THE KAISER'S WORD

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 86, 8 October 1914, Page 7

THE KAISER'S WORD

BLACK SHADOW OF THE PRUSSIAN . DUTCH ANXIETIES. There is no doubt that Holland is at present passing through a period of intense anxiety, and although the fears of the uneducated (of whom, fortunately, in Holland there are few) arc that England may be contemplating some hideous piece of treachery, the governing classes know that it is the black shadow of the Prussian that hovers over the smiling corniields and the innocent children ploying in the fields (writes Stephen Black from Rotterdam to a London daily paper). That sinful, cowardly attack on Belgium proved to the Dutch the value of an JEmpei'or's word whert vanity mid an insatiable lust for power are placed in the balance agat'ist mere honour. From the moment that the unprovoked and bloody assault was made upon peaceful, unpretentious little Belgium, the Dutch armed, to to-day they sit in silent anticipation of the blow that may at any moment descend upon them. Extraordinary preparations have been made to defend the t country, but still more extraordinary is the care that is being taken not to afford Germany that iota of provocation that would siiilkc to bring down upon the meadows md orchards of Limburg plundering, murderous bands of Uhlans and Hussars. When tho Kaiser watits war he Is a very Susceptible monarch, and so llollam.l, which is occupying the role of the lamb in opposition to the wolf of Germany, does not dare to sip at the same stream for fear the little drink might darken the waters of the Rhine. It happened some time ago that Holland demurred to the demand for the hotoridiis Vulcan Baibour, and the Kaiser then threatened to divert the course of the Rhine and ruin Rotterdam. Some day, no doubt, when something about Heaven 1 displeases him, lie will divert the course of the stars or the sun. FIELDS WHERE WOMEN WORK. Nothing in Holland to-day i» so sad to look upon as the yellow^ fields of corn and oats in the south; (or as weary women reap laboriously those crops whose sowers are away for war. it i* impossible Mot to feel a sense of the* potential rapine and destruction that ma-y only too coon replace peace and plenty. Poor Holland ! This mad ambition nf * vainglorious, roya-1 blasphemer ha* already oost her many millions of pound#. Fruitful trees lie upon, tfie ground vot- 1 ting in ripeness, ships are stagnating in the haujbours, vegetables are decaying on the land; the only cropa being sown are in waters created for peaceful men, and these are craps of mines ! Guns and etvords are everywhere, and soldiers are the citizens, On my way to and from the Belgian borders the trains were frequently atop* per for military purposes, and achoofc, I found, had been emptied of scholars to shelter troops. Now comes the news from Russia that Holland has given in writing toxthe Russian Government an assurance of neutrality. The ploclftma-tior. i«Bn«d a few days Ago by the advinem of the Queen was equally unheroic in character j but what eke can Holla-nd do? She knows that her participation in the war is desired,, not because of th& help her 200.000 soldiers ran give so mighty a nation as Germany, but because he? territory and hei* ports afe w»M«d ac pawns in, the great game of the mad monarch, both flow and ftfter the war. The Kaiser looks with lascivious eyed on Flushing and Rotterdam and Amsterdam, and lascivious monarchs who lust tor war are hard to deny. THE RED CROSS PRINCE. It is bignificwit of the truth that Queen Wtlheimra*'* German Consort h_* been allowed «to. more roprafiilite iuk

in this wa-r than the command of th« Dutch Red Cross. He cam© to th« Netherlands with ttie reputation of being a distinguished German soldier, but when war broke out wa* carefully denied work which Dutchmen think en#uld be performed by lov'om of tlteir own country. The desperate intrigues of the Gar* mans to curry favour with the Dutch have jdst been manifested in anothe* atrlkihg form. With the Amorioan re> fugees who passed through hern cftnte » number of loud-tongued but otherwise mysterious individuals who seemed to have nothing to do but praise Germany. All that these interesting parasites could s«.y was that the Teutons wete th* fin«t people they had ever met, and th&t bY fore a year had passed the flay of O*r« many vwuld be floating ovei 1 the world. I challenged one. of the KaJsw'i trumpeters to an explanation, and be» for* a hundred words had been et« changed discovered that he was a German, not a German-American, who had developed the trick of speftklng English, with a tWAnff. He did not leave by the boit for America, a-nd f found that, despite its being a time of war, he had recently beeh through Paris, Berlin. Cologne, and Brussels. From whai t afterwards leavned I have every reason to believe he is professionally employed as a spy by the Germans. There are many such people now spread over HoU I land Industriously making mischief between tilt Dutch and the British and I Belgians. To euch methods is Germany now reduced. THE BEST-HATED COUNTRY 1N : THE WORLD. But, despite all the efforts of its"pro« fessional praisers, Germany is the beat lmted of all countries on e*fth. A man here said yesterday \ " I have travelled in nearly every country on earth, mid 1 havt yet to find the place, outgid* of Germany, in which Germans arb tolerated." General Herlaog, I we, is th latest to express 'Ms preference for Britishers. And Heaven known he was bitterly enough, opposed to the British on political grounds. "But among th* Boei'B In general Ihe Germans are de> I tested ;, and the few wretched natives in South-West Africa, upon whose unsnot'feKsful subjugation they spent a. fabulous sum, hate them with,, good rett-Foh. for ii, was only 'aftei 1 insuffijrable cruelties had been Inflicted that the poo; 1 , half. starved wretches revolted, in Africa the GeMnfths In peace t-Veht thd natives with a brutality their deeds in war make easily comprehensible. Their rapacious envy is notorious the world ovw, and the establishment of a. Gevman club In every remote town, where a few Teutons gather at nights to drink beer in national seclusion, is a symptom of that race madness for which the ! world is to pay gd dearly. Deep down in the depths of then- hearts the Dutoli ! hate the Germans, worse, perhaps, than they hate anybody or anything, ahd Europe can feel safe in the knowledge* that no matter what happens Holland | will be true to her ideals and keep her promises. If the Germans invade the Netherlands they will have to fight every step of the way.