Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 22 April 1915, Page 21

Current Topics

Where are the Orangemen ? i . Sir Edward Carson’s braves are still in the background, and the following is the full text of a question and answer submitted in the House, of Commons on the subject. Question put to the Under Secretary of State for War by Mr. John Swift McNeill, M.P. : ‘ Whether of the tour new armies the fourth new army started with the 30th Division and ended with the 36th (Ulster) Division; whether the 10th- (Irish) Division, which was in the first new army, and the 16th (Irish) Division, which was in the second new army, and the levies of last autumn, would take the field before the 36th (Ulster) Division, which was the last in the fourth new army, and was composed of men who have had three years’ training by efficient officers in field manoeuvres, in rifle practice, and even with machine guns; and, having regard to the fact that if due rotation be observed the Ulster Division, notwithstanding their superior advantage in training, would be the last to take the field, and the Irish Divisions, with a, few months' training, amongst the first to take the field, what was the explanation of this treatment of th« Ulster Division by placing it in the background.’ Answer: ‘ Mr. Tennant—l am very glad to be able to reassure my hon. friend, in spite of the conclusions to which his researches have apparently led him, that he would be wrong in thinking that the Ulster Division will necessarily be the last to take the field.’ The answer is in the last degree evasive and unsatisfactory, and the ‘ explanation ’ is emphatically of the kind which fails to explain. Austria and Peace Whore there is much smoke, according to the wellworn adage, there is generally some fire; and the rumors of the possible and even probable conclusion of a separate peace between Austria and Russia have of late been so frequent and persistent as to suggest that there is something behind it all. As a matter of fact such a course has been strongly urged upon .Austria by some of her public men for quite a long time past. More than four months ago the Gazette de Lausanne published some extremely interesting declarations made by a prominent Austrian diplomat, who had just tendered his resignation owing to profound differences of opinion between himself and the men who were actually directing the destinies of the Dual Monarchy. The article was reproduced in the Paris paper, L’JL-lair , of December 20; and wo translate from the latter journal the general conclusion of the author: ‘There remains only one solution—peace, separate peace, the abandonment of Germany by Austria-Hungary. Our existence is threatened; whatever may be the issue of this war the duty lies upon us to withdraw while there is still time. We have nothing to hope for from a victorious German Empire : the future opens out before ns in the face of a. weakened Germany and of a Prussia which has failed in its mission ;we shall be able.to dream then of recovering a preponderance in. central Europe without preoccupying ourselves beyond measure with Oriental politics in which we have wasted our best energies for thirty years. From October 7, 1879, the date on which we signed a treaty of alliance with Germany and Italy, we have served as the political instrument of the King of Prussia. The role of Italy has not been more glorious than our own; but at least she has been wise enough, in these later years, to consider her own vital interests and to disengage herself from German tyranny, and that also to our detriment. ... We have been too long in bondage; circumstances are now favorable, let us free ourselves from the German yoke and make peace. Scruples should not be allowed to hinder ns; let ns remind ourselves of the famous treaty, concluded in the face of a counter assurance, which Bismarck signed with Russia against us on March 21, 1884. In making peace now we may hope to preserve the status quo ante; the service which we shall x-ender to the coalition justifying us in making some demands. To indemnify

Servia and Montenegro we- shall be able to give over to them part of 'Albania: • In'this way we'set lip against Ithly—our ally of ' yesterday, our enemy alwaysthe Balkan-;peoples-; we isolate her in Europe, and we prevent her from gaining supremacy in ; the Adriatic. It will be too late for her to wish to come out of 'her threatening neutralityshe , will - have against her 'Austria and the whole of the coalition. We shall be able to agree that* Russia should go to Constantinople and that she may take whatever advantages she pleases from Turkey; in exchange, we shall -save Galicia, Bukowina; and Transylvania. In the face of Prussia conquered and Germany weakened, we shall be able to recover, conformably to our historic rights, the hegemony over the Germanic peoples of Central Europe. . On the side of Germany, even if victorious we shall be subdued; separated from Germany, who will certainly be beaten, we may hope for a fine future, agreeable to our aspirations and our traditions. The highest duty of a country is humanely to develope its powers, in conformity with its traditions, and not to follow blindly the disastrous politics of an hereditary enemy whose sovereignty one accepts without being able to justify. The Austro-Hungarian monarchy ought to deliver itself from the Prussian yoke.’ It is true that at the time this advice fell upon deaf ears, but the fall of Przemysl and the threatening attitude of Italy have changed the complexion of matters, and recent cables seem to indicate that these early counsels in the direction of self--preservation are now, at the least, receiving very serious consideration. . Is Germany Starving? The German answer is quite emphatic. It is that Germany is not starving, that Germany is a long way from starving, and that Germany never can be starved. It is admitted that an order has been issued that no person shall have more than four and four-tenths pounds'of white bread each week. It is admitted that' practically there is no longer any white bread. There is bread that looks almost white, but it has an admixture of rye flour, the rye bread, in turn,‘being mixed with some potato flour. It is admitted that certain articles of the German diet have become unpleasantly scarce. Rice, for example, has become a positive luxury, and is almost literally worth its weight in gold. At the beginning, of the war the supply of rice was taken over by the Government for soldier food ; and since then it has been practically impossible to get any 'more into the country. It is admitted also that various expedients have been resorted to to husband the food resources of the country, and to compel the people to practise economy. The unlimited and lavish supply of rolls at restaurants, for example, has been forbidden. ‘ “Why don’t you give us a basketful of rolls?” ’ I asked the waiter at the Kaiser-Keller the other night, says a Berlin contributor to an American paper. ‘ Verbnten,’ said the waiter. He continued to serve us with one slice of bread at a time. Under the law, he could only bring it when it was ordered.’ It is admitted also that in order to lessen the consumption of flour consequent upon the customary revelry in rolls the Government has forbidden the bakeries to open before 7 o’clock in the morning, or remain open after 7 o’clock at night. By that means the German breakfast table is served with stale breada fairly successful check to overfeeding. It is further admitted now that the Government had over-estimated the amount of wheat in the country—or, rather, had under-estimated the amount which would be consumed ■ by the army—-and that there is serious danger of a shortage. A census which was completed about the beginning of the year has made this plain. * Nevertheless there is something to bo placed to the credit account of Germany in the matter of food supply. * There is plenty of food in Germany,’ says Herbert Corey, in the New York Globe, * although the German table may not be quite as tempting as in the past. More land was planted in grain last year than ever before. The prep gn the western front planted abandoned

French, fields- in some places. In- eastern Prussia the Russian prisoners were set at work. Several heaths have been broken up near Germany’s prisons by the convicts. It became a matter of patriotic duty to put every foot of land possible in crop. " The emperor had ordered it. “Kill your pigs. Make them into sausage.” That was another recent order. There are 23,000,000 killable porkers in Germany, While they live they consume grain, and grain is needed by army horses. The horses which remain at home have had their grain diet cut to a minimum. Further, a pig exists for the sole purpose of eating grain, to be turned into meat. lie cannot be economically or wisely kept on scant rations. He must grow fatter to keep well. Hence the decree. The same rule does not apply to cattle. Germany has even an oversupply of cattle, but horned beasts can rub along somehow on scant rations, so they have not yet been ordered out of existence. Geese and eggs from Russia will be missed on the German table, as well as caviare and other delicacies. But Germany will not go hungry.’ * Nevertheless, there is this plain statement in Germany’s latest Note to America: ‘ Germany is as good as cut off from her overseas supply by the silent or protesting toleration of neutrals not only in regard to such goods as are absolute contraband, but also in regard to such as, according to the acknowledged law before the war, are only conditional contraband or not contraband at all.’ That would seem to show fairly clearly that the economic pinch is beginning to make itself felt. The Question of the Unborn It is not within cur province to say how far the awful charges of brutal violence towards women which have been so freely preferred against the German soldiers arc true. That is a question of evidence, which evidence we have not so far had an opportunity of examining. Father Bernard Vaughan, who lias gone very fully into the whole matter, refuses to put faith in a. widely-circulated report to the effect that in a. single convent twenty-nine of its sixty nuns are expectant mothers. He has been unable to trace the whereabouts of this convent, and, considering the whole circumstances, he does not consider it likely that the story is true. But Father Vaughan has read and carefully examined other and more trustworthy reports of the German doings in Belgium and France, and he feels bound to confess that in his opinion not only women and children, but even nuns, have been assaulted by the enemy’s troops. His language is such that on the strength of it the Catholic Tunes feels called upon to press for a searching investigation. ‘ Christendom has a, right,’ says our contemporary, ‘ to know whether there is solid ground for the accusations against the Germans. A thorough investigation is necessary. In case they are innocent, it is to their interest and but just that it should take place and that the charges should he declared false in the journals that have published them. If, on the other hand, they are found guilty, they should not only be held up to the execration of the world, but the civilised nations should combine to inflict suitable punishment on (he criminals.’ That is an eminently fair position to take in regard to what is an altogether repulsive and painful business. * In this connection it is, perhaps, not without significance to note that M. Maurice Barres, writing in the Echo de Paris , proposes a. law providing that in the districts invaded by the enemy women who fall victims to his violence may ask the Mayor to have the child resulting from the crime registered as born of ‘ an unknown father and mother.’ The Mayor would automatically consent, and the child would, if so desired, be consigned to an orphanage. Mr. Barres hopes that by this means families will be able when they wish to remove all traces of these pollutions as much as is humanly possible. Following upon this announcement it is stated that M. Louis Martin, member of the Senate for the department of the Var, will shortly lay before the Sgnate two measures for the relief of women

who have suffered from violence of the enemy’s troops during the occupation of the invaded territory. The first Bill provides for the temporary suspension in the said territory, under certain conditions, of the penalties for operations, and the • second arranges for the establishment of homes for foundlings. Whatever may bey said regarding the remainder of this programme, it is certain that the proposal to right undoubted wrongs by the pagan method of allowing operations which are clearly forbidden by Christian principles will meet with firm protest from the Church authorities in France, and if is hardly likely that such proposal will ever pass into law; The Church’s teaching on the subject of the unborn child’s right to life has been clearly stated by the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyons. In his Semaine lieliyiense. his Eminence lays down two principles; first, that to attempt by any method the life of a child after the union of soul and body is the sin of homicide; second, that any such attempt on the- life of a child even before this union may have taken place is a grave sin similar to homicide. Against persons guilty of either of these crimes Pope Pius IX. prescribed the same penalty of excommunication. Cardinal Sevin then goes on to point out that the unborn child has a right to baptism, and that as the legitimate unborn child can inherit by law, it belongs to the legislator to determine the hereditable capacity of a child which is the issue of violence. Furthermore, it is certain that such a child has, after birth, both by the natural and civil law, the right to sustenance and education. ‘The jurisconsults,’ he concludes, ‘ are examining how far it' may be necessary to suspend the old rules for determining paternity and maternity. They are, in this, within their rights, and the Church has nothing to say against it.’ We have only to add that the paragraph from the Paris paper,- Lr Matin , commented upon in these columns some short time ago, to the effect that an unnamed Belgian priest had counselled the mothers in such cases to play the part of Herod, has been proved, to be entirely fictitious. The Grand Sortie: A French View The mysterious and as yet very imperfectly explained cannonading reported last week as having been heard off Bergen, together with the circumstantial account given by a Norwegian, skipper of his having sighted more than a dozen German cruisers in approximately the same locality, has directed attention to the question of the likeliness or unlikeliness of a general sortie on the part of the German fleet, and has also given rise to some speculation as to the probable date of such a stroke, if it ever should eventuate. Both points are discussed at considerable length and with the usual French lucidity in the Paris paper, IT E repress du Midi, of