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Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 885, 11 December 1916, Page 6

The United States Government is "constrained to protest in a friendly spirit, but most solemnly" against the callous and altogether illegal deportation of non-combatants in captured territory by Germany, but it is not probable that a protest of that sort will weigh very much with von Hindenburg. The fact that deportations' both in the east and the west have! enabled Germany to hold the Franco-j British at bay in France while she invaded and overcame Rumania, will! confirm von Hindenburg in hisi shrewd policy of using brute force! to make thousands of non-combat-' ants in the temporarily subject countries do the work of German min-j ers, munition makers, and agricultural hands. To the German mind,! any means justify the end aimed at—either a victory over the Allies, or, at! least, the staving off of actual defeat! al their hands. Without the enforced aid of French, Belgians, and Poles, such an enemy effort as the world witnessed last month would not have been possible. The acquisition of the stocks (or what is left of them) ! of Rumanian wheat and oil will not. avail Germany, struggling, as she is, with a grave shortage of food and other necessaries, for very long. The German Food Director, Herr Balocki, has failed to relieve the pressing situation, and an inspired article inj the "Berliner Tageblatt" hints at! rationing being resorted to as a last! resource. Austria's plight in this', connection is even more serious, and.l if as has been suggested, one of the policies of the Lloyd George Govern- ■ ment will be the extension of the : blockade to all European neutrals, ; the population of the Central Em-! 1 pires will he placed on a still more ' meagre diet. Therefore, so long as j the deportation system can help Ger- j many in the factory or the field, so' ; long is it likely to be continued. j