It is particularly gratifying to learn that the people of Great Britain did not allow the preoccupation of the war to interfere with their enjoyment of the Easter holidays. If it is true that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," in normal times, how much truer is it when a country is plunged into the tragedy of war? Record bookings on the railways, thousands of motor cars on Britain's roads, despite the petrol -rationing, substantial purchases in the shops, and all the symptoms of the holiday spirit indicate that the British are not yet reduced to taking their pleasures sadly, and that the morale of the country is excellent. Easter has always been noted for the predominance of the holiday spirit more decidedly than any others of the holidays. Marking as it does the emergence from the gloom of winter,—and this winter was a particularly severe and gloomy one,—into the verdant promise of early spring, it has a charm about it which for some reason or other is denied holidays observed later in the year. It may still be cold, and the weather treacherous, but Easter calls for new clothes just as nature is commencing to renew her summer garments. It is unlikely that the seaside resorts were patronized as much as in other years, and that not entirely because of the war and the reduced transport facilities. This year's Easter comes almost as early as the feast possibly can, for the earliest date upon which the festival can be observed is March 21, and though the reports do not state the weather conditions during the holiday, unless it was unseasonably warm it was unlikely that the seaside would form much of an attraction. That more often than not occurs at Whitsuntide, when the seaside season is generally considered to be in full swing. What effect the war will have upon the whole of this year's holiday season remains to be seen, but the chances are that at any rate the resorts on the east coast of Great Britain will not prove as attractive as they do in years of peace. This may lead to the diversion of holiday makers to the west coast, though probably it will prove to be the case that the numbers able and willing to take a summer holiday this year will be very considerably reduced as compared with other and happier years Poor Lying Not content with the unparalleled success of their valiant campaign against unarmed neutral shipping some of which was sunk without any warning whatever, the Nazis recently made a claim that 42,000 tons of British shipping had been destroyed by an air attack upon a convoy. The story was, of course, untrue in every detail, for not one ton was sunk. An attack was made upon a convoy but it was beaten off, and there is a probability that one German machine was destroyed. In two days towards the end of last week the German submarines are reported to have sunk seven neutral vessels, six Danish and one Norwegian. All seven: were torpedoed without warning, and forty-five persons, including one woman, are either missing or known to have been drowned. It is to be expected that the commanders responsible for these feats will duly be rewarded with the iron cross as recognition of their valour. All this contrasts so greatly with the British record. A submarine got into the Kattegat one day last week, and encountered in those narrow waters, where the chance of detection is so great, the German vessel Heddernheim. The crew were given fifteen minutes to leave the ship which was then torpedoed and sunk. Since that occurrence the Germans have plaintively complained that instead of allowing fifteen minutes, the commander of the submarine sunk the vessel after tve minutes. Whether that is so, or not, the fact remains that none of the crew was killed, and that all with the exception of the engineer taken prisoner, have since returned to Germany. Since then the German propaganda machine has been disseminating reports to the effect that British aviators had instruction to attack and sink neutral vessels. It is just one of the usual type of lie, and not likely to convince any neutral observer, for, if there is anything more against Allied interests than the sinking of neutral vessels, it is difficult to conceive what it could possibly be. That Germany realizes full well, for otherwise she would not be waging this war against neutral shipping, and to invent such a lie as the one mentioned above is but to give another example of the stupid propaganda with which Germany hopes to convince the world of the righteousness of her iniquitous cause.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.