The Ensign. SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 1915. GERMANY AND AMERICA.

Mataura Ensign, 30 January 1915, Page 4

The Ensign. SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 1915. GERMANY AND AMERICA.

Tbe Germans, since they started the great war, have- tried) many tricks to capture American opinion, but all have failed. The American’s keen intelligent e has remorselessly demolished’ the 'Gorman case and they strongly resent 1 1 1 (.< Teutonic endeavor to teach ll id "a to think in favor of Germany. The German Government has ostablisLicd in America air expensive publicity department which is appealin g_ Jfo Americans for their sympathy and /is endeavoring to explain away vaiiou-.s happenings, in favor of the Germany,. Ju an exhaustive examination of-'’ the Kaiser’s 1 position Mr Frederick W. Whit ridge, an eminent Arnei/Van lawyer, gives a frank and for/hble reply to the German appeals for /American sympathy. He points out/chat for many years certain German jgmblicists have been writing about ‘//day of reckoning with England.”./For nearly as many years also the ycinth of Germany, especially in the Xav/, have been drinking to the toast of/-The Day.” “The Day” hae at last /ome, and l brought with it the most \ gigantic war of the whole Christian era. Germany has made an elaborate formal statement of its position. England and Russia have published in full the correspondence leading up t° the war, and from German sources or from the friends of Germany, many appeals have been made for the sympathy and approval of America. ft might be a sulticiont answer to all of these appeals isays Mr Whitridge) to point out that the Triple Alliance was, by its terms, for defensive- purposes, and Italy, the third member of the Alliance, when appealed to by the others, replied; “But you have not been attacked. You have taken the initiative, and therefore wo are absolved from our contract.” The invasion of the neutrality of .Belgium was the proximate cause of the war,,at least with Great Britain, and there i«- a sufficient amount of evidence to make it equally clear that •Germany had long been preparing for the war and intended to have it at about. this time, before even the particular pretext for it was found. What is not clear is how Germany allowed herself to lie so grievously deceived as to the status of those she was" about to make her enemies, the British) Empire in particular, and at* to the manner in which her violation of Belgium’s neutrality would be appraised, by the world. She apparently believed that the French Army was m as bad a. way as an orator in the French Chamber declared it to be. She believed the reorganisation: of the Russian Army could not lit" completed for another two years. She believed that there would be civil war in Ireland within-six weeks, l-iiat there would be rebellions in India and Egypt. that South Africa would rush to her with, open' arms, and that ■Great Britain would never voluntarily tight, if at all. AVhat has happenedP The French Army .seems to be in good form, the Russians appear to have an abundance of troops, and ll'dandYs sons are among the bravest in lighting for the Empire. In .India 7tK) primes have offered to the Imperial Government i heir tunnies, their jewels and contributions of money: in Egypt- there is sympathy for the Allies and in South Africa 'General Botha, the Prime Alinieter. declared that while the. Boors had had their differences with Great Britain. the latter had kept faith with .South Africa, and the South Africans would 10 times rather he under the British than under the German flag. On this record Germany must obviously have been very badly served by her own Ambassadors and Ministers, or else he must he. under an obsession about her own grandeur and popularity io make stu-lt a series of egregious blunders. Germany’s only friends in Fuvope are Austria and Jurkoy. ft is not the individual Englishman whom I Germans dislike, but England as a ! Power ; they despise her as they do all other nations except perhaps America, which they fear as a commercial rival. The -Germans, however, really believed that K.nghuul was worn out politically, commercially and on the .sea, and that its army was negligible. Among the native burn Americans the feeling is alI most wholly in favor of the Allies, and among the hundreds and even thousands of Americans who have lived and studied in Germany Mr Whitridge be- | lieves- tbe fact to be that the overS whelming majority now think of the ’ Fatherland as they would- think of an old friend who had gone out of Lis

mind. They believe the Germans to be crazed by militarism and the contemplation of tbeir own greatness and power. 'The most dangerous of the dclusioiie under which Germany is. now laboring'(continues this critic) is about colonies and a colonial empire. The loudly increasing cry in Germany for the past lew years that she must have a place under the sun really means that Germany must have great colonies which can relieve the pressure of her population: and where the enrgrants can still remain. German ami (ind, as voir Bernhardi says, a German way of living. The German theory of government by force and the consequent Gorman theory of regulating every-, tiling public and private arc incompatible with the elasticity and tact essential in colonial administration. The main', difficulty with the German 1 colonies would be the Germans themselves. When they go out into the great world they do not want, as von Bernhardt say's, to find; a German way of living, but they want to find a better way. When a German escapes from under that discipline lift never again subjects himself to its thralls, and one of the most curious things to lie noted in a general survey of the world is that among all the millions of Germans who have left the Fatherland since 1848 for this country so very few of them ever go back to Germany. It is not only that it hoy hotter themselves materially but they get a taste for the .sort of freedom they never get at home.