1917-03-22 — Page 7

OUR LONDON LETTER:

THE LATEST PHASE OF "FRIGHTFULNESS,”

NEW WAR LOAN AND HOARDED GOLD.

[FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

announcement,

LONDON, February 5th. It is a carious commentary on the Intest passe of German "frightfulues" that the belligerents were not perturbed by the The declaration of the Kaiser and his accomplices to sink all Ships at sight within certain areas The First left the British public cold. of February was duly announced as the date

for beginning the new treaty of sub marine warfare; but there was no excite zent on the London Stock Exchange, or the Baltic, or at Lloyd's. Nobody seemed ted certainly not the man or the man in the train in the

The reading his favourite newspaper. reason, of course, is that Great Britain,

THE HONGKONG DAILY PRESS,

THE GERMAN MOTIVE, AMERICA AS SHOCK-ABSORBER.

[DY BIDNEY Law.]

IN LIBERTY'S DEFENCE.

THE PRICE OF AN IDEAL- [FROM A CORRESPONDENT TO " ́ ́ THE TIMES.

By a true enough lostinot the popular imagination has always seized upon the arena as typical of the collision between paganian and Christianity,

THURSDAY, MARCH 32ND, 1917.

"THE GARDEN OF EDEN "

DIFFICULTIES AND DISCOM FORTS EXPERIENCED BY OUR TROOPS From time to time references have ap

A Captured but Crapulous Han,

The Germans may be acting: with mera mad-dog fury; but there is a very intel- ligible policy underlying their savagery

The few peared in the papers to adverse climatic When he drank Cascade Beer cried Nearly two years ago pointed out in The Daily Chronicle that whenever the German Government saw inevitable de weak and helpless individuals confront conditions in Mesopotamia. They have

', feat approaching it would make a ing death on the egg-shaped space desperate attempt to draw America into sand, and ringing them round, the vast spoken vaguely of rain and mud, river the war. It

or bullied into taking gazing upon the work of mutilation sumar, no one has attempted a description new possible the United States concourse indolently of with cruel zet difficulties owamps upd disease; but, so a hand on the side of the Central Powers up the resources, spiritual and material, of the extraordinary assural conditions but better that they should come in, even of two ideals. Outwardly paganism which have boog met by our forces on that

triumphs and its rival is broken beneath front. in alliance with the enemy, than that they its numbers sud its strength. But to a The root of the trouble is the natonish- should not come in at all. to this could be discerned plainly enough philosophie eve capable of gauging the ingly unpleasant geography of the so long ago as February, 1915. Evy thought behind the act, victory might Euphrates valley. This latter is known

For clay stretching, from Baghdad to the sen then the Prussian ruling group could not already be seen declaring itself on the as the Iraq and is a vast plain of alluvial have shared the illusion under which they side of the apparently vanquished. were trying to keep the German peshed, outnumbered, dying, their very On the Western border the sterile deserts Since they had failed to wit the war in each declared the presence of an idea of Arabia Infelix come down to

greater than life itself; whereas among Euphrates, and on the East the plain their året rush, before their opponents onlookers scrutiny could detect no mud is bounded by the Persian mountains had bad time to take breath and pull faith or purpose of auch a price. Chris themselves together, they must have

for

The reason

What

Fun!

To me it is clear

That our own Munich Beer

of

“No more has a place in the Sun !"

the

against whom the Hau fury always seen that they would not win it at all. tianity was to live because it could com running parallel to the left bank of the

ence of what has been severtised with no much trumpeting and bombast.

valley; on the one side waterless desert, cars, three years; but they knew, and ways to die because it contained nothing on the other inhospitable mountains.

at Potsdam and Berlin that the worth dying for.

But the contrast urely illustrates the Military operations are of necessity. So far as we are concerned we know day must come when Germany would be encounter of truth and falsehood through confined to the valley, as desert and hills

exhausted and overwhelmed. that the German have never besitated to

over the future of valley itself is barren, an endless region sink British skips with every accompany And when the catastrophe became im-out the course of history. The ideals are alike impassable and waterless. The minent it was reasonably certain that that are to Pleioned with a tenacity of marsh and swamp, small streams and

mankind are ment of barbarity. They have done it un all occasions that they have had the Prussian diplomacy would fall back upon

in their early stages by a smallest hill or natural eminence throngh hundred chance. The Kaiser's loud talk about the the United States as a last resource their intrinsie value. vast patches of mud, unrelieved by the miles from the sea, stands but a bare hun- dreadful things that is now to be our fate it could get the American Government to

