The Waikato Times With which is incorporated The Waikato Argus. THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 1917. GERMANY

Waikato Times, Volume 88, Issue 13464, 19 April 1917, Page 4

The Waikato Times With which is incorporated The Waikato Argus. THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 1917. GERMANY

♦ It is perhaps an unworthy feeling which leads us to read with interest, or even satisfaction, of the straits to which our foes are reduced. We know our own sufferings, which in this country are slight; in Great Britain they are far heavier, though, fortunately, they are tempered to the poorer classes by the immense demand for labour, and the increased wages to be earned. In Germany, however, the conditions of life are infinitely more difficult. In a British weekly magazine a series of articles have lately appeared written by an American lady who visited Germany, partly on journalistic business and partly as the agent for a philanthropic society in America, which provided funds for the relief of some of the more extreme forms of distress. It may be doing the lady an injustice to hint that the second of these purposes was intended to veil the first. In any case her intentions and aims are of the kindliest nature possible. She had friends in Germany and was evidently not new to the country, and the contrast between what she saw on this visit and what she had previously known impressed her most painfully. She was provided with official introductions, but found that officially Germanydenies the existence of poverty and want. She refuses to let poor people ! appear in any of the better streets of

the big towns. The visitor was taken

to institutions for the care of babies, anil found that they are little used by the people generally, and in her efforts to reach the poverty-stricken she enlisted the services of a friend, who took her to the north of Berlin. There she found not only poverty, but destitution. She quotes, one Father at the fronl; income Y44 marks a month—equal, roughly, to £1 4s; rent 28s a month; family living on tea and potatoes; ai baby six -ninths bid too weak to lift l|sc arms.. ; : ance of milk is insufficient for children and babies, and they either die or survive with impaired constitutions. Such conditions are the 10l of immense numbers, but the visitor gives the menu of dinner at the best hotel in Stuttgart, and it shows conclusively that it is not the poor only who are stinted. She quotes the menu at length; it is headed "meatless day," and the fare consists of soup, fish with sauce, spinach, salad with radishes, and cooked apple; and the cost is four There was no bread, butter or sugar; to obtain bread it was necessary to have a bread card. The condition of trade, as might be expected, is deplorable. Labour is difficult to procure for any purpose but that of making munitions, but even worse is the scarcity of every kind of raw material. We used to be told by the alarmists that Germany was piling up goods with which to flood the world when war was over. The lady from America laughs at the idea. The manufacturers cannot even execute what orders they have. One of the most interesting items of her account is the record of the state of feeling in Bavaria, where she found that people were not only tired of war, but were extremely bitter against tHe Prussians, whom they accused of unfair treatment in thrusting their men into the most dangerous attacks and also of stripping the country of its food, in order to send it to the manufacturing towns of the north. The lady was convinced that on the conclusion of peace there would be revolution in Germany, partly from the resentment of the social democrat at his exclusion from political independence, and partly from the dislike of the South Germans to the overbearing manners of the Prussians. She found that well-to-do men were convinced that Germany would be no fit place-to live in when the war was over, and were convinced also that the Government would make it illegal to emigrate. With respect to the demand of the social democrats for self-govern-ment, it is interesting to note that the Chancellor has stated that this must be conceded at the conclusion of the war; but the time for such measures is past. Germany will either have revolution or a continuance of the absolutism under which she has prospered, made money, lost her head, and rushed headlong to destruction like the swine in the parable. Her people have not had any training in self-govern-ment. All the local government we are accustomed to, which trains men to take part in affairs on a larger scale, is with them- a function of the bureaucracy, and the civil service will not join the revolutionaries. In point!' of fact the revolution, if it ever takes place, will be against the bureaucracy,' which will have to stand on the defensive. We are unable to believe, however, that the populace, even if it can achieve temporary success and eject the Hohenzollerns, can rule itself. It had the opportunity in 1848, and failed, and has shown no symptoms of any greater capacity since. There is no reason to fear anything from Germany in the direction of further military enterprises. The successful war of 1870 disenchanted the generation which carried it out. This war will ruin Germany—financially, socially, and economically—for a century to come. The professors and preachers who have urged war will find that the fashion has turned, and they will turn with it. The only change that will not take place is in their natures. We are afraid that these men, and others like them, who should provide some power of outside criticism, will continue to take their orders fijom the Government; and there will be m the future, as in the past,' no class, or even individuals who possess the capacity to think for themselves, or any standard of right 01* wrong higher than the will of the Government.