THE EUROPEAN WAR.

Mataura Ensign, 2 October 1914, Page 6

THE EUROPEAN WAR.

AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW. Thn following taken from '.Veiv York Liiu' U ol especial interest, au affording an iusigjit into opinion in America in regard to tlie wan — Aru tin- Ger:i..u;s intelligent :- (>f caiirse Hraia oi ihuu are. Jnui .-I- i 'iual.s of every pattern are intelligent, j JJut the Germans .-. ho have manage J j Cermaiiy for the las; sixty ye.uv: ivJio i believe, a, Bismarck did,'in blood and iron; who have made of Germany siuh h non.lcriiil machine, have made her strong and rich and masterful, and are so il'tirii.vjy lien: on :,;•( liring for her a!i that may,, be comic;; to her —«-. at of thmn-- Are they iiuciiig.uii now Y Kvcryiiody s. ems to feel that Germany wight havi ■-;;.,-io.h! the war ui.-.t Austria liad -tarted n .-die had reallv wanted to. X,u on old Fran.'. Jeset. l)i!t on William the l'ni..*ian, is laid tin* responsibiiity ior ti:::. war. Tie beiief in that the manage,iient of Germany was ready for m.-'o „f tlie j-reat blooti-miil-iron tonic, and let the war ci):ne. and probably even i.n.cnraiji'd Austria to light the fu>e. It looks -so. '•This time Franco mils, be iinished so that - : .;- -\ill make us no mors troiib!.-." \ ■■■<•_ s..'■■tinieiil, frankly expre- ■■:•,! i» -.:!.;■ ,•; •!:,. C-'i-'-ni;r,i man- ««-:•;-, ;.. p-.i" .., .';„ ;i,i ; „ ■[■,,:■; • German niot.w, i,'i:! :i I:;;:,; v.;]: i, u ( :•, pnperiai, world-gobbling pii!p,)so s :' at it ic'cds a l.ir.e map own *o di>c.t>-.. Was it int'dligent of the German: management to wan: to finish Francer ItattroPU individual Freitchmeii a".d iudividtuil Germans there is not much ill will. They can get on una'ther o-jrfect-: ]y if cor.diti<!iis are f.:vorab!e. Tlie> cliief ! trouble between France ami Germany sine.! '7l ha., been Alsace and Lorraine, i captured by lik-niarck and (lniKßed away : over the French ho.dcr. Frane mu:;t \ be ;ini.-,he(! because Bismarck carried her lipJor«tl oiovinces off to his political; •uareni, and »ho will go after them the; iirst good chance. '

But nobody but the Ocrni;-:it manage-f ment wants France to bo "i'nishrcl". I England, Russia, ItaW. these Statt s. all j flip cps/ of us. prefer France in the en-i finished French sta:c »i heretofore. We want in> German jailers in charge of her, no German flavor:* in her honorable (Uslie-;, no German admixture in her architecture. We do no: want any made-in-Germany France. Xo. nn. not ajiv!

