“We are Lied To To-day as in War-time”

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 117, 9 February 1924, Page 13

“We are Lied To To-day as in War-time”

A Celebrated German’s Straight Talk to His Countrymen

“ ‘We are lied to to-day as in war-time,’ says Harden. To hide the shortcomings of administrations, abuse is'heaped upon France, upon Poincare. After all, Harden points out, what France is doing to-day does not differ materially from what Germany did after the war of 1870. Germany then occupied French soil until the last centime of the indemnity of 5,000,000,000 francs had been paid, and 5,000,000,000 francs were more three times as much as Germany’s entire war costs. But what a difference between the policy of fulfilment of the French at that time and the policy of subterfuges adopted by Germany to-day ! Fulfilment of the Peace Treaty, as far as possible, was the slogan of the Wirth-Rathenau Administration, and yet it defaulted deliveries of lumber stipulated by the Versailles Treaty, the easiest of all its stipulations for Germany to fulfil. The German citizen, of course, swallows everything, and the word is passed out, as in wartime, that ‘everything must be denied to foreign countries.’ ”

MAXIMILIAN HARDEN, the great German journalist, in a book called “Germany, France and England,” scolds the German politicians aa-1 discloses the internal political condition of the country The “New York Times” in its reviews of the book, says:— “What have the apologists for the German Republic to offer? Little enough, it must seem to a people striving blindly for betterment and finding itself sinking deeper and' deeper into the mire, its own protest inarticulate. It is absurd, indeed, to expect any real, democracy in Germany for a generation, for who can teach men schooled in the ways of autocracy to follow the paths of democracy without patient effort? There is no leader, no inspiration, scarcely hope. J “What wonder, that the spokesmen of democracy are few: Gerhard Hauptmann, Thomas Mann, Hugo Preuss, the autho? of the German Constitution, a document of democracy which has yet to be imbued with life, Maximilian Harden? The field is a thankless one and even such able minds can only grope their way. In his recent book Maximilian Harden, frankest of all German critics, discloses some of the reasons why the idea of democratic government has made small headway in Germany, reasons which are cm gent if not bo apparent to the outside observer. INCOMPETENT ADMINISTRATION. “A primary reason advanced by Harden is that the series of democratic arlr.iinl-rfrat.Mir.il whtoh havc been inflicted upon the tong-suffering Gewu*b

people since the armistice have been guilty of incompetency, floundering and blundering scarcely paralleled ip history. Each one has been worse than its predecessor, and the Cuno Cabinet, which was responsible for the fatal policy of passive resistance, was the culmination of cumulative calamity. “Their indulgence permitted two-thirds of the German people to prosper, while the debt to France for the reconstruction of the devastated areas remained open. Harden does not charge these dum-dum democratic Governments with a secret purpose of evasion, steadfastly adhered to-, but with downright incompetency, and yet it is not disputed that they consistently and conspicuously failed to put the Gorman budget in order, ruined tho country’s credit for the benefit of private capital, and confined themselves to half-way measures designed to deceive their own people regarding the true situation. ‘Opera bouffe,’ says Harden, 'pitiful bungling coupled with disgraceful mendacity, and never a staying word, a warning echoing through the land.’ Unfortunately these Governments were credited by tho Allies with far more sense, or rather guile, than they ever possessed. “Among the cardinal sins committed by these democratic administrations Harden reckons the Rapallo Treaty, the policy of inflation, the hush-hush policy and passive resistance. THE KODAK KAISER. “Kind words about the Kaiser, whom Bismarck found endowed with none the virtues at the Hahon.wlis.ru with all their !>ultr, are net 6$

be expected from Harden, who twice was sentenced and sent to a fortress for lese-majeste. He was the Kodak-Kaiser, the Filni-Imperator who was more timid than Nero but worshipped as one of the miracles of the world, who succeeded in the space of thirty years in losing all that the Hohenzollern had gained since Frederick the Great and in reducing to ashes the proud structure of the German Empire. "Extraordinarily severe, but apparently just, is Harden in his criticism Of Germany’s post-war statesmen: “Scheidemann, the Figaro. “Rathenau, the monarchist and protege of the Kaiser, whose clever but sterile brain led him to aspire to rank and fame, but lacked creative power. A versatile talent, but never the genius he fancied himself to be. “Wirth, a simple soul, fond of beer and song, a good schoolmaster, an astonishingly facile if shallow speaker, a man not devoid of right instinct but entirely spoiled by the charmor Rathenau, who flattered him by calling him a born leader, the democratic Bismarck, and lured him beyond his depth. “Ouno, the pseudo solid business man who was never such, but an efficient bureaucrat in the Imperial Department of Finance until he had the good fortune to have something to say about G overnment indemnity to the Hamburg-American Line for its war losses, and was rewarded by the appointment as director of the line. The man who prided himself on his ‘international connections,’ which in fact never existed; whose claim to America’s confidence was refuted and who showed his knowledge of American conditions by appointing Dr. Albert, cx-German secret agent, his Secretary of the Exchequer. It would not have been quite so bad had he made Count Bernstorff Minister for Foreign Affairs. HARDEN’S REMEDY. “Harden’s remedy for the present European dilemma is ‘economic collaboration between France, Belgium and Germany,’ a United States of Europe on a purely economic basis: “ ‘For the first time in fifty years the two nations (France and Germany) , confront each other as man to man, without strong allies or neutrals (in appearance) looking on.. They must summon courage to recognise at last, after all these years, what actually exists and what must of necessity take place. Between Ostende and Hamm, the Pas de Calais and Dortmund, in the valleys of the Schelde, the Meuse, the Rhine and the Ruhr, lie Europe’s richest treasures of coal and ore, the finest mines, the most modern foundries and furnaces, steel plants, machine factories, railroad systems and waterways. “ ‘Let this territory be treated rationally as the economic unit which it was destined to be, without regard to political frontiers drawn by dynastic jealousy or dinlomatic intrigue, let it be consolidated in this sense and it will soon help France and Germany to recover from port-war malaise and become the healing spring front which the Continent derives the strength to recuperate and reconstruct. “ ‘How else coura it bold its own in oomnetition with the more favoured continents or the gigantic trusts, American-British Empire, the Northern Sljvn icd fht Yellow AaiatinsJ'" &