SIDELIGHTS ON THE WAR

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8178, 3 May 1919, Page 4

SIDELIGHTS ON THE WAR

FROM VARIOUS SOURCES. Driven Insane by Huns. It was stated at the Surrey Assizes at Guildford that Lieut. Sidney Stewart Hume, R.A.F., became insane owing to bad treatment in a prison camp in Germany. Indicted for the murder of Private Robert Aldridge, an orderly at Latchmere House Military Hospital, Ham Common, by shooting him with a revolver, Lieut. Hume was certified insane and ordered to be detained during His Majesty’s pleasure. The Ex-Kaiserin. The ex-Kaiserin has emerged from the comfortable obscurity of Amerongen to thank the League of German Women’s Patriotic Societies for sympathetic greeting. Frau Hohenzollern says:— “From the bottom of my heart I thank you for your loving message in these times of my unspeakable woe. God knows how my heart bleeds for the Fatherland. He alone, will repay all your affection, and perhaps permit better times to come. However things go, God will stand by the Fatherland and also by me. He alone will point the paths along which we shall go.” Colonial Blockade. The “Hamburger Nachriehten, ” organ of Germany’s defunct shipping and export industry, is furious over the proposal to establish ‘ 1 a colonial blockade” of Germany. The journal now publishes a daily front page legend in hold type reading, “Hand Back Our Colonies!” A leading article screams:—

“Neutralisation or internationalisation of our oversea possessions is simply a veiled way of robbing us of our colonies and shutting out Germany from colonial work in the future. The German people will not allow itself to be despoiled of its faith in its natural and historic rights on the sea or its colonial civilising mission.”

A Shooting Camera. The Hythe gun camera, or camera gun, is one of the great inventions of the war. It was evolved to show pilots the results of their machine gun fire when manoeuvring in training. By means of this contrivance a cadet, after firing a volley of imaginary shots at another aeroplane manoeuvring close to his own, was able to tell, on descending, exactly where his shots would have hit had his bullets and the “enemy” been real. The handle he pressed released negatives only, but by means of a process which allowed for wind currents as well as the respective speeds of the opponents, the result of the shots was registered with the most' minute accuracy.

The Value of Waste. One of the outcomes of four years of war is an appreciation of the value of waste, says a London newspaper. Impressed with knowledge gathered from the battlefield, where even the empty bully beef tin is gathered in for the sake of its solder, many demobilised men in Britain are turning their attention to the rag and bone trade. “Tatting” may not be salubrious, but it is undoubtedly profitable. On one round worked by an exsoldier a single day’s collection recently produced £3 worth of metal and glass, besides old clothing and paper, a fretwork machine, 50 books, and six suits of khaki.

Germany’s Vanished Colonies. Definite threats that Germany will one day break the peace to wrest hack her lost colonies were made in a farewell harangue at the Berlin Colonial Office by the retiring Minister, Dr. Rolf. He said he was not leaving the Government because of differences of opinion with the new rulers of Germany, who agreed with him that the possession of colonies was a vital question for Germany. The following were his most significant statements: — “Our war aipi must continue to be the recovery of our pyerseas dominions. Just as a nation of 70,000,000 cannot be wiped off the face of the earth, so utterly impracticable is destined to be the attempt to banish the German people eternally from colonising activity in tropical and sub-tropical regions. Our victorious enemies may have the power at the moment to dictate a peace of violence. But such a peace cannot last, because it contains the seeds of new controversies.” Dr. Solf’s successor as Colonial Secretary—a portfolio which will be a sinecure—is Dr. Bell, a Roman Catholic Centre politician and lawyer from Essen, long identified with Kruppville.