Ctesiphon, the raying simply

a desperado who induce the Allied Powers to enter into few chose spirits, whose fate it is to out. Baghdad itself, some three

This was what the Berlin of th

of the established order of things, they

place on the river that lie a few Office was attempting in its to enter by degrees into a wider incuruation Kut-el-Amara and Shark-Baad are

the masses of the people. From cent. Peace offers; but their tentatives few to many: the light passes; and as it feet above food level, and in the wet, see-

failed. Eresident: in this direction have Wilson's Note has only drawn from the passes the struggle changes its character on the whole valley is inundated RC- Allied Governments an uncompromising from persecution to more and more even less sea of mud. restatement of their determination to go contest, and fully to the victory of the

incoming over the outgoing idea, on till complete and unmistakable vie is assured.

gullible Teutons faced with hunger were

knows he is beaten and can foresee his negotiations on equal terms, so much the encounter and be crushed by the weight feet above sea-level,. doon. The Peace proposals on which the g led to build high hopes having proved abortive, there is nothing more for the German Government to do except con- tinue the war. But they are doing it in the temper of a wild beast in a cage, with bellowings of rage and despair, and an utter disregard of ultimate consequences and of the final and inevitable reckoning at the close of the tragedy. "FREEDOM OF THE SEIS.”

Looking back over the war at sea it can be observed how the new "frightfulness is merely the old savagery with a fresh Jabel. While

in diplomatic Notes about the Freedom of the Best the German have outraged every law of the sea. Many readers of this column will doubtless recollect how shocked the world was in July, 1894, when the Japan esc cruiser Naniwa sank the steamer.

ENTANGLING AMERICA.

THE OPPOSING FORCER, Such has heen the routine. But through each phase of the struggle runs the old difference, the difference in the value of

Will,

an exaet dis-

the

flooding of the rivers by the melting of Not only is the wet season-due to the the Caucasian snows troublesome, but a sudden rainstorm or a change of wind alters the whole face of the country.

The brackish lakes that lie alongside

that

That being so, the Prussian rulers tarn to the other alternative. If the Republie will not come into the ring a friend, natives, the difference of the arome the river are fanned by the wind and It must be dragged in as an open toe.side has at its back all outward forms extend over the surrounding marshes and For if the Washington Government could of strength, an iron be incited to declare war against Gercipline, trained armies, an absolute mud fate. These shifting lakes may many, that country or at any rate its control over all the resources of the move a mile or two under the influence governing circle-would gain two substan State The other relies directly on this, of a prevailing wind. The water surging tin advantages. First and foremost, if that it has a truth to communicate of on at the rate of twelve or fifteen yardı

importance to

mankind, minute may engulf a camp that has might contrive to redeem some portion of the utmost its credit with its own subjects, so that Quite obviously this is the secret of its been pitched on perfectly dry ground, defeat might be accepted without prorok strength; indeed, for long it has no other. ing revolutionary arges against the mili- Liberty starte as a war cry, a banner tary clique and the Hohenzollern dynasty waved, a trumpet blown. Its battalions The Government of Prussia-Germany come alter. It works like kind of could pretend that it had in reality won hingia, for its power depends on no ex the war against its European antagonists, ternal things, but proceeds directly from and had magnanimously proposed to offer within. It is going to be a light in the cay terms of peace to the defeated Alli world, it is going to help munkind, it is These generous conditions being by this way that the onward march of ance. rejected, Germany was just about to start humanity lies. And, with that curious to reduce her foes to final subjection by and profound instinct for what is of the new frightfulness when the United value to the race, the people gather round States threw its weight into the scale and expose their naked breasts in its 1st defence. The real strength of their cause That, of course, the official apologist in itself, in the fact that it is no will

difference. Ame 189 say, made all the

Germany superimposed net of authority, but a sutention to do so regularly in the future. could not be expected to":

Moreover, the Germans have strewn ruggle when her foes were provided to constant self-sacrifice. Indeed the

kentertained This feeling whe entertained by fighting maca as well as others, as may be seen by reference to Admiral Freemantle's book,

