UNDER WHICH FLAG?

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 4 October 1927, Page 4

UNDER WHICH FLAG?

South Africa, though not in quite so acute a form, Germany, or at any rate Berlin, is having some trouble over the flag to be flown. Yesterday, in connection with the Hindenburg birthday celebrations, we were told that Government buildings were showing the Republican flag, but that many private houses had hoisted the old Monarchist colours. It will thus be seen than the Republican flag has not yet met with anything like universal acceptance by the German people, of whom a quite substantial proportion are ready for a return to liaiserism. Some six weeks ago the flag question came into prominence in connection with the visit of the Mayor of New York to BerlinHe was given a dinner by the American Club at the Hotel Kaiserhof, Berlin’s Lord Mayor (Oberburgermeister) being also, as a matter of course, an invited guest. The latter, however, intimated that he must decline participation in the banquet unless Germany’s Republican black, red and gold flag was shown over the hotel. This, it appears. w;as in accord with a municipal resolution to boycott hotels that did not fly the ilag on Constitution Day, the hotel in question being one that had failed to do this. The hotel manager, however, firmly refused to comply with the condition precedent laid down for securing the attendance of the Berlin Lord Mayor, who was accordingly an absentee from the semi-official function.

The manager's stand, it seems, was taken on a resolution of the Berlin Hotel Proprietors’ Association, which had decided that it was the duty of the Berlin hotels represented, including practically all the large ones well known to foreign visitors, not to fly the Republican flag or any other German flag on Constitution Day or any other occasion. They were not disposed to mix themselves up in politics even under pressure from the City Council. It was the duty of a hostelry, they held, to vaoid anything that might annoy its guests. Both the old and new German flags were unfortunately no longer regarded by the public as national flags, but had become the emblems of the poltical tendencies which divided the nation into halves. The hotels regarded themselves as purely commercial undertakings, like banks and big stores, and like these they had tried to avoid unpleasantness arising from hoisting State or municipal flags. But even this procedure had been attacked by a section of the Press, so they had come to the conclusion that they had better fly no flags at all. Where the city authorities chose to dine was a matter of indifference to the hotel proprietors in question, but as citizens whose undertakings were bled white by local taxation they considered tho municipal officials paid by the inhabitants of the city should be impartial, and they resented attempts to compel Berlin commercial undertakings to make poltical professions of faith. These may he reasonable enough contentions, but they are none the less significant as showing how substantial must be the number of Berliners who decline to eat or drink under the officially recognised national flag.