"COURTING DISASTER."

Taranaki Daily News, 15 March 1916, Page 5

"COURTING DISASTER."

WHY "BIE ZUKUNFT" WAS SUPPRESSEr GOVERNMENT HIDING THjc TRUTH." The Daily Express managed ta get hold of the article by Maximilian Harden, the publication of which recently brought about the suppression of 9ie Zukunft. The text of the article is as follows: "While the Government and its Press are striving strenuously to convince the German people that the victory is already virtually won, the truth remains that no decisive victory has been gained and that Germany has still to mamtain a terrible struggle for her mere existence.

"It would be' wiser, seeing that ours ia an intelligent and patriotic nation, to tell it the truth rather than to dazzle it with illusions. Thereby they are only courting the disasters which cannot fail to result from the breakdown of public confidence, which will be inevitable when tile real elements in thp situation besome more generally known both by the soldiers at the front and by the people whom they have left behind at home. "Besides this, the belief that success 19 already secured to our arms dimishes the enthusiasm for further fighting, the mole so as many Germans are actually convinced that the Government declines to make peace for pure lust of conquest. "Tell the German people the truth, and the peace movement, which threatens formidable developments, will end in smoke. If, on the csfltrary, you continue deceiving them, the consequences will be irreparable. *

"Bismarck would have avoided the mistakes made by the prese*t rulers of Germany. In the first place, lie would have .put off any declaration of war until the moment when lie was absolutely certain not to find himself faced by a crushing coalition of the enemy, whereas Germany threw herself into the conflict under the erroneous conviction that England would remain neutral." Extraordinary measures, it appears, were taken to prevent copies of the offending journal from leaving Germany, but a considerable number found their way across the frontier before the censor pronounced the decree that "no further issues of this publication shall be permitted during the progress of the