GERMANY'S FOLLY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 96, 26 April 1933, Page 6

GERMANY'S FOLLY.

Alarm is already being felt in Germany over the serious loss of outstanding intellectual personalities in the universities duo to the persecution of the Jews and the suppression of freedom of thought. Hitler seems to have assumed that the history of the Jews in Germany did not begin until Karl Marx. The story of the Jews in Germany is, however, a story of yesterday, but of long ago, and goes back to the beginning of modern history. More than 400 years ago it was realised that Hebraism was as essential as Hellenism to the complete expression of the modern mind, and the Jews have made valuable contributions to every department of German thought. Hitler, however, has gone one step further in his nationalist folly, and is believed to bo contemplating the replacement of the axioms of Roman law by "essential German law." The individual is to be subordinated to ' the State, as in Soviet Russia. Roman law has influenced the development of law in general. Even English law, though owing less to Roman law than any other system, has at different times and in different ways received considerable accessions from Roman sources. Roman law was jealous of conserving the rights of the individual, and St. Paul, knew that he could appeal to Caesar, against anything that savoured of partisan oppression. Rome protected by some form of justice the foreigners who came within her borders even when there was no treaty guaranteeing mutual protection. The Romans administered the law to all free men, irrespective of citizenship, simply on the basis of their freedom. Now apparently in Germany a system is to be established under which the individual will be deprived of his rights to impartial justice, Jews will be treated as outcasts, atrocities committed in the name of nationalism will be condoned, and judges will be liable to suspension if they give judgments displeasing to the Nazis. Tacitus said of Agricola, the Roman Governor of Britain, that he knew that little was to be effected by force, if it was followed by injustice. That was the basis of Roman administration. Hitler appears to be making injustice and force the, basis of the neiv Germany. |