Manawatu Evening Standard. SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 1926. GERMANY’S WAR LORDS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 111, 10 April 1926, Page 8

Manawatu Evening Standard. SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 1926. GERMANY’S WAR LORDS.

“Tiie evil that men do lives after them.” Never lias that saying been more aptly illustrated tiian in tlie case of tlie German magnate, Tliyssen, whose death was reported in our cable messages on Tuesday. Evidently the exKaiser was not the only sufferer from megalomania and hatred of Britain and British institutions, which was responsible for tiie Great War of 1914-18. Industrial magnates of the Thyssen type were as much possessed by it as the Kaiser himself. Their greed for gain induced them to conspire, tong before the war itself, against the peace of Europe, and set them planning the great onslaught upon the lives and liberties of the people in the early years of the present century, which it is now disclosed was to have begun in 1912. Echoes of those conspiracies must have found their way to the ears of the British authorities, and were probably responsible for the' action of the New Zealand Government in presenting the battleship New Zealand to the British Admiralty. Be that as it may, German action from the time of the Boer War onwards was of such a character as to give rise to the greatest uneasiness in the European capitals. The pretext for war was never really lacking once Germany had resolved upon taking that extreme step, and it was only by the diplomatic action of Great Britain in such matters as the Agadir incident that the fateful moment for the declaration of hostilities was for so long averted. If the Servian trouble had not arisen as it did over the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne and his Grand Duchess, some other excuse would have been found for German action against Prance and Russia, for it has been made abundantly plain that Germany, “armed to the teeth,” with the plans for tlie mobilisation of her armies and resources well in hand, was only awaiting the signal to strike the blow upon which her war lords had long determined. Behind 'the German High Command, who were itching for war, was the Junker Party, and, behind that party again, were the industrial magnates, of whom Herr August Thyssen was a leading spirit, filled with the lust of conquest, so that they might add to their already large possessions and financial strength at the expense of those upon whom they were prepared to see war made.

Europe and England were to have been conquered and “assimilated” in the interests of the German people; but, primarily, for the greater benefit of the magnates themselves.