OFFICIAL UNTRUTH IN BERLIN.
HOW THE GOVERNMENT LIED TO THE PEOPLE
The special correspondent of the Daily Chronicle telegraphed from Amsterdam on February 2nd
Much was heard a few months ag0, shortly after the appointment of Herr Batocki as Food Dictator, of a notorious placard which was printed and circulat ed by secret means, among the masses of German working people, and among the soldiers also This iscard was! clearly written by popular lenders, who
QUB
THE HONGKONG DAILY PRESS, MONDAY APRIL 30, 1917,
ELEGANT ARMY,
IMPRESSIONS OF FRENCH WRITER
AT THE FRONT
the
M. Paul Birault, Editor of Bulletin des Armées, the official organ of the French Army, writes:---..
In the course of my visit to the British front I had the opportunity of seeing a Tank thut had just been landed and whose mechanics were busy adjusting the motor. A Tank, noen from the outside, looks like an antediluvian monster cap able of overturning everything in Its path. ***
THE BALKAN PEOPLE IN
WAR TIME
A VILLAGE BEHIND THE BATTLE-
LINE:
No
On the SERBIAN FRONTIER one dropping into the Macedonian village in which I am at presente quarter ed would imagine that it was one of the storm centres of the Balkan War 1t presents a picture of peace such as would gladden the heart of any pacifist. The two streets that form the village, The inside is a perfect mechanical the short one, at right angles to the other wished to show the German masace whereum. One has only to look at the brightly running along a sluggish stream of polished steel and copper parts,, the doubtful purity, are lined with a fow cylinders, and quivering pistons to sewretched shops in which soap, petroleum, that the strength of the monster 15sugar, and a few other strict necessaries throughout the work of intelligence
This impression which the fank save file are to be found. Luxuries there is exactly what I experienced in looking are none, unless one counts the inevitable tins of concentrated feilk and fow at the British Army What strikes a stranger most is the surprising air of stray boxes of sardines in that category. freshness, of the British soldier. I saw At the angle where the streets join is the some troops landing. They all wheeled solitary mosque of the village, and a about, and marched off with a gay and marble fountain with Turkish inscription sprightly step to close themselves up in forms the last souvenir of the regime of the great boxes of white wood and grey
the Sultan. canvas which lay in rows in the midst of the sand dunes,
they were being led by the cliques in power, and called on them to rise to pro- test before it was too late.
The placard, so far I know, was never published in full outside Germany, where its suppression was vigorously sought by the Government. Some indica tion of its contents did, I believe, and its way over the frontier, but I believe the complete contents were not known Hitherto
Doe of these placards now lies before me and I am therefore able to send its complete contents.
A VERY MODEST MARKET
KAISER'S MEN IN AMERICA.
DEMAND FOR THEIR PUNISHMENT.
A nation-wide movement has been start- ed to punish Senator Stone for his parti | cipation in the olâtruction to the Defence Bill in the Senate. The National De- fence Society telegraphed as follows to the Bonate from New York -
The honour of the nation, as well as our material salvation, demands the re- moval of Stone from the chairmanship of the Foreign Relations Committee and the substitution of a man standing un- questionably for the most aggressive kind of American patriotism,
The Cloveland and the Ohio newspapers generally have joined in the movement urging the deposition of Stone as a mes sure of preparedness. The Pam Dealer in its editorial, says
Stone is one of the Kaiser's men. As long as he is at the head of the com- mittee America's armour of defence against German aggressions is material- ly weakened. He can no longer bo trusted and respected.” The Press says
taking up the demand for Stone's re The St. Louis. newspapers are also
"If he is not manly enough to resign, moval from the chairmanship. The Post Despatch, for example, says
majurity. he ought to be kicked out by the patriotic
On arriving in France they spend a Hore once a week, the population of a certible thing that this chair- week in one of the caps constructed on the surrounding country pours in on footmanship, which is second only in import- MEANING OF WAR WITH ENGLAND our coust. This period is used by the and on donkeys to hold a market Theance to the Presidency, as oécupied by a The placard is about 18 inches by degree of perfection to which the men a total value of more than a hundred bor Shoe) Bill, the Kaiser's friend...............
