GERMAN EXPANSION

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 865, 11 July 1910, Page 7

GERMAN EXPANSION

AFRICA AND AUSTRALASIA THE FIELDS. Bj Telegraph-Press Association-Copyright. London, July 8. Commenting on Captain Mahan's article in the "Daily Mail" on tlio subject "Britain and the German Navy," the Liberal journal "Vossische Zcitung" declares that Germany's colonial expansion is in Africa and Australasia. It is impossible to choose America for this purpose. Furthermore, if Germany were invited, sho would be ready to give a formal promise binding herself to recognition of the Monroe Doctrine. It is understood that mention of Australasia has reference to German possessions in tho Pacific.

PAN-GERMAN AMBITIONS.

The Monroe Doctrine, which has long been one-of the guiding principles of United States foreign policy, was first, laid down by President Jlonroo in 1823. It sets out that interference in the affairs of any independent American State by a foreign Power will be regarded as an unfriendly act by the United States. There has been a large •immigration of Germans into Brazil of recent years, and Sir. J. S. Jlann, writins in the "Contemporary Review" last year, said that in every* part of South America German traders have been tending to displace the British and get ahead of the Americans. In certain of the smaller States German commercial inlluenco appears to be very marked. In Guatemala, for instance, a pood deal of tho capital and some of the best coffee estates are German. In Southern Chile, it is claimed that theTe are 20,000 Germans, but the classical instance of successful German colonisation is in the southern States of Brazil. In the States of Bio Grand do Sul, Santa Catharina, and Parana there are something like half a million Germans. They have maintained their wee-character and their speech, their German habits and traditions; they have their own newspapers, and do not mix or inter-marry with the native population; and their financial' and commercial influence is much greater than their mere numbers would imply. At home in Europe there has been a considerable German settlement in Milan and North Italy, and much lias been heard of tho danger that Belgium may bo so overrun by Germans that it will become a mere outpost of the German Empire. Pan-Germans have also marked down Franca, with its stationary population, as an even more promising fi<?!<l for

"pacific permeation." ' German peasant far mors are to buy up its vacant lands, and brins part pf.it, at any rate, into a revived Empire, embracing the territory which was German under Charles tlip Great, Holland is also put ilov;u for attack; Slav Europe is to be provided with Ciermo.il ruler? and Gorman "captains of industry"; and the Turkish Empire is to be assisted by German influence to assimilate the gifts o£ Western civilisation.

Outside of Europe there is no expectation of a German transmarine empire, all such lieiii? (ii'avowcl by the Pan-German party. The avow] aim is to build up poli-tfcal enmmunitii"; oversea, which shall be German in' thought, manners, and speech, demanding jroods of German manufacture, and supplying the German Empire with raw materia!, and streii/rtheninJ* the bond by taking the overplus of German population. The German rxissossic-ns in the. Pacific, referred to in the cable mesf-iw, are:— Kais?r AVilhelm's Tand (Northern New Guinea), area 70,000 squatf miles; Bismarck Archipelaro; the Solomon Islands i tlie Pe.lew. and Marianne Ts'ands; the Marshall Wands; and f-avaii (GCO square miles) and TTpohi (3-10 square miles), the largest of tlie Samoan Mauds.