The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1910. GERMAN INTENTIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 27, 1 February 1910, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1910. GERMAN INTENTIONS.

iror the cause that lacks assistance. For the wrong that needs resistance, For the luture in the distance. And the good that we can do.

Yesterday was the birthday of Kaiser Wilhelm 11., and the German Ambassador to the Court of St. Jamas, speaking at a banquet in his sovereign's honour, gave his audience an exposition of German policy that his master and his fellow-countrymen may not be quite prepared to appreciate or endorse. According to Count Metternich, the Germans love peace, and have no thought of war; they are building a great fleet solely to protect their great foreign trade, and thus to secure employment for their workers at home; they have no wish to rule the seas, and they have no idea of challenging any other Power to a contest for naval supremacy. It would be impolite to suggest that the German Ambassador does not really believe what he is saying; indeed, we may go so far as to admit that this description of German policy probably corresponds very closely with the desires of the German people. But it needs very slight knowledge of recent German history, or of the Kaiser's character, to justify anybody in asserting that Count Metternich's pacific declarations are entirely inconsistent with many of his master's most characteristic public utterances, and with the policy with which he has been identified throughout his reign.

We need hardly say that we regard the antagonism that has developed between England and Germany in recent years as an international misfortune. But, however sincerely we may deplore the growing hostility between the two nations, we cannot afford to forget the Kaiser's reiterated declaration that "Germany's future lies upon the water," or to ignore the often-quoted menace in which the Kaiser and his Parliament, when initiating their great naval programme, declared for a fleet which should be strong enough to risk a contest with tne greatest of all naval Powers for the empire of the seas. The whole world has heard these words, and knows the circumstances under which they were uttered, and it is ludicrous to pretend that they can be misinterpreted.

In spite of the Kaiser's bellicose threats, it may be worth while to consider if Germany can possibly find any legitimate use for her navies, apart from their obvious value as weapons against England. Count Metternich talks of the protection of trade routes and commercebut no' one can seriously contend that the indications of her policy which can be gathered from her ishipbuildtng programmes point in that direction. To protect her commerce Germany does not need a fleet larger than the navies of France and Russia combined, composed •of warships so constructed that they cannot be used in distant seas. Germany's fighting fleet is built for the North Sea—it manoeuvres there, it' is permanently stationed there; and in any estimate of the strength of their Navy the Germans invariably compare their ships in speed and size or armament with ours. Taking all these facts into conjunction with the Kaiser's repeated predictions of Germany's great naval future, and the specific claim put forward by Germany in the first Navy Bill for naval supremacy, it is logically impossible to reject the inference that' so far as the Kaiser and Imperial policy are concerned, the German Navy is being built to fight England, and that in no other way cau its existence or its character be explained.

The opponents of a strong naval policy at Home when hard pressed generally fall back upon their profound. faith in the kindly intentions of the German people and their goodwill toward their British relatives. But even assuming that the German people do not want to fight us, the more important question is what are the Kaiser's own intentions, and how far will he be able to carry them out? It must not be forgotten that though Germany is in theory a constitutional monarchy, the Kaiser exercises a very large degree of autocratic power. The Imperial Constitution of 1871 allows him to make war or conclude peace, to arrange treaties, to open, adjourn or dissolve Parliament, to issue and promulgate laws, to nominate and dismiss all public officials. Nor are these powers in the Kaiser's hands by any means a "dead letter." "Only one man," he has said publicly, "is master in this country." "The will of the King is the highest of all laws," is another of the oracular phrases in which the Kaiser delights; and though the Rechistag very properly regards itself as insulted by the suggestion of one of its members that the Kaiser might emulate Cromwell, and dissolve his Parliament by armed force, the bare suggestion of such a course indicates how little Germany really knows about Constitutional Government. The growth of Social Democracy and the spread of its principles may yet clip the wings of the Kaiser's soaring ambition, but so far there seems only too much reason to fear that he could, if he chose, precipitate war between Germany and England, and that he is straining every nerve to prepare himself for a fitting opportunity.