It i,- not popular, idea <if "finish j ing" Fran o. Franc:> is too valuable to j be "finished". For one. thir.g, she hi charming. For another, she is a labora-j tory of civilization where csperi:ne:u:;! are made in <rovc!ii'iu-;u. in religion and | irreligiou, i:i cooking, jn art, in the re-: filiation of the affection.;, iu every-' thing. Of course, u> liiiinh her is the! idea not o: ti o German people but of i the. German management. The German:, people would not gain a lap by finishing' France. They probably prefer variety i j in the world, as the rest of us do, audi like the. picture better with France left!. French. Hiu the German management;, is a different affair. It is no more a\ free agent, than a locomotive engine. It j has to run on tho rails thai have been j laid down for it by IJisinarck and t:a : . f.ngnieers before and .since. It has got i to hang onto Alsace and Lorraine, and j get all it can wherever it can get iti ' and stick to blood and iron, and 'oad j np armament, and plot to swallow HoV- j land, and plot to swallow Denmark and ! .Belgium, and plot a German pathway; to the Mediterranean, and paint the _ map of the world the Gorman color to .•the last possible peninsula and cape. The management ;■» free only to acquire. It may not bo merciful; it-may Hot be generous; it may not even tep,> its word if its •'interest" conflicts with it. It may only be greedy and'grab and rise up early to keep what it i'ets. They say France has only one joke; certainly autocracy has only one story. Live and let live seems to be a necessary rule of life, but it is a rule that. autocracies can never keep. Their in- I lerests will always confii.t with the lt-j live end of it; their existence is too j precarious to rUk a .ompetuion of j «troug neighbors; they must be, and ! take thought always to keep on being. | the great trusts that are so strong that I nothing Van touch them, and'that are, able at any time to swallow anyone that ; is inconveniently active in the samej business. It i.» the old story_again that ; the chain that binds the slave binds the : anas tor. Autocrats are no more free ! than autocratized people. There is a "must" for Hapsburgs, a '•must" for I Hohcnr.ollerns, and thev must do it or quit. However, autocracy is a process. Ron.o things are ac. on'ipli.-hed by it that cotlld 'i.-irdlv conie otherwise. l)iaz was . a process; Mr Morgan was a great process in some respects, and 'he German Empire could hardly have been organ-; i/.ed in a mass-meeting. The empire ' •was all right enough—a going concern' of great efficiency and one of the. leading assets of civilization. The German i people are very valuable folks: nobodv douhts it. Hut is their management up to the date!- l.s it intelligent' with a current- and contemporaneous intelligence, or is it driving along unadjusted to its generation? " j That seems to be the great question ■ whereof graat war movies now j proceed ■ *iv have the answer com-: : i«K '■ T'-f. <"'•"• mans arc in- : telii: i'.:. i : -.■■_. ■ . <. , ~-? ;e detach- j mt'li: w .:.■.•..:;-■:!■• .;• •:■ ■ '■■ c '; countl'v ' ; for tho benefit of this one that followed" : IBPS, fliere is plenty left. Thev are ! : able and th«y are well trained. "They! " Will pot lik« t« tip «ut their board of>'

directors and discharge their hereditary! '^•mV I *''' til ° P- IMli:l1 a »<l exemplary' W tlliam Holictizolleni. He is. a good man of the kind, ami liked and rejected. I.Sur if lie is out or date what ran ■ they dor If Germany is a mere liohen-. 1 zoliern asset the creditors may tret it, hut if Hohenzolienis are a mere liability , of Germany they can be discharged. ] Tlia: is where France \::is the best of it. She tired her hereditary mana"'cr. | abng about 17<):i, and has never liad • |o!'e since'for long at a time, and : inee j 1.V71 committees of lier stockholders have run her business, and done fairlv ! well. j N'rivr was anything <m intorestimr as 1 this war. They say that England mav ! run out of i;ew s paper. Appalling! An'v hye person hereabouts would rather give up food than newspapers. The | . -Evening Sun - dc.lares that regard be-j 'ma; had to the means of transmit ting! the news, the week ending August i"> i ; wa,- "the most interesting "seven (lays] any geueraMun of man' has lived j .through". Very likely; and tlie second j act in the great drama mav make the) lirsfaot seem tame. " I We are getting the climax of mate-! sialism. One re:-al]s reading lately with amusement mixed with symnathv the suggestion of .Mr ],. A. Cram, reviver of t'ne Gothic, that we are ac the beginning of ;: new iivo-hundred-vcar period in which what we call "modern civili/.a- . lion", dating roughly-from tlie fall of ; i Constantinople in' I -t-j.'!, "will dissolve I and duajjpear as comuletelv as rh" I K.eimn r.ai'iire van.'.-.: ed at" the <'rsij node after the birth of Christ". And! •then, .Mr Cram suggested, we will get-j : back the be-.r ol what was in '"the great Christian Middle Ages". ' ! Thi- idea seemed interestU'.-.; 'i:<:ug;,' fantastic, bur nothing seems jaina-t; any more, and it is "a leading banker" j whom a newspaper quotes as e.iyiug anent the collapse of the mechanism of exchange: I

Wo have been building up tin'-, delicate fabric for hundreds of years, and we thought that it was in wrfeot working'order and was sufficient to stand up under anv contingencies, lint ir has broken down in n night and the world plunged into a condition liko 'that prevailing in the Middle Ages. The world may not I>p going all the way with .Mr Cram, hut it lias made finite a lurch in hirt direction.