The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY. FEBRUARY 22, 1918. WHAT GERMANY WANTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 46, 22 February 1918, Page 4

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

FRIDAY. FEBRUARY 22, 1918. WHAT GERMANY WANTS.

For the cause that Jacks assistant*, For the wrong that needs resistance. For the future in the distance, And the good that ice can do-.

Tiie most impressive item in the war literature now being distributed by the | Minister for Defence at the request of the Imperial Government is a map of the world inscribed. " What Germany ' Wants. Her Claims us Set Forth by Leaders of German Thought." The study of this map and its accompanying ; extracts from the opinions of German > writers, leaders, and societies, is particu- ' larly interesting ju?t now, in view of the stimulus given to German ambitions | by the collapse of Russia. The map i shows the world as coloured in the j dream of the Pan-Gonnan. The whole I of extra-Russian Europe, with the excep- ; tion of Spain, Portugal and France south of the Loire, is marked in the red used j to distinguish the territory the Pan- j Germans hope to govern or control.. The German eastern boundary takes in Lithuania, Courland. Livonia., Odessa, and the Crimea: the Balkans are, of course, German, and the Empire flows into Asia to the Persian Gulf, and into Africa to Egypt. Most of Africa, including Egypt, the Soudan, the Belgian and French Congo, Rhodesia, and the South African Union, is to be German. The whole of South America, with the exception of British and French Guiana (why these should be left out is hard to understand) is coloured red. Most of! China, and Sumatra, lava, and the other Dutch East Indies are included in the world-wide Empire. Some of the German statements printed on the map to support this rearrangement of the world date from before the war, and others were made early in the war: but all are interesting as showing how high the wine of ambition has mounted in the German head. We are informed, for instance, that Holland and all her overpea possessions must become the ally of Germany, that "Pan-Germanism absorbs also the Scandinavians," and that "we will annex Denmark, Holland, Belgium. Switzerland. Livonia. Trieste. Venice, and the North nf France from the Somme to the Loire. The programme which we propose is not the work of a madman, nor is this Empire which we wish to found a Utopia. We have already in our hands the means of realising it."' This laet was the opinion of an ex-Minister of War. "Decrepit Statce like the Argentine and Brazilian Republics." said a genial German writer. " and more or less all those beggarlyStates of South Ameria would be induced, either by force or other wise, to listen to reason." These arc only a few extracts, but they will suffice. The map is the tiling; no New Zealand home is complete, without it. The only fault we have to find with it is that the red does not go far enough. If Germany were able to splash the colour across the world in this way, Australia and New Zealand would not he shown in white. It may be said that though this may be what Germany wanted, it is something that ehe now has no expectation of getting. The answer to that is that there is no saying what the Germans will not try to get if they can secure a favourable peace now. Besides, let us consider a quite recent pronouncement by the six leading economic organisations of Ger-

many, representing many millions. "Peace," they say in a communication to the Government, "must bring us such an increase o£ our political, military, maritime and economic power as ■will establish our great strength againet the nations ■without." The programme includes the control of Belgium, the annexation of the French iron districts, Rueeian Poland and the Baltic provinces, the extension of economic Germany to the Persian Gulf, and new colonies, in addition, presumably, to the return of the old once. It must be borne in mind, too, that even German Socialism is inclined to annexation. Reviewing a volume in which are collected Germ.in

opinions about annexations, an American writer says: "It appeare, except for a few articles in the 'Vorwarte,' perhaps published with the Government's consent to assist German propaganda abroad, that the Social Democrats of

Germany have trecomo annexationiets." Scheidemann, the leader of the party, would set tip a Flemish Government in Belgium under German auspices. The Socialist organ of Cologne says that the formula of "No annexations" is entirely •un-Marxian, and that conquests must be demanded. Several similar statements are cited, which lead the American writer to reject the idea that the Social Democrats of Germany are opposed to German Imperialism. "They are making common cause with it, and despite their narrow nationalism they argue that they are the onty true internationalists. First the world is to be politically Germanised, and then there is to be set up at Berlin an economic papacy which is to bring the world to the feet of Marx." We are thus dealing with an enemy that, however weary it may be of war, retains in all classes ambitions which, if realised, would mean the. defeat of the Allies and of civilisation itself.