instructors for verifying in detail the goods on display do not have, however, man of the character of Gumshoe (Rub- about or 8 inches wide, nad it is headed have attained. It is a application of franes or so, consisting mainly of onions, by the one word "Hunger!" in bis industrial methods to war. No factory chestnuts, paprica, and such oddments It contains the following address to the material without verifying to the red-turbanded in front of a couple of black letters more than an inch high manager would ropive a lot of raw as pins, needles, thread, etc. I saw one Gorman masses The
its quality merchant spend the whole British High What was bound to happen has hap-same way and tests each of the men sent dozon boxes of matches. As these self two pened Hunger. At Leipzig, Berlin, to him. Those who are physically unfit for a penny his gross receipts, even i Charlottenburg, Brunswick, Magde or insufficiently prepared are put to
one abilling and his net profit at most he certainly did not, would have been threepenco. The inhabitants seem almost to have realised the commercial condi tions of the Sandwich Islands, where the inhabitants lived by taking in each other's washing.
burg, Coblenz, Osnabrück, and many side, and sent back to the foundry he had disposed of his whole stock, which toss meeting of business men ut Pen-1
other places disturbances among the hungry masses have occurred in front of the food shops. Our State-of- siege-Government only answers with State of siege, police sabre, military patrols."?
re
Bethmann-Hollweg accuses England
SPICK-AND-SPAN EQUIPMENT.
with a red lez climbs on to the marble From time to time a grey bearded man fountain and makes a speech. At first I thought he was a political agitator, as
directing Florida's senators to aid in sacola (Florida) passed a resolution ousting Senator Stone from the chairman- ship of the Forsign Relations Committe and characterising his action as little short of treason.
The Nebraska Legislature is to consider. one of the obstructionists, as a traitor ing a resolution branding Senator Norris, to the people, his State, and the United State P
(Mississippi), forged an Iron Cross forty Thomas Colins, a blacksmith of Biloxi pounds in weight, which he sent to Sena- tor Vardar an, marked "Lest, the Kaiser forget."-change,
tention than we do to what are called The British instructors give more at- parade movements The British have be come among all our Allies the most conservative in the matter of military elegance. I frankly admit that in their elegance I see a sign of superiority Beauty is a proof of vigour, and sup- of the crime of causing hunger in pleness a sign of force it is therefore Germany, and "Hold out" men and not to be wondered at that the British other Government supporters babblebomber instinctively reflects the classic it after him, But the Government style of the Athenian disc-thrower, ought to have known the things would happen thus War against Russia France and England must needs lend to the cutting off of Germany. If has always been the custom among noble war brethren to damage one another's economic interests and out of food supphes. War, murder of peoples, is the crime and the starving out scheme is only a consequence of that crime. species of big trench insect, custom, mounted on donkeys and the APPARATUS FOR CREWS OF SUNK
If you look attentively you can see B War makers babble, Wicked encinies have done it on us." But the mass of earth and mud which moves and women on footpour into the village. appears to advance slowly. Looked at only counter-question is, Why have more closely the moving obpect seems like walk behind, the outward tribute to the you followed the encircling policy? a shapeless spider dragging ite thread predominant position of the male. The Every Imperialistic policy of robbery after than is a British telephonist to make up in Macedonia. The chief feminist movement has a lot of neway
On the battlefield the British soldier has a different aspect; the mud which delayed his march, soiled his uniform, and bespattered his features, the helmet which covers him like a lid, makes him look smaller. On the ruddy ground of Picardy tho khaki blends itself with the
oil until the soldier seems to resemble
ዜ
The spoke with apparent eloquence and conviction, but I discovered he was only the town crior making known the latest municipal decrees. From the freezingly cold reception given to his pronatnce ment to-day I imagine he was proclaim ing song fresh taxation or something of the sortNINN
From mine o'clock in the morning hundreds of peasants-the men, Turkish
Even small boys ride, while their mothers
U-BOAT LIFE-LINE.
VESSELS.
18 crime, and all the States follow repairing his the business of the males on market days for saving lite from sunken submarines
such a poliey. But the German Government followed the Imperialistic policy which upset all nations. Ger- many cemo into conflict with all, and Gually united with the Austrian State core (Staatskadaver) and with hope,
lossly bankrupt Turkey, and brought
about the world war.
