PRETENCE AT REFORM

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 139, 9 December 1918, Page 2

PRETENCE AT REFORM

CAN GERMANY BE DEMOCRATISED? AN IMPOSSIBLE TASK FOR THE ALLIES. , "The world must be made cafe for Democracy." With this basic axis of President Wilson there can be no disagreement whatsoever. . , ... But how is the. world to be made "safe for Democracy?" By the crushing defeat of the German armies. That, no doubt, is an essential preliminary; ! but of itself it will provide no final,! no permanent safeguard against an eventual revival of autocracy and! militarism among the German, tribes. By the deposition, and banishment of the present JCaiser, if not of the entire Hohenzollern dynasty.' Thij, indeed, is a penalty the Allies could and should impose upon the criminal authors of thie world catastrophe (writes an .Allied military attache in London Sunday Chronicle on 13th October). President Wilson and the Allies may impose it, if the German people, the Kaiser's only too willing partner* (not merely tools), do not" anticipate him in this respect, as well they may, in order to be let off-more lightly, at the expense of an Imperial scapegoat. But whether we deport or hang the Kaiser, or whetbeir the German people take this initiative upon themsfives, or, what is^perhaps more likely than either of these courses, whether the Kaiser should decide to follow the more cautious example of King Fox of Sofia, and abdicate, in none of these actions should I discern any lasting guarantee of peace or universal democracy. , , ■ - We could not prevent the people of the present German • Empire from reverting later, if a majority among-them chose so to revert, to an autocratic tnd militarist regime,. as the North Germans, at any rate, would be sure to do if. the end of the war should produce in the Fatherland a sanguinary but shortlived outbreak of Bolshevism and Anarchy. „ ■ . ,/SHAM REFORMS. Are there no means, then, of making the world safe for Democracy? I have already hinted at ono, the more obvious one. That would be the genuine conversion of Germany, of the -German tribes, that is, to a democratic breed and a democratic framework for the State. One cannot but hope for this solution; and many of our statesmen believe that it is not even remote. I regret to say that in this vital matter I am compelled to differ from them altogether. ■ ' . From first-hand-knowledge gained by residing in (jtermany for a number of years, I am absolutely convinced that 95 per cent of the German population, even at this hour, have no sincere' craving! however vague, for democratic government. No democratic spirit or intent has prompted the internal reforms—or, rather, the pretence at internal reforms— of which so much is being mad© just now in the Reichstag and the German press. These reforms have been, not dictated from below, but introduced from above, at the dictation, in fact, of the Allied armies. ■ ■ Were these reforms really far-reaching they would still not be regarded as any solace for the dreamed-of but unrealised military triumph, which has' not come off. But they arc not far-reaching, their measure being Cavalry-General Prince Max of Baden's substitution of Parliamentary -multi for his military uniform. NO GENUINE^ CONVERSiON ' ', On the other hand, "Comrade" Sch.eidemann becomes "His Excellency," Herr „Schoidema.nn. ; This, too, enables us to gauge the democratic spirit .of I which the new Imperial War Cabinet is | compounded. Scheidemann, as/Excellency seems to the .average middle-class, and working-class German the very embodiment of Democracy. Whereas it only means that the great mass of the Social Democrats will follow Scheidemann, now a servant of the Kaiser, more tamely* than .before, and that the new Excellency will toe the Imperial and Royal line yet more complacently than in the past. Since no genuine conversion of Germany to the Democratic creed' can be hoped for, how can s democracy be made safe ? There is only one way, and that is to deprive militarist-minded Germany of any power for future mischief by freeing the South German from Prussia, and enabling him to reconstitute the .old South German Confederation.

. By this means the population under tho Prussian General Staff would be reduced by something like 40 per cent., and, however much Prussian military junkers might yearn for a war of revenge, they would be powerless to attempt it for lack of man-power. The break-up of the HohenzolJern Empire— by this means, and this alone, can the world b© made "Safe for Democracy."