SOLFTHE "SUBTLE"

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 141, 11 December 1918, Page 8

SOLFTHE "SUBTLE"

WANTED TO GOVERN AUSTRALIA

A PERSONAL SKETCH

The .other day the Swiss Charge d'affaires begged to be excused from the responsibility of translating Dr. Solf's reply to President Wilson, owing "to the subtlety in which Solf's language Was couched." This is, of course, in accord with the accepted currency that passes for the psychologist's diagnosis of the German mind (writes Helen Jerome in the Sydney Sun).

Subtlety! Dr. Solf is about as subtle as the rest of his countrymen! Deceit and subterfuge can only be dressed up in those terms by the Amateur of Life.

I knew Dr. Solf for some years prior to the outbreak of the war, and on one occasion travelled with him and his suite for nearly two months from Fiji to' Vancouver, met him again in Chicago and New York, and subsequently in Berlin. As this was at the time he had just concluded the Governorship of Samoa, he was naturally full of the Pacific coast, and his conversation turned very much upon the possibilities and future of Australia. <

Solf certainly was, and, I suppose, is the most unsubtle-looking person one can imagine. We never expect those ponderously, monumental-looking people to possess the delicate mental mechanism which indicates delicate mental processes. , Nevertheless, one must not divorce his physical bigness from mental bigness because of the absence of subtlety. Fifteen stone he stood in, his shoes— and if you had not known his nationality you ■would not have accused him of it. I have never met a German who had a more sincere partiality for English people, and who admitted it so frankly. He particularly envied us our instinct for, and proficiency at, sports— but this is a! penchant that I have repeatedly observed among Teuton people. Their very.' heaviness and clumsiness— j the two qualities so obvious in their | physique and their diplomacy—render- i ing them peculiarly susceptible to the possession of activity by other people. Strangely enough (in the light of subsequent events), during some of our conversations on board, Dr. Solfxconfided that he quite expected to meet trouble on his arrival in Germany owing to his too favourable reports upon the administration of affairs in Australia, and he admitted, that he materially disagreed with the report of the then German Con.-sul-General resident in Sydney, who was responsible for the absurd /story current in Germany that Australia was anxious to cut loose from England—another instance of the subtlety of the German mind!. , *; EYES ON AUSTRALIA. Solf's words were surely prophetic! Ko[ sooner had he "arrived in : Berlin, where,^ preparatory to bigger things, he expected a minor Cabinet appointment, than there, v/as quite a commotion 'in. the Reichstag, when the leader of the Opposition mad© a violent attack on Solf's administration of Samoa, and incidentally his friendliness , with Australian politicians—his particular friend here having been the late Sir George Reid, and a particular object of his admiration being., our. present Premier, who was then Attorney-General, Mr. Hplman's. subtle and ingenious mind happening to .be the ■-. precise. _ type... to. which the Germans so aspire," afil in' which they are so deficient—in spite; of the complaint of the Swiss Charge d'Affaires. ■'.'■. The storm in the Reichstag spent itself, and the influence of his wife's family soon gained for Solf the post of Secretary for the Colonies—which has since translated itself into that of Minister of Foreign Affairs. He missed.the Chancellorship because, of his reputation for friendliness towards the hated English. ■■;...■

All this is pertinent to Australia because of Solf's avowed interest in and enthusiasm for the possibilities_ of this country—and his report concerning what ho called its "unparalleled resources"— both facts that evidently helped on the war. . '.. .

Once he hinted in his "subtle" German way that it was "a pity that Australia did not belong to Germany,—as Germany would do" so much more with it than the British race' seemed to have accomplished." 1 He further remarked that he would like "to have the good luck of being the administrator of affairs in Australia."

i The "vastness" and "spaciousness" of this country were expressions of his— and his imagination was evidently very strongly' appealed- to. On another occasion, when. speaking of Australia, he said : "I am afraid that Australians do not know "what to do with their big country." These remarks are a further example of the "subtlety" of his language. He delivered an address one day which did something towards atoning for the general standard of mental mediocrity on the ship. He spoke in cultured English, without the* slightest trace of an accent, and after thirty minutes of measured eloquence he concluded with a remark that—in the light of subsequent history—may help to, explain the high hope with which the German nation entered into this war of theirs :— n "What I really mean to say," concluded Solf, "is that the people on the Pacific coast have half a dozen empires —only they don't know it—and if they did know it would not know what to do with it." ' - • He left a perfectly clear impression in my mind that Alsace-Lorraine was as nothing to Germany as a prize <worth fighting for compared with Australia— if "any envious nation were to cast appraising eyes at her.'' "Fifty yeara are not too ' much- to sacrifice for such a prize," he said in his "subtle" German waf. EATING FIRST. As another instance of the "subtlety" of the German mind, I might mention a little episode which happened at a dinner party in Berlin when, as luck would have it, Solf happened to be my neighbour. Two-or three courses had been [traversed in the menu before any word had been exchanged. I wanted him to talk. "What shall we talk about?" I asked, impatient. . . "Let me first eat, madame," he answered, gravely. More silence —and much eating. Came the fourth course. "After which course do you usually talk, Her? Solf?" I asked, more in sorrow than in anger. He raised his eyes in pained astonishment to mine. "After the last, madame !". he answered. Prom the lazy, langorous days when oue lounged on a. deck-chair in the cool waters that lull the flower-scented shores of Honotuhi and listened half-dreamily to the measured utterances of a coming actor, who—was it unconsciously?—rehearsed his lines to an audience of one, to the sudden deafening uproar that heralded the overture in August, 1914, and ■ ushered in the tragedy that has since been strewing the stage with corpses that out-Hiimjet Hamlet, seems a far cry. and Solf has. no doubt, torgotten'what an excellent actor he might have made, and how letter-perfect has. he since proved himself—and T ask my-, tetf Bometimte what is it he was—an Ktor or » prophet?