WEDNESDAY, MAY 26, 1915. KEEPING UP INFAMOUS TRADITIONS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 26 May 1915, Page 4

WEDNESDAY, MAY 26, 1915. KEEPING UP INFAMOUS TRADITIONS.

To understand the present we must know the past—hence the supreme value of history, and the reader who desires to improve his 'knowledge of the causes and characteiistics of Germany's present programme of ruthless carnage and would-be conquest cannot do .better than take a peep back-ward to ; the time of Frederic the Great of Prussia, for it is his .policy and his methods that are being re-enacted by the Kaiser. Of course we all know too well what the Kaiser is doing and what he is aiming at, but 'we shall understand the man and his works all the better, and be all the better qualified to estimate their likeliest results, if we observe how the same principles operated in the days of his ancestor. However much we may be horrified at the Kaiser's cruel and cowardly treatment of Belgium, we can hardly in reason be surprised at: it when .we rev call that during the Seven Years':= War Frederic, in his dealing, mth Saxon*^, ,- ..had.-hied;<arid...i^ov-^ll^^^:^^S pie with his requisitions, had impres.ea1 the Saxon troops to serve in his army, brutally carrisd off the Saxon women, as.though they were cows or sheep, to people his Silesian colonies, and even kidnapped Saxon potte*fs from Meissen and forced them to disclose the secrets of Dresden china to ths factories at Potsdam." These and other similar savageries s^cw that the Kaiser is just keeping up the infamous traditions of his race, with here and there improvements upon them in the matter of their enormity. Again j however, there is nothing in thi3 that need cause surprise, for the Kaiser is—except perhaps in political talent and military genius—singularly like Frederic in many of his characteristics. A British envoy, afterwards Lord Malmesbury, in confidentially describing Frederic to the Government in London, said: "The basis of his Prussian Majesty's conduct, from the time he mounted the throne to this day, seems to have been the considering mankind in general, and particularly those over whom he was destined to reign, as being created merely to be subservient to his will, and conducive to the carrying into execution whatever might tend to augment his power, and extend his dominions. Proceeding on these grounds, he has all along been guided by his own judgment alone, without even consulting any of his ministers or superior officers. ". . . I have seen him weep at tragedy; known him pay as much ■•care to a .sick greyhound as a fond! mother could to a favorite child; and yet, the next day, he has given orders for devastating a province; or by 3 wanton increase of taxes made a whole district miserable: . . Thus, never losing sight of his object, he lays aside all feelings, the moment that is concerned; and although as an individual he often appears and really is humane, benevolent and friendly; yet the instant he acts in his royal capacity, these attributes forsake him, and he carries with him desolation, misery and persecution wherever he goes." Here, in his outstanding characteristics, we have the Kaiser to the life, showing, to the world's loss and horror, what a terrible thing is the inheritance of evil qualities. It is the same, too, with respect to the Prussian aristocracy and military caste, of whose ancestors in Frederic's time the writer already quoted says: "Their vanity makes them think they see their own greatness in the greatness of their monarch; their ignorance stifles in them-every notion of liberty and opposition; and their want of principle makes them ready instruments to execute 'any orders they receive, without considering whether they are founded on equity or not." Thus, through the past, we gain true knowledge of the Kaiser and the men who are. with him in this war, which is the most appalling onslaught yet made in the world's history on the lights and liberties of independent peoples. It is a descent of the wolves of barbarism upon the. folds of civilisation, and we must hope, for the sake of the future, as well as for our own ■sakes, that if the assailants are not nationally exterminated, their claws shall be politically clipped and their fangs drawn on such a scale that, for centuries if not for all time, they shall cease to be a pitiless, murderous • menace to the world.