February 3; and the French viewpoint, which corresponds in the main with that of the best British experts, is distinctly interesting. Under the title, ‘ What Time the Grand Battle : What Will the German Navy Do?’ the paper begins by pointing out that the German Admiralty had foreseen the probability of a war with England, and also of a war with France and Russia, and had prepared a separate plan of action for each contingency. But they had not contemplated the possibility of a war against all three at the same time, nor had they anticipated the entire defection of Italy from the cause of the Triple Alliance. ‘ln the presence of this double surprise,’ says the Express du Midi writer, ‘ what could the German Admiralty do ? Before all things apply rigorously the plan which had been prepared in view of war with England. This plan is that which the Admiral Breusing expounded in an interview which it is necessary to keep always in mind. “England,” said he, “plans to carry out the blockade of the German coasts by closing the Calais Strait and the North Sea by a line of cruisers sailing between the coasts of Scotland and Norway. The German fleet will await under the shelter of the fortified islands of the North Sea the . moment when bad weather and the necessities of revictualling will compel the English fleet to weaken itself by some units; then it will deliver battle. Nobody can say what will be the issue of that battle.

The victor will bring back to port the fragments of his fleet; the vanquished will not send back a single ship.’ * ■ ■ , * •» After showing that both Germany and Britain have framed their actual plans of action in accordance with Ithe above accepted German programme, the writer emphasises the point that battle is inevitable, and that the German fleet must perforce come out of its shelter. ‘ What, then, does this fleet wish to do, and what is it able to do Vhe asks. ‘ According to one of the most competent of the military writers of the Lectures 'pour tons, the German fleet, in spite of its tactics at the beginning of the war, must come out of its refuge at a given moment. It must do so, says he, for a material reason : because, in default of the invasion of England, hindered by the simultaneous occurrence of the two wars which had only been provided for separately, it will be very necessary that Germany should attempt to open up for herself a means of supply. It must do so for a moral reason: because the navy is the great idea of the reign of William the Second and if the German people agree to await for the naval action a chosen hour he would not allow the abdication, pure and simple, without combat, of that navy which was to have assured their future upon the waves. When will this sortie take place ? According to a saying of Admiral Turpitz, naval questions should be settled by practical men: the sortie of the German fleet will be carried out as a practical business; and it is being prepared for as such. The unexpected activity of the German submarines is one preface energetically carried 'out; the capture of Antwerp and Zeebrugge is another. - What is being prepared behind the protection of the German mines? Very probably a violent offensive, following the regular German method, an offensive en masse which it will be necessary for the British battle fleet to ward off, which fleet also will have preserved in shelter in her well-defended ports the huge units which will oppose themselves to the attack which comes from the Elbe. Would there be any advantage in not waiting for this attack, in forcing the passage ? In going, according to the expression of an English Minister, to hunt out the German ships as one would drive rats from their holes? Certainly not, replies the author of this article. It is the duty of the allied squadrons not to risk in an enterprise so dangerous the supremacy which their number gives them, says he in conclusion, British prudence has, moreover, so far disregarded every trap, in particular the last, the savage and useless bombardment, without any tactical bearing, of the coast of Yorkshire by three or four large and fast cruisers. The German Admiralty hoped without doubt that under pressure of public opinion the English fleet would be compelled to pursue the attackers, who by an adroit flight would have drawn it straight to some mine-field, to some rendez-vous of submarines, but the English fleet did not fall into the snare. . . And if, contrary to expectations, the German fleet should not come out ? Then the clearly marked advantage of the allied squadrons would require them to observe the same tactics: that would be a victory without fighting, a victory complete and decisive the result of which would be as fruitful as one could desire. But that hypothesis is more than doubtful. The recent declarations of Admiral Tirpitz announce clearly the German plan formerly expounded by Admiral Breusing: "the German fleet will go out when it judges it useful” : and the allied squadrons will do well to keep unceasing ward.’