The Press WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1918. The German People and the Government.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16350, 23 October 1918, Page 6

The Press WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1918. The German People and the Government.

The protestations of the German Government that it speaks for the German ' people and that it is now truly reprej sentative of that people may be true, ! but it is nevertheless impossible to oct- | cept them without guarantees of the i strongest kind. These guarantees . must include the offer of such terms as will be practically equivalent to unconditional surrender, and they must | also contain formal proofs not only of : the reality of democratic government In Germany but also of the certainty that i the new system will be permanent. Nobody in authority on the side of the ; Entente has ever proposed that the Germans must accept any particular : j; Constitution. For one thing, it would 1 ?■. be impossible to choose whether the ; 1 Germans should adopt the Parliament- i ! ary system of Britain, or that or 1 jj France, or that of America. But the ! i! Allies have insisted, and will insist to j ij the end, that the fundamental prin- 1 ciple of democracy common to France, 1 Britain, and America mast be adopted : by Germany. They can only thus < ]' feel assured of the realisation of their t cardinal war-aim, proclaimed at the be- ' j ginning of the war by Mr Asqnith, < j.- namely, the destruction of Prussian * !• militarism for ever. As yet there is 3 ; no evidence that Germany has made: i ; U p its mind upon the great change of 1 !: system implied in all this; indeed, 1 there have been some signs of a violent - j reaction at tho last moment qgainst j

the adoption of a democratic regime, and the position as stated in the German Note is still far from satisfactory on this point. Here the Allies can do nothing, except in so far as Foch's armies are an instrument of propaganda: the fate of Germany rests with the German people. It has long been a general belief that the stuff of rebellion is not in Germany; but that cannot be true of any people. There is for every people a point at which misgovernment and misery in combination break a people's self-control, and that point is at hand in Germany now. It is not as if the democratic constitution essential to Germany were a new idea: such a constitution has been I dreamed of, and worked for, in Germany • for the best part of a century. Between 181-5, when Frederick "William 111. promised a real Constitution, and 1840, when the King died, the demand for liberty and a popular Government was strong and continuous, and it has never quite died down. That it has been impotent has been due to the great success of the Empire from the beginning of Bismarck's career and to the prosperity and general well-being of the people. But the spirit of democracy has been growing, as is shown by the tremendous growth of the Social Democratic vote at the Reichstag elections. The Social Democratic Party is not composed purely of Socialists; most of the Social Democratic voters, indeed, aro merely Liberals, people discontented with German officialdom, German repression, the deification of the Emperor, and the supremacy of the military caste. Before the war tho democratic forces were growing; oven while tho war was going well for Germany tho Kaiser had to recognise the rising spirit of democracy by issuing his decree commanding the introduction of electoral reform in Prussia. The war temporarily united tho nation, but as soon as it began to become clear that tho war would not end in a German victory the rumblings of discontent began. For some time the unity of the German nation has been a unity born of fear. The people are now realising something of tho grievous deceptions practised upon them, and they see the Kaiser and his supporters as their worst enemies. They are learning why the world is against Germany, and their rulers cannot conceal from them what is the obstacle to the peace for which the masses are madly craving. If they are not granted the. means to peace and to participation in the orderly progress of the world once more, we may fdel assured that they will rise up and overthrow the system to which they owe their present miseries and which can do nothing for them except prolong and intensify those miseries to tho point of final and irremediable ruin.