The Navy As I have Known It... Admiral was then in command on the China station. But note bow civilization has been degraded compared with that time. The sinking of a transport' is now an ordinary episode of war as practised by the Huns. And not only so, but the enemy has not hesitated to torpedo hospi-

that

tal slips, and has formally declared his rica is so big and so strong tinue the living impulse and, a living prompting

mines in the track of neutral shipping fram the outset of the war, regardless of the rights of humanity and the law of nations Next they sank belligerent mer chant vessels without warning; they then proceeded to destroy passenger liner be the ginning with the Lusitania and Palaba; nad after that they put down neutral ships when they were not carry ing contraband, at the same time taking credit to themselves for allowing the crews time to launch open boats in a heavy sea. many miles from land! Every one of these acts of savagery was a crime against manking and the settled usages of civilized nations as laid down by The

Hague Convention and solemnly ratified by Germany.

With this long list before us (not to mention other atrocities) is it likely we

with this most formidable reinforcement

cu!. horizon.

AT THE CONFERENCE TABLE.

Bat tliere is another way in which the active participation of the United States in the quarrel might prove extremely useful to the rulers of Germany. It would be very much in their interest to

The mud when dry affords a surface that will bear light military traffic, but in the hot sean it cracks and gapes, splits up in all-dippions cavalry and horse traffic dinot move. As a result, causeways have had to be built, and along them all troops, guns and transport move to their camps and trenches.

The camps, thanks to the moving lakes and overflows from the rivers, must be surrounded by dams and earthworks unless the occupants choose to run the risk of being flooded out suddenly in the middle of the night,

theagh

Sam sevel is two to three feet above the level:

loyaltics great For this thought for Dever see and a hope that would centuries to full, how many thousands have lived the lives of hunted deer and died upon the scafford?

to com.

The

The great rivers, the Tigris and Euph Things her trade, a vheir water rates, have been banked up by the work

wo yield to America would be much less

of the surrounding bountry. Out of eners disagreeable to Tentule seasiti veneka than to have to admit. humiliation at the

them, and also contained by these banks hands of Great Britain, France and

orbunds, run side streams to the lakes Russa; and a well-drilled, inspired Press

and marshes, creeks and watercourses to There is an advantage in recalling irrigate the dry mud belts between the would take care to insist that it was by

Great Jare

has to has taken to maintain the mighty Trans-atlantic champion, not these things in this hour of trial. The rivers and the swamps, the European combination, that the delives we are offering up are the price of

an ideal. Some say that truth prevails these bunds,' as a casual break may feat had really been brought about. This would give a plausible excuse for not its own nature, and no doubt specula inundate a vast area of country. This surrender, and might averi, or at least tive and purely rational truths may so adds another difficulty to the campaig mitigate those internal troubles which prevail. But not the great controversial na, by a tactical use of this power of th already are looming large upon the politi-truths which lie at the root of progressive undation, large areas may be made impaz

government and racial evolution. Liberty sible to troops. has never advanced through the argi In Mesopotamia every conceivable com ments of philosophers, but through the bination of natural forces combats the devotion and self-crifice of its believers. It in the victor in a hundred fights prosecution of military operations. that it has come down to us. Again and climate is intolerable, extremes of burn- daily, alternscing with periods of bitter again it has proved its inherent value by ng heat, when cases of sunstroke occur can be frightened by any new threat of have America represented at the confer the sacrifices it has been able murder and piracy! The enemy has ence able at which the terms of peace and Lives have paid the toll for every cold. From November to May is the cool stready done huis best, and his worst, would be arranged. From their Euro-step of its advance. And it in the present season from May to October the period against us, and he has not spared neutrals

the Germans knew well struggle the toll is heavier than ever of heat. Through the cool season torren- pean adversaries either.

Now by way of a culminating enough even before the publication of before, it is because the crisis is greater, bal thunderstorms occur, and the outrage be threatens to sink all neutral Allied Too far Mh. Halbu gecent from the national scale the cur: dec.ng months of the yoir-March, April ships without warning. No roving pirate statement that they had no indulgence to troversy has passed to the international and May-are entitels useless for can of old ever attempted more cold-blooded expect. We shall not be unduly revenge Our Face has often hied for English paigning as despite the fair weather, murder than this, and the policy hrands ful; we shall not annihilate the German liberty; it is called upon to-day to bleed down roll the floods from the melting for a European, a world-wide liberty: Caucasian snow and all the country is The period of greatest Germany, as a pariah among the nations.