GRIME UPON CRIME,
The French
preserves
mad which covers his uniform. The Bri- seems to be to sit cross-legged on the ton seemed to me to be in a greater hurry ground in the various cafés (wooden to resume a human appearance. I was sheds with beaten earth floors open to struck with the condition of the cars, the the streets) and consume an endless num batterics, momunition wagons, automo- ber of microscopic cups of coffee
-- MOHAMMEDAN SERB3.
biles and evde muntorial of the second the held kitchens; in a
As the immense majority of the people
lishe, a description of special appliances The Berlin Taeyuche Rundschau pub-
Each man has a called “Dräger,” a diver a safety appliance, Attached to his safety waistcoat. In case of danger the
uppliance can be fixed over, the mouth and hose in a few seconds. V
out-breathing Lube, with a cartridge for absorbing carbonic acid and a cylinder metal flask with refreshments. If water can be opened at ones, otherwise the em gency valves at the bottom of the boat must be opened to admit water and coun teract the external pressure
It consists of an in-breathing and an
At a general's table. I was asked what are Mohammedan, 90 per cent of them On this crime another was heared, had made the strongest impression upon wear either fez or turban. But their for this. Government did nothing to 200, I replied: "The kitchens of the language is Serbian, some of them also for supplying oxygen, as well as a small
Royal Dublin Fusiliers. My reply pro- meet starvation. Why was nothing voked laughter, and it was regarded as a have a slight knowledge of Greek. It is done Because war does not hurt the French joke. It was nothing of the sort, a curious thing that in Greek Macedonis has already entered the vessel the batches Government bangers on capitalists, however. Among all these soldiers who I have met with every kind of language Junkers. food usurers, but enriches rivalled each other in courage those who except Greek. I have seen Roumanian them. If from the outset of the seemed to me the finest were the cooks, villages, Bulgarian villages, and Serbian struggle against hunger and misery who, unarmed under the shell-fre, polish villages, but never & Greek one. The serious measures had been taken, then od up their pots and pans as if their fact that the majority of the population soon as the hatches are opened one the blinded masses would have recog-kitchens on wheels were appearing in a is Mohammendan is explained by the fact or more quors attached to cables float up nized the seriousness of the situation, review,
that by Turkish law only Mohammedans at once to the surface of the sea and twa anel the clamour for war would have
could own land. After the conquest of mon at a time can guide themselves to the evaporated. The people have been in-
Macedonia by the Turks the native Ser top by each cable, the safety waist-cost toxicated for this reason with bowling
bian population went over to Mohani medanism to save their possessions, and fonts, rager
apparatus acting as about victory, at the same time being handed over to the capitalistic food
their descendants are now followers of usureryS
the Prophet
By shouting "Hold out," by which Solyaidenon and his like rendored great service to the Government, the people have been robbed of their cool judgment. The ruling classes did not want to give up their mad lust for an nexations, and lied to the people by telling them that if they held out Get many would dictate peace and domi- nate the world. They have lied to us They said the German submarines will cut off England's supplies, and Eng- land will be made to crave for peace,
and thus the war be ended. These are only fairy tales for children. The submarine warfare will bring more enemies on our back, but there is no possibility of cutting off England's supplies, now or ever, even if Germany had ten times to many submarines 88 she actually has
Then it has been dangled before our eyes that the offensive against the Balkans would give us more breathing. space and relief, Abundant food sup- plies, too, would come from Turkey.
This was a deliberate lie, for all who know anything know that the Turkish Government carnot feed its own army any longer
And now they would console us by pointing to the next harvest. All auf- fering will end when the new crop is harvested, they say. This also is a deliberate swindle. A simple calcula tion results as follows: In. 23 months of war two harvests have been eston up besides the great stocks of fodder.. sugar, and other products which were stocked at the beginning of the war, alio foodstuffa requisitioned in the coccupied territories of Belgiums Northern France Foland. Lithuania. Courland and Servia, and finally also all food that could be imported from Holland and Scandinavia
NOTHING LEFT.
Now there is nothing left. The opied territories have been eropped short, and already people are dying of Noutrals hermetically close their frontiers against all exporte because (Continued at foot of neat column)
stacvation in Poland and Bervia,
they themselves are suffering shortages, The bone harvest cannot yield much, since the fields are badly tilled owing to the labour scarcity and lack of manure and seed. The head of live stock is small. The Food Dictator was to secure good distribution. Too late! The food usurers have accomplished their work. It is now useles to seize them by the throat. There is no longer enough to distribute to satisfy people's hunger
Dräger
Bat, since the difference in the atmos pheric pressure under water and on the dangerous, the cables are marked at cer surface would make the sudden changs. tain distances, and at these the ascending men stop for & short while to get used to the lower pressure. Thus, at about 16 fathoms the pressure equals thros atmos phores, so they stop on their way to the surface at 6 fathoms, then at 1 and at 3 On reaching the surface the Dräger" apparatus can be cast off without diff culty.
