Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Third of a Century.] MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1915. GERMAN LUST FOR TERRITORY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 14206, 8 February 1915, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Third of a Century.] MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1915. GERMAN LUST FOR TERRITORY.

The year 1914 has seen Europe engaged in the most tremendous war in history, and it is the greatest iv which the Empire of Great Britain has ever been called upon to take part. In the beginning of last century she had her hands full with the Napoleonic wars, out ofwhich sho emerged triumphant, and aent the evil spirit who was the cause of all the trouble to live a lonely exile on the island of St. Helena, watched over by that meanest-spirited of warders, Sir Hudson Lowe. In the suppression of Napoleon, one of Britain's allies was Prussia, the chief factor in the Germanic war lust which has brought about the present upheaval in Europe The tables have strangely turned since Napoleon's days. It is in the German lust for territory that the cause of the turning of the tables must be looked for. To crush the lust, the British Empire, the French Republic and the Czar of all the Russias arc allied, in a war which is to be a fight to a finish. War to-day is different from war of Napoleon '3 time; diff rent from the war which Britain, France, Turkey and Sardinia waged against Russia in tho Crimea; different, too, from the war which Britain had to wage to crush the Sepoy rebellion in India, and different from the first Boer war. The introduction of arms of precision and rapid fire at long range has changed the whole system of war; but it has not changed its aspects . for the better. The change of system means a terrible increase in the loss of life and limb, and an increase in cost that it will take years for those engaged in the present conflict to defray. The change also means that with the advance of science, the means of transport and communication have been vastly improved, and these have become important factors in tho campaigns of today. Wireless t- legraphy and aerial navigation nave made it almost impossible for one side \o conceal its doings

from tho other. And it is on this point, military authorities hold, that it is necessary to prevent true descriptions and reports of the campaigns to be disseminated as they were in all the wars in which Britain has hitherto taken part. , Never before have the columns of tho press been so wholly at the' mercy of tho censor. Tho newspapers of the Britsh Empire can only publish such news of tho war as the military j censor cares to sanction or supply. And the majority of the Censors appear to havo been selected on account of their lack of knowledge of newspaper work,and the factl that they are altogether out of touch with public opinion—men for the most part earning big salaries and doing their work badly. It is difficult to read between the linos of the war news at times, but it is not difficult to realise that Great Britain, France and Russia mean the Avar to be a lightto a finish, and the finish will only lie for them when Germany has been so completely beaten that her lust for territory lias been burnt out.