FROM GERMAN PAPERS.

Feilding Star, Volume XI, Issue 2701, 21 April 1915, Page 4

FROM GERMAN PAPERS.

The Tagliche Rundschau, peering Avith "the eyes of a seer" into the minds of England's rulers, is enabled to reconstruct the Avhole scheme Avith ■ ( which Great Britain (with a standing J army of 186,000 men) resolved to encompass the doAvnfall of German with , its 5,000,000 troops: "Germany offers a rich booty. We can possess our- ' seh'es of German trade, German industry, Germany's shipping, and Gfer- ' man.colonies. We can demand an indemnity sufficiently large to render Germany incapable of defence for many decades. We can part Germany into six kingdoms or republics, and Aveaken her hopelessly for all time. We can hold Russia- in check by insisting on the establishment of a new I Poland. We can destroy the German licet, and thus save our money from being spent on Dreadnoughts." W r c can compel our proletariat to. accept general military service, and restrain it from social revolution. We can droAvn the Irish question in the sea of oblivion, and, most beautiful of all, A\e can do all this in the name of honour, in the name of the sanctity of treaties, and of the good cause of democracy; and hwoke the blessing of heaven on our arms in the name of freedom, civilisation, and the people's well-being and progress!" The Hamburger Fremdenblatt ' adopts a much franker attitude on the subject of international IaAV: In vieAV of the numberless trespasses committed by England on the principles of international law, a defence of. Grmany's procedure is rendered absolutely unnecessary. We are entirely justified in declaring to England that we no longer consider ourselves bound by any principle Avhatever of the IaAV of nations that we may hold to be opposed to our vital interests. That is our final Avord to all, notwithstanding the fact that hitherto not one of those principles has been violated by Germany. The criminal past belongs to England, and the future is a closed volume, the master key to which is in the possession of Germany. A characteristically ingenious interpretation is placed by the Berliner Taogblatt on the new joint financial arrangement between France, England, and Russia : The latest financial arrangements of the Triple Entente Powers, Avhen carefully examined, will be found to aim at one object only, the placing of- England's financial position on a basis of unassailable security. The English financiers argue that France, though she may for the moment find herself in financial difficulties, will at some future time probably bo. in a position to meet the debts incurred by her on Russia herself. England's signature is, therefore, in these circumstances a mere formality, only given because England hopes by means of this common loan to bind Russia; and France to her side Avith unbreakable fetters and render it impossible for either .to continue- an independent policy or to conclude a separate peace treaty.