TURKEY AND GERMANY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXVII, Issue LXXVII, 3 August 1918, Page 3

TURKEY AND GERMANY.

"CUTTING THE PAINTER."

REMARKS BY HON. T. M. WILFORD.

At the conclusion of his remarks at the conference of the Harbor Board's Association on Wednesday, the Hon. Mi> Wilford referred to the cabled report that Turkey had broken relations with. Germany (.says the Wellington Post). Reuters had, he said, told us that Turkey had cut the painter from Germany. If it was only true. "If." "The result of this news, if true, is at present incalculable," said Mr Wilford; "the influence on the German public's attitude towards the war will be astonishing. Germany is largely a country of business men, who are not carrying the strain and burden of this war for national glory only. Worldpower for them means larger markets. This is their justification for the suffering and sacrifice they are making. Remove this object, and justification of this war to them is gone. How does the German commercial man look at the question? He looks for an Ottoman Empire within a German zollverein. Turkey is his goal and his excuse^ for their losses. Asia Minor, including Anatolia, are the prizes i« seeks. Turkey he thinks to-day his best German colony. It is the market he thought the Paris Conference couldn't affect. It is one of the largest and most promising markets of the world. It is an immense reservoir of raw materials. Turkey, says Vladimir Jobotinsky, is the ultima spes of the German business man. In Naumann's "Mittel Europa," Turkey as the alternative to overseas expansion, the vital link, the spring of the clockwork. If you strike it successfully the whole Eastern Ottoman Empire dream collapses, and Egyptian and African dominance crumbles into dust. Turkey is not only an Ally whose collapse would weaken Germany's strength; it is the reason for her acts and moves for the Serbian ultimatum arid the declaration of war. The mobs in the streets of Germany may be dazzled by the German troops camping in Belgium, France, or Poland; the leading men of Germany know that Belgium must be restored after the war. What encourages the Junkers, the Hohenzollerns, and the financiers is the Berlin and Bagdad route via Constantinople, and the rich districts of Anatolia. The invasion of Anatolia or the occupation of it under agreement would mean the loss of all that makes the war worth while for Germany. In conclusion, do not forget that the route of this war plague is Asia Minor. The Nineteenth Century in 1916 said that the present war was waged for the control of Asia Minor. The Balkans are the antechambers leading to Asia Minor and further. Germany has tried to swallow Turkey as a whole, but we hope, if the nejvs is true, that Turkey has at least seen through the ruse. Let me predict that Turkey will never suffer for long the predominance of one foreign Power. This I think the Allies realise. "