GERMAN HOPES.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 29, Issue 37, 15 May 1917, Page 8

GERMAN HOPES.

HUNGRY, BUT CONFIDENT OF VICTORY. THREAT OF REVOLUTION. An interesting description of the daily increasing difficulties with which the Government of Germany is confronted is supplied by M. Andre Glarnier, the Paris correspondent of the Exchange Telegraph Company. I was able, he writes, to meet most of the American correspondents who accompanied Mr Gerard to Paris. All seemed to be of the opinion that Germany to-day is militarily strong enough to undertake another great stroke in the field. Since Hindenburg has arrived at the position of being the nation's biggest leader everyone in Germany has for the time being forgotten the sufferings undergone, and is now working for one object. If the triumph they hope for is not a slashing one they believe it is certain to put an end to the war. There can be no doub.t that the Socialist party, headed by Scheidemann, who to-day is a much greater power than people outside Germany realise, will impose a peace of some kind or other on the Kaiser and the military caste. “Not very long ago,” said the correspondent who expressed the above view, “1 heard that Scheidemann had told the powers that be that if the German Government, would not try to make peace he would put himself at the head of a revolutionary movement.” . Speaking of Germany's food difficulties, my informant said: “Germany today is exceedingly hungry* and her people are bearing severe privations, but their confidence in German victory is still intact. The average man believes that with her navy and her army Germany is capable of ending the war in the next six months.

“The campaign of systematic misinformation and falsehood has been carried to such a pitch that Americans arriving with Mr Gerard's party in Paris were much surprised to find that food could not only be easily obtained in France, but was even abundant. Mr Gerard himself, despite the fact that he had daily perused the English and French newspapers, had also the belief that France was suffering from a lack of eatables. A proof of this is the fact that he had caused to be packed two cases of eggs taken from the Embassy stores just before leaving Berlin for his own use. He took them with him to Switzerland, and it was only when there that he learned that the precaution was unnecessary. “All the Americans who arrived from Germany concur in saying that the Germans believe the French are as badly off as themselves in the matter of food, and that this belief helps them to endure their sufferings,”