the German actions in Belgium and France. He cannot be expected to look upon things from Vie Eng!i.?h point of view, but what he does not realise is the existence of an Eng i h point of view. He doesn't realise fiat years and years will pass before the Englishman, became this is his habit, will get over regarding the German as he now regards him. " Here, then, are some 40,000,000 of men and women and children who, hold ins; with an intensity that cannot be deferibed and for rea'-'ors that are a part of tleir human experience, of their per fonal sorrow and suffering, certain feelings towards the German, have acquired a hatred which, if it is not exactly vindictive, actually bars the way to ail possible friendly rehtion for many years to come. And* on the other hand, here is Profrssor Munsterberg preaching about an alliance! "At, all events let us hope that the Uniied States will not become the ally r* Germany before Great Britain does," adds the New York Tribune. "That will give us all time to prepare for it. And the British minist-y that first propose* that alliance to the British people is jo'ng to Hve an interesting experience. — Cause and Effect.— " There are feveral streets in Liverpool almost entirely given over to the widow? end f a< he-less rlrldren of British Bailor? murdered bv submarines while on merch ant ships. There are some East Coast towns where Zenpelin bombs have dis posed of mrny wraen and children, and thee are a thons.-nd Enzlish, Scotch, and Welsh vi , laics old men and oM and yonng women have known wh->t Hermans' hive to they loved rot according to the rules of war, but in drrcard of them. "All of which is another wav of cay ing that no nation can go forth to burn and to murder, to dishonour and destroy the hyp'es 3 - and escape the eonse quonces," the Tribune. " Least cf all en Oe-m-ns do what they have do-o to Brtish m?n and women and chil'ire'i, and *O other women and chil dre" vitMn British vision, and escavc tb" omi c emiTic' , s. Tlie?e cni-en""i 1 "e" wil 1 j,o' he abolibed by a irci'v of the "i 1 ! rot be liqui-'a , "! . i-tory or

" The Englishman will never shout his hate, much less will he sing it, but those who know the Englishman best are at times a little awed by the revelation of the effect uj on him of two years of wartime relations with Ids German neighbour."

In this changeable -weather children aro liable to suffer from sudden chills, stuffiness in tho noso and head and racking coughs. The most reliablo remedy a mother can get for thoso troubles is " NAZOL." — That thero aro 800 Jonesea on one pay list was a fact disclosed in an army prosecution case recently at Merthyr.