WITHIN THE ENEMY COUNTRY.

North Otago Times, Volume CVI, Issue 13975, 12 September 1917, Page 1

WITHIN THE ENEMY COUNTRY.

"MUTUAL SUGGESTION" W THE WAR NEWS. ' how the german public is dup^ed. [Professor P. Scfton Deimcr, who left Berlin on May 23, is writing in the Daily Mail a series of authoritative articles on the state of Germany. He is an Australian, who beoamo English lecturer at Berlin University in 1901. [nterncd at Buhlcbeji from November, 1014, to March, WIS, he subsequently wijoyed iimisiinl opportunilios of observing developments' in Berlin.] A people that cannot be fed with bread must be fed with delusions. The Press, in obedience to the military Press (iictator. manages to doctor every ail-, verse report and to tako the sting out of every German defeat, The explosion at. Messincs .was heard from the Shetlan.ds to the Golden Gate,. In Germany [ doubt if they have heard it yet, or, if they have, the Press will have carefully muted the ; sound. .They will say, how they pity the French, whose territory is being blown up by vile English mines; they will say. tliat they themselves had been already considering the advisability of evacuating this exposed ridge, and will assure everybody that the withdrawal from it was quite pro vided for in the measures taken by the omniscient Hiiulenburg. They will say, "How small in comparison is the "round gained by the English to what they had planned to gnin and would have gained had not,the Germans held them at bay so gallantly, And the English fosses! Really, when one comes to consider the matter, it is an indisputable German success,"

Bel-ween the Lines, When one lives 1 in an atmosphere of perpetual suggestion of this sort one sooner or later succumbs to it. In llerlin I constantly had to remind myself that these were German reports and full of German guile. The marvellous thing is that this subtle influence is felt even by intellects that perceive its trend. Every afternoon, day after day, I went across the street, to the police station, where on a notice-board was hung out. the day's military report from :headquarters, It was posted up punctually at half-past three every day. Month after month I watched those reports to see the progress our men were making, and I had to learn to read bofwcen the lines and to force myself to disbelieve not the details of the report but its misleading tone, Little groups of passers-by would gather round the notice-board, and after awhile again dissolve, The impression, I could tell; left on their'minds tyas« negative but hopeful one—Germany at bay and her foes uselessly batering themselves to pieces in hopeless'onslaughts.

All their hopes of going forward into France have long since vanished. "This time we intend to destruet France," a German officer said to his English wife in my hearing at the lieginning of the war. The word still rings in my ear: "We intend to dostruct France!" And nowl So modest have thee German ■ frPTii thai merely to hold put against attain ; <s greeted as victory. In silence Ihry rend the report and in silence they turn and wall; awn v.

Victory Backwards. Now and again., an individual will point to some telling .sentence tucked away in the middle of the report—a village, a trench left to the enemy because it was no longer of any value—and his face will betray an almost imperceptible note of distrust, hut lie will say nothing. The women-folk in the queues are more outspoken, ami one used often to hear 'them say: "Wir siegen fortwnhrend, doeh komnien wir immer writer ztiruck!"—"We have nothing but victories, and yet all the time we're going back!"

So strong is the spell, too, that tho Germans can with.comparative impunity permit foreign papers to come in. In the big cafes such as the Josty on the Potsdamer, Platz, and the Cafo" Bauer, Unter den Linden, one can ; read with not infrequent gaps, it is truo, such papers as The Times, Le Temps, Pigaro, Matin, Comoro dello Sera (Milan), Impartial (Madrid), the Swiss papers Der Bund and Dio Neue Zurehcr Zeitung (Le Journal do Geneva has long since been stopped), as well as the Dutch and Scandinavian papers. I have.put questions with some curiosity to Germans who read The Times, and have found that it has ndr shaken their credulity one jut. They call it a Hetzblatt—a preacher of international hate, "run by an eloquent descendant of the Father of Lies." Swallowing the Russians.

la the Russian forests Russian prisoners are being employed to destroy 'Russian property. In the earlier stages of the war the treatment of the Russian prisoners .was brutal in the extreme, the theory being that the. analphabetic Russian was a kind of animal that understood no argument but the nout. I have on several. occasions walked through'the forests round Berlin where Russian prisoners were at work sawing down'trees and bearing them away on their shoulders. I saw what hard, exacting work, it was, two men carrying the huge Jogs,.heavy, with,sap, that would have taxed the'strength of three, while tlleir taskmasters looked on with an Insolent'nir of superiority and with fixed bayoriels; Ami remember, please, Mr Pacifist, that 'the German bayonet is not there" as.an ornament, but is gardod by the. man who carries it as a very effective oxgond; ■ I maiingod to snuiggle a fow.eignrs.into the hands of I these poor wretches by dropping them in tlieir'way at a propitious' moment, , The. captives,, no doubt, not knowing

tliat.: I" was an Ally, took' me for .some; 'iie'jv tyr)'e of German. On a'German estate where my little son Denis was staying last Easter'he heard the German overseers assuring the Kmssianlprisoners, employed that Russia was done for (gang kaput); "Neinf nein!" said the Russian prisoners wiilutheir unconquerable smile, "Russland nicht kaput! Russland stark!" (Russia not done for! Russia strong!) A most important revelation - about Ihe Russian prisoners was made to me in an unguarded moment by a certain high oflifial about a year ago, I mention it in the hope that it may become known in Pctrograd and taken to heart by our friends there. "After the war," ho said, "German agriculture will be. of supremo importance, but, as a result 'of the appalling losses we have suffered; there will'be a : 'great , lack of farm-hands in our fields. , We therefore, at the conclusion of peace, 'mean to keep as many as we can of oui' million Slav prisonois, They make' excellent and docile farm-labourers." * \

"But how will you manage to keep them here if they want' to return home?" I inquired. "Oh, they arc mostly illiterates, and if we treat them well they'lmprobably stay of their own accord. *lMany of them are already forming connections, illicit it is true, with German women on the big estates where they-tire at work. But, of course, if they refuse to stay we shall find means to make them. With proper education, ;in a German milieu, in less 'than; a generation they will be Germans.' German history," he went on, "shows, from the time when the Germans pushed on into the lands on the other side of the Elbe and Oder, that it has been the destiny of the higher German Kultur to permeate, and then to assimilate, the lower Slavonic civilisation on its borders. This process of peaceful penetration into Slavonic.region?, followed by the

absorption of Hie Slavonic population, has been clinched" at. interval*, when necessary, by wars. This process has been in the past, and oiighHo be in'the future, our policy. Our Emperor's dream of simultaneous expansion towards the west ought to have been deferred for at least another generation, Our expansion must bo towards the east, and will be towards the east, for the Slav, with his softness, his mysticism, and romantic idealism, was meant !o be ruled and not to rule," These remarkc were made at a time when no one foresaw the Russian Revolution, They are curiously illustrative of Germany's anaconda policy of first slavering and then swallowing its prey. I have, as the result of long observation, come to the conclusion that the modern German is never good or kind for goodness' or luiidiicss' sake. If he docs an apparently.'.philanthropic action, it is always withS"material motive. If lie treats it is as a matter of policy and not for Christ's snke. He believes in philanthropy only when it pays a 10 per cent, dividend. That is why the treatment of Russian prisoners has somewhat improved of late, with the distinct object of cajoling them ns individuals into becoming the tools of. Germany, The Germans know that the Russian is the bravest of soldiers when 'well led: "If we could only get these grown-up children into our hands and train them under German officers, we could sweep Europe!'' I have often heard them say.