PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3332, 23 January 1918, Page 64

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

"MY FOUR YEARS IN GERMANY."

This is, as most of you know, the title of James W. Gerard's book, in which he relates his experiences up to the time he asked for his passport on the United States declaring war against Germany. This volume has just come to Dunedin, so, instead of continuing my notes on "A Russian Revolution Vocabulary," I hasten to give his summing up of the German position. He says in his foreword that he Avishes to bring home to his people the gravity of the position. Plainly, almost bluntly, he says that the military and the naval jpower of the German Empire are unbroken. And what he writes I have said in effect, though not in detail, many times. One great fault a democracy has is to believe what it wants to believe, and to discount statements which it wants to disbelieve. A democracy always wants to work—or drift—along the line of least resistance, and this failing and an easy-going nature have made the Germans the pliant tools of the Prussian junkers. But I must not sidetrack myself. How does Mr Gerard show that German power is unbroken? Listen! There have been 12,000,000 called to the colours; 1,500,000 have been killed; 500,000 permanently disabled; not more than 500,000 are prisoners of war; and about 500,000 constitute the number of wounded or those on the sick-list each day. This leaves 9,000,000. On the other hand, about 400,000 normally become of military age every year; but these and those in the field, because of their experience in the last three years, " are better and more efficient soldiers than at the time when they were called to the colours. Their officers know far more of the science of this war, and the men themselves now have the skill and bearing of veterans." ARE THE GERMANS STARVING? Here, again, according to Mr Gerard, my conclusion has not been at fault. Are the Germans starving? Think for a moment. Roland and the Baltic provinces of were pretty well Germanised; Rumania, Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, the great plains of Hungary; the occupied territories of Belgium and of France, under Germany's efficient organisation, are more than self-supporting. Further, there are 2,000,000 prisoners of war who can be turned to good account in tilling the ground and in doing war work. Can we balance these figures? "There is far greater danger of the starving of our Allies than of the starving of the Germans. Every available inch of ground in Germany is cultivated, and cultivated by the aid of the old men, the bovs and women, and the 2,000,000 prisoners of war. The

arable lands of Northern France and of Rumania are being cultivated by the German army with an efficiency never before known in these countries, and most of that food will be added to the food supplies of Germany. Certainly, the people suffer; but still more certainly this war will not be ended because of the starvation of Germany." But Mr Gerard makes' no mention of the great meat and grain producing plains of Hungary, nor of the. huge supplies which went into Germany via Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Holland, the more so that the submarine sinkings deterred exports of Danish, Dutch, aud Swedish food products from reaching England and Scotland. Siberia, too, ceased sending to Britain, and to the extent that our Motherland suffered Germany benefited, not by - getting this butter and cheese, but by our lessened powers of resistance. And what about American food exports to Britain? These have been diminished also. FINANCE? By the " clever financial handling of the country by the Government and the great banks there is at present no financial distress in Germany." The powers that be, however, know that if the Central Powers do not come out victors the disastrous day of reckoning will come; but "the knowledge that unless indemnities are obtained from other countries, and that the weight of the great war will in that case fall upon the people, will, perhaps, make them readier to risk all in affinal attempt to win the war and impose indemnities upon not only the nations of Europe, but also upon the United States of America." THE U-BOAT PERIL. This, we are told, is a very real one. Again, anyone who has read the history of the submarine development knows that the excuses that have been made for the steady sinking beyond powers of construction approach imbecility. Further, we want to do all we can to overcome _ this danger; but at the same time Britain wants to become as self-contained in foodproduction as possible, and the announcement that there are now 3,000,000 more acres in cultivation than a year or so ago is more comfortable than the soothing fictions which cannot indefinitely put off the facing of facts. A FIGHT TO THE FINISH. And now I'll finish by an extended condensed quotation: " We are engaged in a war against the greatest military Power the world has ever seen; against a people whose country was for so many centuries a theatre of devastating wars that fear is bred in the very marrow of their souls, making them ready to submit their lives and fortunes to an autocracy which for centuries has ground their faces, but which has promised them as a result of the war not only security, but riches untold and the dominion of the world—a people which, as from a high mountain, has looked upon the cities of the world and the glories of them, and has been promised these cities and these glories by the devils of autocracy and of war. "We are wai'ring against a nation whose poets and professors, whose pedagogues and whose parsons have united in stirring its people to a white pitch of hatred, first against Russia, then against England, and now against America. .... "We stand in great peril, and only x exercise of ruthless realism can win this war for us. If Germany wins it means the triumph of the autocratic system. ,It means the triumph of those who believe not only in war as a national industry, not only in war for itself, but also in war as a high and noble occupation. Unless Germany is beaten the whole world will be compelled to turn itself into an armed camp, until the German autocracy either brings every nation under its dominion, or is forever wiped out as a form of government. "We are in this war because we were forced into it; because Germany not only murdered our citizens out on the high seas, but also filled our country with spies and sought to incite our people to civil war. . : . If we had stayed out and the war had been drawn or won by Germany, we should have been attacked, and that while Europe stood grinning by [wouldn't cowed be a better word than grinning?] ; not directly at first, but through-, an attack on some Central or South American State, to which it would be at least as difficult for us to send troops as for Germany. And what if this powerful nation, vowed to war, were once firmly established in South or Central America? What of our boasted isolation then?

1 "It is only because I believe that our people should be informed that I have consented to write this book. There are too many thinkers, writers, and speakers in the United States; from now on we need doers—the organisers and the realists, —who alone can win the contest for us, for democracy and for permanent

peace!" What do you think of what he says? I think he is very sane and level-headed. We have had too much twaddle sent to us. As he says, we want fewer speakers and more men of action. We want to be less complacent and comfortable and more strenuous.