BRITAIN AND GERMAN?

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 9, 12 January 1938, Page 4

BRITAIN AND GERMAN?

CONFLICT OF IDEAS

IS IT INEVITABLE?

An examination of the causes whiefc have led Germany to adopt a totalitarian rather than a democratic sy» tern of politics, and an appeal to English people to study those causes more closely, are made by Dr. Paul Osthold, editor of "Der deutsche Volkswirt," in an article in "Lloyd's Bank Review," reports "The Times?'

It must be realised, Dr. Osthold says, that we are at the beginning of a fresh evolution, wherein whole peoples are impelled by the sheer force of event* to go their own way, arid, in the process, are hectoring out of their neighbours some pretty thorough reflection as to what it ail means and what the underlying causes can be. The World War ended an epoch during which this need for thought was widely overlooked because the infallibility of ,th« Liberal idea was more or less generally accepted in most countries, "It is a historical tragedy," the writer continues, "that Great Britain and Germany have, for all essential purposes, found themselves in this conflict of ideas upon opposite sides of a gaping chasm, without being able to bridge it betimes by any profound appreciation and recognition of the fundamentally different conditions of existence and, therefore, of political constitution, which almost of necessity obtain in the two countries.

PROBLEM REPEATED,

"With the collapse of democracjva»d the rise of National Socialism $n, Germany,, the same old problem- has» again* arisen* between our;two countries, and,;' this problem is really the same-though differently costumed, for today the. Englishman sees the totalitarian State where formerly he used to come iu> against autocracy, which, after all, was. just as far from being congenial to, him, and fully as incomprehensible." ,

Dr. Osthold considers that Germany; did not in the past; and does not now; offer the indispensable premises for al successful working of representative democracy. For this, he argues, four things are essential:—(l) Frontiers adequately secure from aggression; (2) an adequate constitutional unity embrafcsj ing the whole country; (3) an adequate* community of thought in all sections of the body politic; and C*"> an acKSI quate equilibrium in social conditions^ In Germany after the war none' ofi these essential preliminaries for at workable democracy was present. ■ _* The first requirement, he Continues, is now in process of fulfilment in Ger-i----many by the restoration to due honour! of the duty of national defence, by tn* reintroduction of the obligation of ran-.. versa! military service, and by- the extirpation' of "that false, snobbish, antf unworthy form of pacifism which was-. nursed in the circles of the fornterf German Left parties, but was devbieC. of any kind of moral counterpoise snehj as makes a pacifist of the type otGeorge Lansbury an attractive and,ahighly respected personality.^ second requirement is being satisfied/ by the disappearance of the Ctonfede- ' rate States as separate political entities, and the1 third requirement has given birth to the strenuous ettorts ot National Socialism to supplant the particularist tendencies of the German by a modified mental outlook grounded in. patriotism, in the outstanding qualities and achievements of the race, and in the equal moral appraisal of the value of eyery sort of honest labour, whether bodily or intellectual. ' ■},■

SOCIAL CONDITIONS

Finally, it is sought to fulfil the fourth requirement by means of a reorganisation of social conditions, baseS on two fundamental ideas—the duty, of everyone to produce to the utmost of his powers, and the dujy of -the, economically strong to come to the help of the economically weak. Dr.; Osthold considers that it is a pity that the British trade unions do..:nat:, l send over to Germany a delegation with an open mind to study the whole situation on the spot; there is at present, he thinks, much misconception which an impartial inquiry would dissipate.

"Just as the German people haS\na fond attachment to militarism as a means of aggression," he says, "likewise it has no marked preference for economic self-sufficiency in any shape or form per ac propter se. If the Fulirer in the autumn of 1936 announced the advent of the second Four Years' Plan, which is a programme of self-help, it was embarked upon under the compulsion of events not solely o£ German origin." Such being the case, he adds, surely the ground iis taken from under the widespread foreign reproach that Germany's work in extending and consolidating her economic foundations has but military and aggressive aims. • "It is as clear as daylight that en. honest understanding between Great Britain and Germany, and a real agrees ment to come to terms, is of the very first importance, not only for both of them, but also for the Stability of the whole of Europe." A final settlement between the two countries, he believes, can come only by direct diplomatic discussion, undertaken with a sense of "the grandeur of the common task which both peoples have to solve in agreement."

Firemen wearing gas masks worked among bursting fireworks and exploding gunpowder at a fire at the Crane Fireworks Company's factory at Warmley, near Bristol. They .put a wall .'of water between the blazing workshops and tons of gunpowder^ stored in magazines near by, saving scores of houses round about ironu<Je»