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Timaru Herald, Volume CVI, Issue 16184, 31 January 1917, Page 6

In the western theatre the artillery have beeu aclive on the Lorraine front, and not alone there. Each side will do its utmost to disturb the other's preparations for the spriug. British raids north-east of Arnieutieres reached the third German line, doing- much damage. Ai new development on the eastern front is reported in Russian attacks ou the Zlota Lipa. 111 Galicia. A successful breakthrough here would threaten Halicz and indirectly Lemberjr, but the operations do not seem to have been, on the largest scale, though a first line of trenches was carried. It. is notable that the Turks have been induced to ma# this portion of the AustroGerman line. Over 2000 prisoners are reported to have been: captured by our allies in their successful action on the Bukowina border, where fortified positions were broken down on a three versts front. The new British minefields, laid before the Heligoland Bight and portions o£ the Dutch and Danish coasts, have caused resentment in Berlin. Presumably it was consideration for the neutral States which caused these mines not io be laid before. The foundering; of a German submarine is unofficially reported, and the Ger-i mans claim to have sunk, sis days ago, in the Mediterranean, a transport filled with troon«. tho loss of which has not been reported yet from Allied sources. Germany has informed America; that merchant ships, attacked by submarines, will receive no warning for the future, as British ships are carrying more arms than were thought, a year aor>, to be needed for defence. But then the submarines are better armed than they were formerly, and the new announcement, after German promises, can. be expected to breed argument if noi thing more. The sense of Russia's remoteness must be lessened by the. Allies' "War Council which' is being held in .Petrograd, on the lines of those held previously in Paris and Home*

At first sight it might appear incredible that the- statements attributed to the Kaiser's chap-* lain, in a sermon on his master's birthday, should be made by any minister of religion. Piety itself may take strance forms, buis for any German minister to say, at this stage of events, that the German nation 4 'neither willed nor wanted this war." would appear to be such deliberate falsehood that its utterance, in a? sacred place, could hardly be believed of any man. Yet it -.is Quite possible that this strange minister of religion believed that the Kaiser "extended ihe hand of peace,"- only to have it: " slapped, with unprecedented frivolity and insults." by the l\llies. not only when he had had enough of the war, but before beginning it.

3Ar Curtin. makes the mystery clear iu an article on the Ger-i uian clergy and "hate" sermons which he contributed recently to "The Times/' The Lutheran pastor in a German -village, lie points out, and the same thing may be gathered from Coiintess von Arnim's novels, occupies a very low position socially aud is paid wretchedly. His 'greatest object in life is to obtain the favour of the local junker or rich manufacturer, who can im*>rove his lot, and a passion with him has been hatred of the English' clergy, who are better paid ami socially more honoured. Thei ordinary Lutheran nnstor holds a lower place, in public estimation, than all except the lowest Government. officials, and to a. great extent it has suited the Government to treat him as an official. Le.irlinrr pastors receive each" week many of the Government pronasanda 'documents, including a digest carefully nrerared for iliom by the Foreign Press Department. What nurport to bei extrar-is from the London news* papers are ingenious distortions, and, if the clergy have been, after the professors, the chief fomenters of race hatred and friffhifulness. they have the exeuse that they have been consistently mistaught about the war.

A Court chaplain naturally would be even more prone la have his mi ml coloured by official superiors than Iris loss fortunate brethren, wlio are not without influence on their fnii-jrrosrai-ioiifs. Mr Curiin states that ilie German pastors who. X few years before (lie war. wero invited on a visit to Great Britain. returned to their own conntry full of piivv and nncharitflbleness. The churches in l-.mr-land, they believed, were decadent throuq-h comfort and prosperity. and what struck one <if them with whom Mr Curt in w«, versed was the " lack of discipline mid uniforroitv " anions* boiK Amrlieans and Nonconformists, sis revealed bv the fact that "e:i<-]{ man seemed take his own vointj of view, without ;i"v res*f*d -i ih" opinions of the religious denomination to wlihh

lie belonged."- vJUiat must have been botii Ixateful and coiiteiiLDtible to the drilled German -'mind. • lleiT Pastor evidently had been Eiost kindly entertained when he ,\ isited England, and his malicious comment was: "It was nothing- but eating, and drinking, r.nd sight seeing." -The English [ minister with whom he stayed idid not even have to grow his 1 own vegetables. It was not so in Germany. Not a little of the I German war passion has been -is—-