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Taranaki Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 145941, 26 September 1917, Page 2

Wo have hitherto regarded the statements that tho Germans have endeavoured to spread disease by dropping infected sweetmeats from aeroplanes and similar stories with a certain amount of scepticism, but the information cabled on Tuesday on the authority of Mr. Lansing, the United States Secretary for State, puts it beyond question that German scientific men have prostituted their knowledge to purposes of tho utmost baseness. It is stated that when Ronmania declared war on Germany and the interests of tho latter, country were pqt & the

hands of tho American Embassy certain packages wore handed over for safekeeping- When America joined tihe Allies these packages were opened and found to contain high explosives and germs of anthrax and glanders, with instructions how to use them for innoculating cattle. Both these diseases may be transmitted to man and, in a country like Roumania, where sanitary precautions are practically unknown, it is extremely probable that tho infection would have readily spread from animals to tho human population. If we ask ourselves why such methods are so repugnant to us tho answer is not easy. Wo have an instinctive feeling that they are wrong and this seems to rest on the belief that no civilised man would stoop to such methods of gaining his ends. It is such feelings as these which alone prevent us falling below the level of the beasts. The Germans have deliberately put all such restrictions behind them and have decided that so long as tho war can be gained nothing else matters. We see tho same spirit in the way they have treated the women dragged into slavery from Belgium and northern Prance. They have abandoned every restraint imposed by morality except where it aids them in their one object—the winning of tho war. With such enemies there can bo no truce and no peace except one that puts it out of their •power to do further evil.

Tho nows that freights from England to the Dominion are to be further increased from £6 to £lO per ton will be unwelcome to importers and to consumers of imported goods, for it must load to an increase in tho cost of living. Before the war freights wore in the neighbourhood of £2 per ton, and they have Been gradually raised until they are now nearly five times as great. It must not be that the shipping companies are reaping all tho benefit, or even the major part of it. Their expenses have increased enormously and thou- losses have been groat, besides which tho Imperial Government has demanded of them a large percentage of their profits. It is in a great measure to meet this demand that the shipping companies have from time to time increased freights, so that when consumers hero find the cost of their goods increased on account of high freights they may derive some little comfort from the knowledge that they are helping England to bear the cost of tho war. When the Imperial Government demands a huge cut out of a shipping company’s profits tho company not unnaturally looks for some means of passing the- taxation on, so they raise freights, and it is not unlikely that they will continue to do so until tho time comes when the shipping space is in excess of tho cargo available to fill it. At present the reverse is the case and it will be a long time before the change comes, so that we cannot look for a reduction of freights in the near future.