THE H.B. TRIBUNE. THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 1914. GERMAN AMBITIONS. A COMMERCIALISMS VIEWS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume IV, Issue 210, 20 August 1914, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE. THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 1914. GERMAN AMBITIONS. A COMMERCIALISMS VIEWS.

It is always well—and at a time like the present it especially helps to clear the judgment—to hear the other side. We may therefore be pardoned for putting before our readers the views expressed by a German banker, who is also a member of the Prussian Upper House, with regard to the relations between Britain and Germany prior to the outbreak of war. He wrote as a representative of German commercialism and, as such, one whose whole interests lay in the preservation of peace. At the same time he' seeks to justify, on the very ground of the preservation of peace, the vast efforts put forth by Germany in organising and perfecting her military and naval means of defence. It is quite probable that he is sincere in the expression of his views and that they are those that were entertained by a very large majority of the German nation as individuals. He starts by pointing out that the then latest statistics showed that Germany’s exports to the United Kingdom and its dependencies amounted to some £68,000,000, and that her imports from the British Empire totalled £85,000,000, and that with no other country in the world were such active commercial relations maintained. The fact that the imports from the British Empire. so substantially exceeded the exports to it did not disturb him, and he declares that the commercial interchange was an immense economic advantage to both nations, and was based on sensible lines. “How is it, then,” he asks, “that two great kindred peoples, depending so much for their economic prosperity on the mutual cultivation of friendly relations, have fallen, into an antagonism regarded by all well-meaning minds of both nations with pain and indignation'” In answer to his own question he avers that the tension, which he cannot but recognise, arises from the existence “in both count l ies” of sets of men, unimportant as to number, but powerful in the influence they exert on public opinion. Wrongly directed patriotism, thirst of sensation and, not least, egoistic ambitions have in combination contributed to bring into existence parties, or rather groups of people, whose noisy agitation has succeeded in drowning the commonsense of the great majority of both peoples and in misleading and poisoning public opinion. A war between Great Britain and Germany, he avers, would bring—as it ha* brought—most of the peoples of Europe to the battlefields, and would be the greatest misfortune that could befall the human race, for—quoting l as an example something peculiarly within his own ken—no land and no nation would remain unharmed if the moneymarkets of London, Berlin and Paris were simultaneously closed. If 'a safeguard against such a calamity is to be found—ami, he declares, the overwhelming majority in Germany, as in England, so wishes —it would be well worth while for everyone to raise his voice in order to dissipate mutual suspicious and misunderstandings.

He then proceeds to discuss the question of Germany’s warrant for the upbuilding of a strong fleet and in doing ibis points out that so long as her products were mainly those of agriculture she required no seadefence. but with the rapid growth of her manufactures for export the necessity for a protecting navy at once arose. Not only was this needed for the covering of her outward commerce, but also for ensuring' the food supply of the nation. According to his estimate Germany can produce internally only sufficient food to provide her people lor six clays out of the week, i’or the other seventh she has to depend on a supply from outside. Or, put in another way, she cannot from her internal resources find the necessaries of life for some nine millions out of her sixty-three millions of population. So far as concerns the necessity for territorial expansion in order to provide ‘an outlet for surplus population, he asserts that German emigration lias practically stopped, and that the Empire is as a matter of fact under-populated notwithstanding the natural increase that has gone on of recent years. As evidence of this be adduces the fact that nearly a million men have to be brought from neighbouring countries every year to garner Germany’s grain harvests. Universal conscription, lie argues, makes a nation peace loving, for war means for every family the heaviest personal sacrifice. When fathers, husbands. sons and brothers have all to take the field, the whole people shrinks from the prospect of a great war. With regard to Germany as a factor for peace, he points out that since the new German Empire arose —he evidently dates the commencement after the Franco Prussian war —no drop of blood has been shed in Europe, excepting among the minor States of the Balkans, and Germany, despite her immense armaments, has kept peace with the whole world. In contrast he points out that prior to the German unification the peoples which now constitute her Empire were, one or other, almost continually embroiled, and not ohly that, but their territory was for centuries made the battlefield for other contending nations. In all this he sees perfect justification for the sacrifices which have been macle for the creation of an army, and navy capable of defending Germany’s people and Germany’s commerce against the possibility of outside aggressions. That these sacrifices have been so great as to excite suspicion of their true motive he denies. For he points out that Germany’s State services are highly profitable and that her taxation per head is much below that imposed in Britain. “If,” he concludes, “British public opinion will convince itself of the good reason of the German point of view, as German public opinion is convinced of the soundness of the British 4 standpoint, there would be nothing in the wav to prevent the two peoples from joining friendly hands. Competitors in the world’s markets they would remain, but in peaceful culture-promoting competition .each country contentedly occupied with building up its own peculiar welfare under the blessing* of an inviolable peace."

However little we may agree with the suggestion that irritation was being produced by certain cliques in “both, nations,” there is nothing to prevent us from accepting the proposition that the great majority ot the German people were and are averse to war and that the cataclysm which has been brought about is regarded by them as nothing but a national calamity. The. Kaiser and his war party have been too strong for the moderate mass, and even the writer of the article from which we have quoted must, by this time, be convinced that Britain at-least was not the seeker or the maker of the conflict into which both nations have been driven.