The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATES The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. MONDAY. OCTOBER 15, 1917. UNREPENTANT GERMANY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 246, 15 October 1917, Page 4

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

MONDAY. OCTOBER 15, 1917. UNREPENTANT GERMANY.

For the cause that lackg assistance, For the tcrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that tee can do.

■ It has often been observed that one U of the most remarkable characteristics of the Germans is their curious inability to understand ho v their words and actions are regarded by people of other _ races. Tne whole history of the war is • full of instances of this kind of thing; o j but no more impressive illustration of _ this strange defect could be desired than 8 the declaration which the German Foreign Minister has just uttered on the subject of Alsace-Lorraine. According to yon Kuhlmann, the Reiehsland is part of the imperial patrimony of the ' German people, and so long as there are any of them left alive to fight, they will never surrender it. No doubt this i, is calculated to appeal to the patriotism of the Germans, and to arouse the spirit of nationalism among them. But we cannot imagine anything that a representative German statesman could say which would be more likely to produce effects that must be, from the German standpoint, wholly undesirable. For the Germans themselves, whatever they may think of the present situation, ■ know well by this time that their only i chance of ultimate success lies in the faint hope of tiring out the Allies until , exhaustion compels one or other of their .' opponent? to withdraw from the struggle. It might, therefore, be expected that the Germans would endeavour to produce the impression that the war can conceivably be closed by some sort of compromise, and that they would avoid any statement of their intentions that might exasperate their enemies, and strengthen their resolve to fight on at all costs rather than accept a "German peace."' Yet this is the moment chosen by the German Foreign Minister to declare that Germany's resolve to keep Alsace and Lorraine is still unshaken . and immutable. And at once, as a . logical and inevitable consequence, we hear Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Asquith assuring friends and foes alike that Britain will not make peace till Alsace and Lorraine have been liberated and ■ restored to France. ; It ought to be unnecessary to explain , at length that Germany's claim on Alsace and Lorraine is almost wholly i fictitious and indefensible. These two provinces have been to all intents and purposes French for two thousand years. In the days of the Frank invasion—contemporary with the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain —German tribes penetrated into Eastern Lorraine, but they never reached Metz. This great city and a large amount of territory east of it have never spoke in German, and French, too, has always been the prevailing speech in Alsace. It is true that in the ■ early days of the Holy Roman Empire Alsace and Lorraine were for the time included nominally in the Teutonic domi- , nions. But so. too, were Holland. Belgium, Northern Italy, and the valleys of , the Rhone and Saone in Eastern France; and no claim based upon this vague and far-distant ascendancy could now be tolerated. In 154_ the Emperor Charles V. recognised tbe independence of Lorraine, and in 176R this region was formally and peacefully absorbed in France again. Long before this, in 1648, Alsace had been transferred to France; and for the whole of its subsequent history the successive rulers and governments of France have made strenuous and successful efforts to strengthen the strong patriotic and nationalist feeling in these two provinces, and to bind them firmly to France by sympathetic and equitable methods of rule. The consequence was that the Revolution at the close of the IStb. century was welcomed with enthusiasm by the people of Alsace and Lorraine, aud they fought nobly for France .luring tho long and Jesperate Napoleonic wars. What has united the two provinces to France firmly is, of course, the just and generous treatment that they have always received, and long before tiie Franco-Prussian war they formed an integral part of the French State and the French nation. And when . after the downfall of France in the dis;i astroiK» struggle of 18V0 1 the people

of Alsace and Lorraine found that they were to be compelled to accept the yoke of the hated foreigner, their representatives issused a protest which in the eyes of all who believe in democracy and nationalism settles the question at issue beyond dispute. "We take our co-citizens of France, the. governments and the peoples of the entire world, to witness," runs this remarkable document, "that we regard in advance as null and void all acts and treaties, votes and plebiscites which would consent to abandon to a foreign country the whole or any part of our provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. We proclaim for ever the inviolable right of the Alsatians and Lorrainers to remain members of the French nation, and we swear for ourselves, as well as for our constituents, our children and all their descendants, to vindicate it eternally and by every means towards and against all usurpers." In the spirit of this manifesto the people of. Alsace and Lorraine have lived consistently for the past forty-six years, and their inflexible determination to regard themselves always as ""more French than France" has been strengthened and hardened by the tyrannical methods of government which their German masters, with characteristic stupidity, have imposed upon them. But as we have said so often, lack of political insight is the prevailing defect of the whole German nation. "Politically," says Prince yon Btielow, quoting with approval the dictum of one of Bismarck's underlings, "politically we Germans are a natiou of donkeys,"' and certainly this not too flattering estimate of German political ability has never been more aptly confirmed than by yon Kuhlmann's latent pronouncement on this vexed question of Alsace and Lorraine. But this remarkable "faux pas" will serve a very useful purpose if it helps to remind the Allies that Germany so far has shown not the least sign of repentance, or given any indication that, when peace comes, she i, prepared to amend her ways. The Pan-Germans who dominate the Government are clamouring tor the permanent occupation of Belgium, and even of Kastern France; the peace proposals, which like so many "trial balloons" are floated from time to tirre in neutral countries, al! assume that Germany will be able to negotiate with the Allies and use her present hol.liugs of foreign territory as pawns in the diplomatic game; and the official German Press is talking even to-day of "world power" for the Fatherland after the war. Well may our leaders declare that this is no time, to talk of peace, and nothing will help more effectually to strengthen France and Britain and America for all the sacrifices they must endure than Germany's arrogant and frankly brutal admission that she does not mean to surrender her prey.