Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 10 December 1914, Page 21

Current Topics

German Socialists and the War Many shrewd observers have predicted as a probable result of the war a social revolution in Germany, with disastrous consequences to the House of Hohenzollern. This view finds strong countenance in an utterance of the great Socialist leader, Herr Bebel, who died a short time before the present war cloud appeared on the horizon. ‘ When Germany goes to war*,’ said the late Socialist generalissimo, ‘ there will be whole armies of our adherents in the fighting, ranks. As long, as all goes well and victory crowns our banners they can do little but let themselves be swept along on the triumphant flood. But once let the impression take root that Hohenzollern prestige has lost its magic —once let the War Lord’s pride be greatly humbled by a genuine disaster to his armsthen' prepare for a miracle !’

The Elections The N.Z. Tablet goes to press at midday on Wednesday, so that the elections will all be over and the results known throughout the • Dominion before this issue reaches the majority of our readers. We refrain, therefore, from any further comment on the issues, and from the publication of matter bearing on the elections which would be too late and useless by the time it could appear. It is to be regretted that there will be a number of triangular and even one or two four-candidate contests, and that owing to the Government’s action in repealing the Second Ballot and at the same time, omitting to provide a substitute in the shape of some form of proportional representation there is danger in these cases that the real voice of the people may not find expression. Out of the 76 European electorates there is a straight-out contest between Ministerial and non-Ministerial candidates in 56 constituencies, included in the non-Ministerial candidates being : several Labor and Social Democratic candidates who will vote against Mr. Massey on a no-confidence motion, though not otherwise identifying themselves with the Liberal Party. In the remaining 20 electorates there are more than two candidates. In one, Palmerston (North), there are four—two Government, one Opposition, and one Social Democrat. In the other 19 ‘ split ’ elections, the Government have only one candidate in 14 of the electorates, and the mon-Ministerialists have only one candidate in four of these constituencies,- the third candidate in the remaining constituency being classified as Independent. On paper, therefore, the Government stand to lose 4 and the Opposition 14 seats as the result of ‘split ’ contests, though, of course, the actual results may not pan out according to the paper indications. Tommy Atkins: A French View The following verses are an attempt, by a writer in the London Chronicle, to describe the. Tommies as seen by a Frenchman. They are at least bright and clever, and may be taken as approximating very closely to a true picture of the Frenchman’s feeling: ‘ Dieu ! but ze Tommies can fight! Zey know not ze meanings of fright. line bombe she bang go ! Zey chant loud “Wot oh!” And proverbs mos’ strange zey recite. * Zey shrink not from terreeble skenes, Zey laugh at ze deedly machines! Bravo ! Zey make sharge , At Germans more large, And geeve to zem beaucoup des beans! * And wen zero goes somet’ing all wrong, Wen ver’ special ’ell comes along, Zey lift oop zeir voice And make ze glad noise ‘ ' s Of Are we donarted? . . . Non!”

‘So “Vivent les bons Tommies!” I say— Les Tommies tres braves et tres gais ! , Come, toast zem some beers And geeve. zem trois sheers— Ze Tommies !-’eep, ’eep, ’eep, ’ooray !’

A German View

We do not believe that the following production represents anything like the view of Tommy Atkins entertained by the German fighting man who has actually met him in Belgium and France; but it is considered good enough for circulation amongst the citizens of ‘neutral ’ America, whose pious President has impressed upon his people that they ‘must be impartial in thought as well as in action,’ ‘ must put a curb upon their sentiments,’ and must display ‘ the fine poise of undisturbed judgment.’ It is taken from Fatherland, the German American publication from which we quoted last week, and is the work of a German pastor, the Rev. G. A. Schmidt. Here is the poetic flight of this compatriot of Goethe ‘ Dot leedle Tommy Atkins, Him go to var vun day. Him sail avay from Dover town Und landed by Calais. Ach Himmel! ‘ Und Tommy hav a red coat, Und Tommy hav a gun. So Tommy ncfer stop to think Dat brrhaps him hav to run, Like sixty ! ‘ Him link him go to picnic, Shust like vun fine parade, Dee French and Belgians fight like—fits. But Tommy, him afraid. Poor Tommy ! ' * Him shcare dem bloomin’ Germans, Vot valk right into France, Und den dey valk right back again, Und nefer hav no chance. Aber nit! ‘ Him hav one grand excursion From London to dee Seine Und mid some sporty mad’moiselles, Him drink dat dry schampagne. By golly ! ‘But “blawst” dem German soljers, Dey spoil him all dat fun, Und Tommy like to hustle home, Before dat fight begun. Don’t you know !’ Wo apologise to our readers for printing such sorry stuff, but it represents a point of view, and as such it must bo allowed to pass. An Irish View Sir William Butler was a great Irishman, a great observer, and a master of the pen. He was himself a soldier and a leader of soldiers; and he knew something at first hand of the glories of the unknown and too often unthought-of Tommy. In a fine passage in one of his earlier works— The Great Lone Land —he gives us a vivid pep picture of, the men of the rank and file arid 1 of the sort of thing which they have to go through. He is pot speaking of an ideal or superior Tommy Tommy at his highest and on his best behaviour, so to speak,—but' of the ordinary, common, workaday typo of British soldier. ‘ Who,’ he asks, ‘ are the rank and file? They are the poor wild birds whose country has cast them off, and who repay her by offering their lives for her glory ; the men who take the shilling, who drink, who drill, who march to music who fill the graveyards of Asia; the men who stand sentry at the gates of world-famous fortresses, who are old when their elder brothers are still young, who are .bronzed and burned by

