NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13484, 10 May 1907, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

: GERMANY'SFOREIGN POLICY. The Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirchenzeitung, which is often well informed with regard to the opinions of the ruling classes in Prussia, gives a sketch of the present relations of Great Britain with a great variety of foreign Powers, including Russia, and after somewhat arbitrarily interpreting this situation as disadvantageous to German interests, comes to the conclusion that the only neighbours upon which Germany can now rely are Austria and Roumania. In these circumstances it finds cause for congratulation in the result of the recent elections, which have produced a Reichstag ready and willing to vote- the expenditure necessary for the expansion of the national defences as the basis of German policy. The provision made in the Estimates for supplying the army with the new recoil-tube gun, the improved rifle, and the new infantry ammunition will have the effect of once more enabling the German army to outdistance all its rivals, and particularly France. The Rhenish organ of the Centre, the Kolnischa Volkszeitung, after legitimately protesting that the' Centre party is as willing as any other to maintain the defences of the country, points out that the current complaints of German "isolation" constitute a reflection upon German diplomacy, which, with the strongest army in Europe at its back, ought to find the maintenance of satisfactory foreign relations comparatively easy.