The village lies in the centre of a plein Five miles away towers the range of mountains which separate Greek Mace donia from Serbia. Opposito lie Mounts Kukurush, Vetranik, Katunets, and Pojar, while to the left towers the cloud capped Kaymakchalan, the giant of the range. The summits of the mountains This is the naked truth. The people are covered with snow which glitters in have been inviegled into a war by the brilliant winter sunshine. For by a which their supplies are cut off, and miracle there has not been a drop of rain the capitalist criminals have done the for five whole days, and all day long Directly the submarine touches bottom rest while the Government looked on. the valley is flooded with sunlight, while another buoy attached to a cable is What of the future! The war can be the temperature is of spring like mild automatically released, and this on reach carried on for another six months, and nessing the surface sends out electric waves perhaps for a whole year, while the No one could believe that on the forty- which call for aid. This buoy 18 also people will be left to a slow death from mile front to right and left half a million provided with aigual rockets. starvation. Then, however, our fature men are in death-grips, and that the generation will be sacrificed, and to faces of the adjacent mountains are the terrible acrifices of dead and muti scarred by lines of trenches and pitted the evening in the messroom ( lated on the battlefields will be added by batteries and redoubts. The only the further sacrifices of women and reminder that we are at war is the full whitewashed room, once a village shop) children who will fall victims to dis-boom of the guns all along the treat one finds the thirty odd officers compos es owing to starvation Now and again assivo from the heavy ing the staff. The room is lighted by a Even then the end will not have been French battery, a mile or so away shakes couple of oil lamps and half a dozen reached, for this war can no longer be the windows and stops for an instantes of men who have been helping to candles. These shine on the bronzed <decided by force of arms, even if it the chattering of the red-tarbouned crowd ruko history in the Balkans for the last continues other year, or even two. But au instant later business resumes its balf decade. There is not a single man German militarism, after all its vie sway, and peace once more reigns, toxicam itself at an impasse. If the
SARE HEADQUARTBES,
war does continue now it will be only
because the masses of the people And yet the village in the headquarters patiently endure the infamy of s civilian If one looks along the Men and women of the labouring po- street and across the Selds one sees on pulation, we bear the responsibility. every hand long lines of field telegraphs Either the labouring masses continue radiating like a spider's web in every in sheer indifference, with the result direction. If one traces them to their that they will suffer lasting disease and source one finds they lead to what in miserable wasting away to death, or time of peace was the primitive town hall the proletariat will wake up and will of the village. Here, in a whitewashed refuse this Government and these rul room devoid of all furniture but a table ing classes their help, and will bring sits the colonel commanding the dieleion about peace. There is no other choice. (one of the most famous in the Serbian Now is the time for action. Pull your army who has fought with distinction selves together, you men and women during five years couseless war) and a Let your will be felt, and let your big staff. All day long telephone and voice be heard in clamour, saying, telegraph wires are humming-wiree flat "Down with the war and long live run all over the plain to batteries of (och) the international solidarity of every calibre or climb to trenches away the proletariat.
up above the snow-line in the mountains statement as follows" Printed and motor transport which keep pouring up At the foot of the placard is a printed To the rear they control railways and published by Schulze a encoercore Stuttan endless stream of supplies and muni- Bar This is probably a mere nom de tima
(Continued at foot of nest column.)
who has not been in a score of battles, who has not trampled the Balkans-from the Danube to the gates of Constanti uople, from Nath to Darazzo
DEMOCRATIC OFFICERS,
The spirit that reigns is essentially democratio. No army on active service is better disciplined than the Serbian army; in no army is more demanded from every officer, from sub-lieutenant to the commander-in-chief matters of service the spirit is, as I have
But apart from
said, essentially democratic the officers are of all ages. The chief of stan, who sits next to me, is a colonel of thirty-four years of age. On the other side of the colonel commanding the division is 5 gray haired colonel commanding the artillery, who bears a singular resem- blancs to the Inte Field Marshal von Moltke. The lieutenant at the bead of thirty; others. again, have grown grey in the Intelligenes Barea is little over service. But the impression they all male is that they know thoroughly what they have to do and how to do it..
154]
39
CASCADE BEER.
A cheery young man of Hongkong
Brank " Cascade" from a glass that was long.
When they asked "Quantum sufficit
He replied "Buch good stuff is it,
Say a quart and you won't be for wrong
HASTINGS, HODGE & CO.,
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THURSDAY,
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PRICES
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BOOKING AT MOUTRIE'S.
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