The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 1922. GERMANY AND STINNES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 142, 17 June 1922, Page 6

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

SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 1922. GERMANY AND STINNES.

For the cause that lacks assistance. For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance. And the good that ice eon do.

The cable message which announced

yesterday that a campaign has been started in Germany in favour of resisting the demands of the Allies, throws some light on certain new developments which have been in progress there since peace came, and which may conceivably exercise a dominating influence on the destiny of the country and its people. For this revolt against the decrees of the Allies is, we are told, engineered by the newspapers controlled by Herr .Stinnes; and one of the nwst portentous facts in the recent history of Germany is the rise of this somewhat sinister personage to a position of such authority that he is now attempting to dictate and control both the internal and the foreign policy of the German Government. As regards, the influence exorcised by the Stinnes group of newspapers there can be little doubt. Stinnes, as Maxmilian Harden recently observed, lias set out to buy "public opinion" now, in addition to all the other multifarious commodities in which he deals, and he has applied to his new business just the same care and forethought and energy as he has displayed in his previous dealings with coal and iron. One of his colleagues told the German people publicly last year that Stinnes was buying up newspapers wherever he thought it desirable to do so in the interests of his opinions and his industrial enterprises, and to-day ho is credited with the absolute control of at least 70 journals. It is an interesting question to what purpose and object this lemarkable man intends to turn his unparalleled opportunities for influencing and shaping public opinion wherever the German language is read.

Hugo Stinnes, with a fortune estimated by Berlin bankers to-day at more than a billion golden marks, is neither a states-

man nor a patriot nor even a politician, but simply and solely a successful business man. Large volumes have already been written about his rise from comparatixe insignificance to the absolute commercial and financial king dominating Uermany— about his coal mines, his iron and copper mines, his shipping interests, and alxne all his successful organisation of huge

transport combines controlling land and water carriage over the greater part of Central Europe. But though his own people have been naturally dazzled by his sensational exploits and his phenomenal successes they understand quite clearly that he is simply a ruthless financier who by employing on a gigantic scale the unscrupulous and predatory methods familiar on every bourse and money market, has secured for himself "wealth beyond the dreams of avarice" and the power which such wealth confers. Xobody imagines that Stinnes is actuated by any public-spirited or patriotic motive. After the Versailles Treaty was signed, and Germany hid contracted to deliver 300,000 tons of coal per month to France, Stinnes, who virtually controls the German coal supply, deliberately stopped delivery from bis mines, so as to run up the market value of coal still higher through this enforced scarcity and thus exploit his own helpless countrymen. He is even credited with having urged the German Government to reject the Allies' reparation demands so as to force France to occupy the Ruhr coal region, thus giving him a further excuse to raise the price of coal from his own fields. These instances are enough to indicate the man's real nature and the purpose and object of all his immense and far-reaching commcr-

cial and financial organisations and enter]- rises. This man is wholly materialistic in his outlook, and his people need never expect from him any touch of inspiration to stimulate them toward higher purposes and nobler ends. Harden, in the brilliant sketch of Stinnes to which we have already referred, tells us that this strange and masterful man takes no pleasure in food or drink or luxuries, he seldom goes to the theatre, he has no ear for music, no taste for sculpture or painting, no interest in natural scenery —and he never reads a book. The only thing that does interest him, and occupies his whole life to the exclusion of everything else, is, as he frankly admits, "business" —and "business" to him means merely the study and practice of ways and means to enrich himself. It is not in the nature of things that a man of this type could long exorcise any potent influence over a people like the Germans, endowed as they undcubt- [ edly are with exceptional intellectual ; powers and capable of enthusiastic ' devotion to their country's cause. If Stinnes were or pretended to 'be a patriot or even a Pan-German, the [ authority that he now wields might | easily become more baneful and dangerous still. But taking the man as he stands, though the German people may be persuaded by him to adopt for the moment a defiant and truculent tone toward the Allies, they know only too well that the policy which Stinnes advocates is intended in tbe long run merely to enhance his own material wealth and power, and they will judge it accordingly.