STRATFORD.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 16039, 25 January 1918, Page 3

STRATFORD.

• FBOM OUK EESIBENI AGENT. > j an 24.— Hay-making has been resumed after a ten days’ interval of persistent showery weather. It is likely that Madame Cow’s nose will he elevated in disfavour of the quality of.much of the crop now to he gathered, it is a pretty constant rule that January haymaking is interrupted by rain. A very good start with the canvas for stock for the Wounded Soldiers’ Gift Auction has been made, the Stanley Road (To Popo) district having come forward with an excellent subscription list. February 23 is the date fixed for the auction. The following month, patriotic efforts will be concentrated on replenishing the futdf of the Y.M.C.A. Thus we, the nine-tenths who stay at home, endeavour to do a little hit for tlie one-tenth who endure the dangers and hardships of the front. How very real those dangers and hardships are we are finding out from the large numbers now returning ■'ncapacitated as well as from the frequent announcement of a permanent gap in some local family circle. The latest bereavement is that} of Mr. and Sirs. I. Kirkwood, whose boy Prank, just twenty--0110, enlisted in July Inst and has now given liis life in action. Consternation was caused a day or two ago amongst dairy factory people by a rumour that the Egmont Box Co., which supplies almost all with boxes and eases, was closing down for want of white pine timber. The position is not so desperate as that would mean, but it is a fact that there are great difficulties owing to Mm impossibility of procuring export bushmen in sufficient numbers. , . These troubles of ours are only the outer coils of the maelstrom of war and give us no idea of what it means to be nearer the centre. ThV rising generation of New Zealander^ may -know more about it if, through the. mischievous activities of cranks and quitters, this war ends in anything short of Hie arm nutation of the Prussian mailed fist. There is no safety except in the absolute destruction of the military autocracy that now dominates Germany. If The League of'Nations now existing is unwilling to see this job through now, of what Value is any agreement to punish and restrain the aggressors of the future ? As iu the past sp in the future, tho advantages of preparedness and of the initiative will lie .with the aggressor, whilst the pacifist powers will gradually allow their arms to rust pinning their faith on tho moral influences of principles in which they believe, but which the rulers of Germany, by precept and example, have declared to bo inapplicable to affairs of state.