Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1918. COMPLAINTS AND SPECULATIONS

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLI, Issue 11109, 29 December 1916, Page 4

Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1918. COMPLAINTS AND SPECULATIONS

ONE of our moat valuable assets as a people, and one, which will Dave aided os to win the war, if we do so, is our attribute of splendid optimism. No failure or disappointment crushes it. However far it may momentarily be depressed, it is soon rising up and up again until it reaches its normal level. Dnring the war we have probably experienced more disappointments in a military sense than ever-before fell to the lot of an Empire, Dnring nearly two an d a half years the late successes on the Somme have been almost the only compensations we have received in the war on land to set against a big list of German triumphs of which, the subjugation of Roomama, we may now hope will be the last. If we take a retrospective view of the fortunes of the war and our emotions in relation to it we see a wonderful alterthe barometer of hope. It seldom passed into depression, and never into despair, and from that fact we gather the conviction of ultimate triumph. It is one of the isgns that the race still retains its youth, its energy, and faith in itself unimpaired by the passage of the centuries over it.

Fm ranch of the disquiet and perturbation to which we have been exposed it is not the German we have to blame, but the newsmonger at the European end of the cable. We have been buoyed up again and again when the prospects seemed dark with the statement that Germany would soon be obliged to sue fcr peaca because of the imminence of general 3 tarvation. St it was not that which was to bumble Germany there were multitudes of other causes of German disaster to play on us with. There were revolution, the lack of cotton for the manufacture of munitions, the certain secession of one or another of German allies from the war, the exhaustion of man power and fifty other equally disastrous circumstances, which were to paralyse the offensive of our enemies and deliver them into our hands. We have been qnite easily fooled and have come up again smiling to submit to as many repetitions of the process as fate and the news agencies had in store for os. The fault, however, did not always lie with the latter. It has been the neutral—sometimes a distinguished neutral, and at other times just the ordinary neutral—who has been visiting Germany and has given us what we wanted to believe obont the internal condition of the country rather than what was actually true. Whether, however, as seems to be believed by many people, the German peace policy is at last being dictated by fears of revolution on the part of the ruling caste and a scarcity of food almost amounting to a famine it is difficult to say. That Germany is very desirous of peace there can be no question. It reveals the intensity of its longing for peace iu a manner perfectly reckless as to the inferences neutrals add belligerents may draw from it. But there is, of course, an alternative view to account for peace overtures which is just as reasonable as the other. Germany has reached the zenith of its success. It has just won a victory by the defeat and occupation of Roumania. It was one of spectacular value rather than material advantage, it is true, but its army is now seated on the soil

of all its enemies with the exception of that of Britain. It might be said, therefore, that as conqueror it holds a dominant position and it might offer eace out of magnanimity and without loss of prestige. The future is uncertain and although it may be able to continue the tight for

an indefinite period it can never be in a better position to obtain favourable terms than at present. We do •not believe the stories of the fear of a revolution, and the weekly repetition of accounts of the tragic scarcity ot food has rendered ns somewhat sceptical of actual famine, so that it is possible that if Germany is to be crushed it will be in tbs old way, by military pressure.