people we shall be just; but we shall be

is of like propor- implacably stern. After all that has Moreover, its enemy ig happened, after the shocking erime, that tions. It would seem as if the Prussian heat and low water occur together, so that Money keeps rolling in for the War have been commisted, and the appalling State had been destined and set apart at the very moment that the barren land from the beginning to rally the furces of the Iraq becomes traversable the Leat. Great financial houses and busi losses inflicted, the outraged nations will

the superiority not sheer efficiency, by nese firms throughout the Kingdom have be in no lenient mood when the time of tyranny for their last encounter. By climate is intolerable, bought it in blocks of hundreds of thou comes for settlement with their savage sunds and million sterling. This is very and brutal aggressor. The United States, only of her military genius but of her have had to face, a country of mud and

half impressive after more than two ami a as the Germans no doubt hope, might provo years of war involving expenditure beyond anything previously dreamt of as possible It is a monumental proof of the wealth and stability of Britain. It justifies and ilaminates the Prime

Minister's metaphor that to the Allies his country stands like great tower in the deep

the time of writing. But although at money is flowing into the Treasury, in a mighty stream, the amount required is so colossal that there are doubts whether in the final result enough will be sub- scribed. It is stated semi-officially that £3,000,000,000 is the aum needed Loan is to be regarded as a complete suc peas. No doubt that is an eutside figure.

that as it may, there is

belief Be that, if necessary the Government will resort to the conscription of wealth and commandeer as much as they want. Hay. ing gone so far we are not going to be Besten at the finish for lack of money.

MONEY FOR THE WAR LOAN.

if

the

I

more ameperhaps, be allowed to what I have alre

oppose

quote

under water.

These are the conditions that our forces

defence

of tyranny

as a prin- barren flats which necessitate frontal nt-

Prussia bas

all the godder her tacks across levels affording no shadow

elements of ineffective

and hitherton cover. tyranny

ready written on this subt in Europe. It is the little States an atter absence of stone, trees and timber

B

to the absence or scarcity

ras

HASTINGS,

HODGE

Importers,

Phone No. 188.

Mark

SHIRTS MADE TO MEASURE.

MR. K. TAKAHASHI,

REPRESENTATIVE OF

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Orders taken for Shirts, Collars, Pyjamas, Underwear, &o., &c.

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Our Shirts are sold by NAKAZAWA, D'Aguilar Street.

DON'T WAIT

until you are worse before Starting & campaign against. disease. No matter how slight may be your Indiaposition your duty to yourself demands that immediate steps be taker to disperse it, of course, you expect to get better and not worse, but where health is in question you are never justified in leaving anything to chance, and, as is well known, indis position, instead ofdisappearing of its own sweet will; frequently develops serious disorders il neglected. Your safest course-

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which are the World's finest houssaud remedy for the cor rection of derangements of the stomach, liver, or kidneys. Sight headaches, loss of appe life, a nasty taste in the mouth and other file symptoms that sort are indications digestive disorder, and may be regarded, as, Nature's warning of worse troubles to follow il the cause of the present al- ment be not speedily removed. Don't wait until to-morrow but take Bencham's, Pills Sold I boxes, at my a

In dry

the

NOW

Lack of drinking water, all which the lakes and swamps being brackish, and ject in these columns. America, I said,

that breed the big ideast Palestine is of any description. has not, nor is she likely to have, the that cople, Greece another: yet a third There is no shade except for a few poor same motives to harden her heart as the European States. She will come is Prussia. The first stood for spiritual date palms, and the palmas furnish neither to the council-board in the somewhat liberty, the second for intellectual liberty timber por can they be cut for firewood, detached frame of mind with whith the third for the tyramie ideal complete Every stick of wood for any purpuse has

in thought.

to be imported, from India or elsewire.