fierce suns, who sail over seas packed in great masses, who watch at night over lonely magazines, who shout* “Who comes there?" through the darkness, who dig in trenches, who are blown to pieces in mines, who are torn by shot and shell, who have carried the flag of England into every land, who have made her name famous through the nations, who are the nation’s pride in her hour of peril and her plaything in her hour of prosperity. These are the rank and file.’ That is a fin© piece of word painting, and as true as it is finely put. Applying his general description to the particular men whom he was then leading, Sir William Butler continued: * Weeded now of their weak and sickly men, they formed a picked body, numbering 350 soldiers, of whom any nation on earth might well be proud. They were fit to do anything and to go anywhere; and if a fear lurked in the minds of any of them, it was that the enemy would not show fight. Well led and officered by men who shared with them everything, from the portage-strap to a roll of tobacco, there was complete confidence from the highest to the lowest. To be wet seemed to be the normal condition of man, and to carry a pork barrel weighing 200 pounds over a rocky portage was but constitutional and exhilarating exercisesuch were the men with whom, on the evening of the Bth of August, I once more reached the neighborhood of the Rat Portage.’ That is the estimate of the man who knows and in the light of such testimony such doggerel as that of the Rev. G. A. Schmidt may be mentioned only to be despised. Where Will Germany Break Down? ; From the first it has been fairly apparent that the present struggle would —as it has been called—a ‘ war of attrition,’ a war, that is, in which there would probably be no great decisive military result, but in which one or other side would be gradually worn down and would eventually have to give in from sheer exhaustion. It is obvious that the exhausting pressure may not make itself felt in all directions but may take effect as the result of the exhaustion of some particular necessity—such as food, ammunition, transport material, etc., —and British experts have been speculating as to the special line along which the exhaustion of Germany is likely to proceed. Professor J. S. Nicholson,* the eminent Scottish, economist, thinks that the questions of food and finance will be the determining factors—the financial stress being accentuated by the rise in the price of commodities and decreased purchasing power of the German paper money. ‘By following out the, consequences of the natural shortage of food supplies, etc., and the artificial excess of paper money, we see that with the advancement of winter the economic pressure will be felt more and more severely by the Germans,’ he writes in the Scotsman. ‘The general conclusion is that the shortage of “necessaries’’ must be accompanied in Germany by increasing discomfort or strain, even if, as in a besieged fortress, all the supplies were distributed in rations adjusted by military authority on an equitable basis. If is, however, quite clear that no Government could at once undertake to dole out rations to a population of over sixty-five millions. The unemployed and their dependants must, of course, in some way be provided for, but even in their case the relief may be given in the form of money, and not in actual food, etc. This reliance on money as the great agent in distribution brings in very great difficulties that are not apparent in times of .peace. It is not so much the absolute shortage that has to be taken account of as the distribution of the lessened supplies according to the money power of the consumers. This distinction is of vital importance. To say that Germany has a sufficiency per head of population is one thing; it is quite another thing if the distribution is effected by means of purchase and sale. . .' . The measures adopted by Germany on the outbreak of war are certain to raise prices. The masses of inconvertible notes issued only need time to produce that well-known effect. - . . . As the war, progresses the higher command of the money power , will begin to be alarmed, and the lower commands of the money power ' will begin to feel the pres-

sure of diminished resources.’ The meaning of all of this is that while Germany may have ample supplies per head of the population the food will, in point of fact, only be given to those who can pay for it. The proletariat, who will be the first to feel the pinch, will certainly, com plain, and may even revolt. Professor Nicholson arrives at* the comforting conclusion: ‘Taking one consideration with another, the end of the war ought to be in sight with the advent of spring, and, at any rate, the prolongation over a second winter is extremely improbable.’ * Dr. Gilbert Slater, who writes interestingly on the whole subject in the Daily Chronicle, thinks that, on the whole, the exhaustion of the enemy's food supplies is not likely to be an important factor. With retard to clothing, there will probably be some difficulty phut here again, he holds, the supplies are likely to be sufficient. In respect to ammunition, there are possibilities. ‘ The other great staple of war is ammunition, and the iron and coal which supply Krupp’s mighty arsenal with raw material. Essen is, indeed, the heart of the whole German military machine, and, rather than Berlin, the final objective of the Allied armies. Iron and coal Germany has in abundance, but there may be, for aught I know, in my ignorance of the technique of the making of explosives, some essential which has to be imported. It is an interesting historical fact, commonly ignored, that the British control of the main supply of saltpetre was a great factor, very likely the greatest factor, in the downfall of Napoleon. But whether the German military organisation has any similar weak spot it is for our experts to find out.’ Speaking of the enemy’s means of transport, he points out several directions in which it is in danger of breaking down. ‘ What is the part which will first give way ? From the commencement of the war I have privately guessed that in Germany’s case it will be horses. The wastage of horses must be tremendous, the home supply inadequate, the difficulty of importing any considerable numbers formidable. Further, the Russian occupation of Galicia is most important in its effect on the supply of petrol, though perhaps substitutes may be found in alcohol and spirit distilled out of coal. Again, if bicycles and motor cars are used as. substitutes for cavalry horses •there is a possible difficulty in a shortage of rubber, which chemical science may or may not overcome.’ But his final conclusion is that to which close observers are more and more surely tending : ‘ It is a terrible thought, but it may well turn out to be true, that the form exhaustion will take will be exhaxxstion of the supply of men.’ Mr. Arnold Bennett voices the same view in the Daily Nears, and points out that the Kaiser, despite his kin shin with the Deity, cannot create men. Exhaustion along such a line is, indeed, as Dr. Slater says, a terrible thought, but it Cannes with it this mitigation that such exhaustion would at least and at last bring about finality. . ’