The best houses consist of a square shell her statesmen usually contemplate in action and

VICTORY AND PATIENCE Even local suppliesach, as vegetot toe af small two cloried foome out sound a

cannot be European politics, not specially enthu

fodder, salt, rice siastic for the cause of the Allies, and And in this last encounter it will be

amall central hole. This is the cesspool, a little disposed to sympathise a every other that side will win gut cient quantity. This is due courtyard, whose sides, alope towards a

log. One which can endure longest and suffer moet on Germany as the under-10ry In this world everything sooner or later of these essentials as to the fact that localent whenever the floods occur the subsoil can imagine how American will be invoked to deal generously with fetches its price. Life by life the price transport among the Araha is not ade-water rises through the hole, flooding the this flood subsides and Weather gallant adversary how an idealistic of the truth we fight for has to be paidquate to the taak of bringing them in courtyard and the lower rooms as well. exodes a vile stench. President (not anmindful of the Ger- down until falsehood is outbid and give ven grass for the horse is lacking it

ur way is scnroe, cannot be depended on, and cooly houses, she quite unfit for man-American vote) will be urged to up. There never has been any

USD AS of those of than this. Is liberty of more value then rarely grows where it is most wanted. There, the

hospitals, headquarters of even the vindictiveness us here in Europe who do not intend tyranny to men, then it can endure and Add to these conditions the North-west stores

who to have to fight Germany for our lives suffer more. It is precisely the wind, the Shamal, drying wind that Now houses have to be built for these second time. All this would suit realise most fully the nature of liberty, os at forty miles an hour for some purposes, and helpre they can be built on end, raising vast dust foundations of earth must be laboriously the diplomatists of the Wihelmstrasse who think of it not so much as an end in very well indeed. They cannot wish to itself but us process of becoming, the 100 Sharqui, the intolerable brought up on boats and in male panniers be left alone, in the day of their germ as it were of a constant growth kept storms the humiliation, with their present op in motion by the exercise of the human hot win of the Arabian deserts, aud and a mound erected, otherwise, the water ponents America would make a very faculties on all the problems of life-it is the heavy dust-laden oppressive Beathers would rise up, destroy, the foundations, convenient shock-absorber, perlispa she these who, estimating its influence ou the wind, and some idea can be obtained, of tillery observa Artillery

So low-lying and water logged is might even be used as a lever to wrench centuries to come, least grudge the cost the borrors of the climate. These dust and the whole structure would be swept reconnaissance country that even the cemeteries have had the victorious Coalition asunder, or at we are now paying for it. We ought not storms interfere with dumped down a large leather bag on the

・Icant to obtain easier terma for the to grudge it. People who dilate on the ton/ and, with semiting, ale over be build up with earth, as it was found

masctity of life and the horror of death like. They drive the Vanquished. floor, at the same time essually remark ing to the cashier that he had brought This seemed to me the aspect in which and suffering take a too gross and material the dry camping grounds, and all that in digging, grave; ab ground level lot. We are your food and every crevice of anything water rose in the hole long, before a £2,000 in gold to be invested in the Lout the question, might be expected to present viewed, it not given to every you may possess with fine dass necesins depth could be attained the Climate, natural uron, and all the to every me the lack of all other resources must A friend in touch with banking opera itself to the Prussian ruling party two tions tells me that recently more gold years ago and all these considerations generation to die for the truth.

be added the absence of any docent build conditions and characteristics of Meso- has been paid into the banks than at any are intensified to day, he's shock about other Teutonic misunderstanding of using of any description. There is no sotamies have combines of successful

obstacle the war is needed more than other period since war becan and the ber the United States naper carretey was established. This ever by a frantic German Government, tional psychology. America, if com- the houses are supports the idea that there aro accret balsacing desperately on the brink of me peiled, after long hemtation and m stone in dry country and then mosty military operations. Band and shortage, One can but wonder how our hoseds. Anyway most of us have not proaching national collapse and military luctance, to draw the word against Ger are more hovels quite unsuited to all hear and floods, dust storms thandler had our eyes gladdened by the sight of defeat. But all this as Mr. T P many, is not likely to fall in with the army purposes and there are neither storms and face, one czil-piled thick upon men have done as well as they have in a gold coin for a couple of years, nor O'Connor has just been pointing out, is plans of the Berlin war-makers and cooking facilities, water, nor sanitation another.

face of almost overpowering dificulties (Continued at foot of next column.) are we likely to see one for a good while based on what may prove to be only an peace-makers in the convenient fashion

(Continued at foot of nezt Column.) they expect. to cemet

On the subject of national wealth an interesting speculation arises as to the amount of hearded money in the country. There are vast numbers of people. have put money by **

for rainy da

A few instances have come to

as in the case of a. man who

siresunto the New Maldenbranch of

the London and South-Western Bank end

of the human

₤404

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