THE TERROR ON EUROPE'S THRESHOLD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14299, 19 February 1910, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE TERROR ON EUROPE'S THRESHOLD.

-' , WHAT' GERMANY'S HUGE ,;• NAVY MEANS. ' .• - , Mr. E. Alexander Powell, F.R.G.S., ,l " -. .an American observer, who has just re- - turned from a trip through the 1 | /Balkans, the ; Caucasus,- Russia, Germany, |||||?iuid. Italy, contributes to the current issue Magazine an interesting article wiil:'-, ou the European situation in respect to the IS WHAT " Protection" in England would NAVY MEANS". ' . Mr. E. Alexander Poweix, F.R.G.S., §»n American observer, who has just returned from a trip through Austria/ the Balkans, the Caucasus, Russia, Germany, 'and Italy, contributes to the current issue p of Nash's Magazine an interesting article on the European situation in respect to the effect that "Protection" in England would 1 ~ have on German commerce. The author H • When dinner is over in the wardroom El of every German warship an officer rises in fe: his place at the end of ho table, and the I; " nifess, blue-coated and brass-buttoned, rises |,i with him, as a single man. " Der Tag," || says the officer solemnly as he lifts his glass, l : -; 'arid "' Der Tag " repeat his fellows, their i ; drained glasses tinkling in chorus.' Whether is ; riding at anchor in the harbours of Kiel ;V i■, or lsre'merhave:i, whether cruising off the .:'.,.'i Cameroons or tho Carolines, that is the Teuton navy toast, just those two words I'X '.•'•. " The Day," that Day when war is declared ■'- '~ and mail and Briton spring at each ;; : ...;> other's throats. ' •' • • It is as curious as it is complex, this |, '•:international tension which menaces the ', peace of the world. So we shall sit down ~' ftogether, you and I, whether in the win- ." . -.dow. of a club, or the smoking room of , ,<• train or steamer, or by your own fireside is ,'.; .-'of-little matter, and 1 will try to make ;'.;..; .clear to you in simple, every-day terms the A.;;real reasons, tho inside reasons, the occult •-'> ' reasons for Germany's hatred of England r'&aind England's fear of Germany, why, the " j ; shipj'aras on the Clyde and the Kibe are I,:working day and night, how His Holiness ''■'M the Pope is secretly laying the foundations .V.-& for a new and mightier Roman Empire, and an obscure prince holds in his >pudgy, ; .jewelled hands the fate of Europe. It v. is "a'story that will make you draw a long T 'breath when you have heard it, and I will % fell it as plainly as I may. /v Fi\-8 —King Edward, Monsieur Is- ' 'yolsky, William Hohenzollern, the Arch- , duke Franz Ferdinand and Cardinal Merry • '•'" [del Val —comprise " Europe" ; these five and J, no more. "there used to be two others; • but one of them. Von Bulow by name, has ■ f ' ..passed into that realm of obscurity from 'which few statesmen return, and the other, the most sinister figure of them all, is a . r '. prisoner in a Salonikan villa. -' To-day all Europe is divided into two v* armed camps, waiting breathlessly for the morrow, with its Armageddon. At the : '■). ■■ head of one party, the more warlike and aggressive of the two, stands the German £■.."' Michael, and ranged beside him is Austria--7„ Hungary and, perhaps, the regenerated TurI|J key, in spite of English loans and French ! '[ - sympathy. England is the leader of the : ; other party, and behind her, though with f \ to ■'• particular enthusiasm, march disrupted ,*. France and bankrupt Russia, with PortujV gal and Spain thrown in to make good mea- ;•;'■, sure.. Italy, by virtue of the- Triple Allijr,' ance, is theoretically an ally of Germany P -.' and Austria, but as a matter of fact"! she is £-,- in deadly fear of that fleet which Aus- <: tria Is,building with such frantic haste in | '•". her Adriatic shipyards. So I rather think that, when it comes to forming in battle >*"• , array, Italy will go over to England. ■,; There are three causes for the AngloGerman situation to-day:. (1) isolation, (2) : - protection, (3) expansion. There you have ■■"; it in a nutshell. • ' v v Germany, it should be understood, . lab- /, ' ours, under an obsession that she is •in the , • toils of a vast; diplomatic intrigue, in which • ' f England is the moving -spirit, which is §'» ' ' gradually -isolating"her, hemming -her in. ~, ~'." She points to the Anglo-French entente, to |||| the Anglo-Russian rapprochement, to the Anglo-Italian understanding, to the Anglo|fg|Spanish marriage, to the Anglo-Portuguese ■>, treaty, to the Japanese alliance, [I to Anglo-Turkish ; sympathy, •; to Anglo- ■ /American kinship, ■,; ana '■'=' she : asks, v not . ," 1 lmniituraUyy^- 1 Bnt i where do--Income in V '~ 1 , It is for all the world like the 'school ~.''- bully who tyrannised over his companions ':." ]'* ■% :■ so long:.they became tired of playing • .',' with him and left him out of their games entirely. ' This is what the German bully w,.;'.,-. calls isolation, so ho is going about among '••■''j; his I European companions, shaking i his fist * ~ under their noses and saying, "If you don't ! take me back into your games, I'll lick the |j;|f? staffing;6ut of you." And as he insists that little John Bull was the boy who planned .* ■: v; .' the scheme •of isolating him," he is going to fight John first. And Germany has grave: reasons for her ill-feeling. She points to the arrangements { between England and France, which have opened up Morocco to French "penetration"—though ' Germany , claims interests there herself-— have tightened England's grasp.on Egypt; to the Anglo-Russian con- ■. dominium which has divided Persia! into ~ ,- spheres of, influence—-although Germany is ;. : -herself ; rushing a = railway to the Persian h Gulf; to the arrangement between Great Britain, France, Russia, and Japan to guard - the status quo in th> Far East,.in which ■ Germany was not even consulted, although '(~•'.' Britain, France, Russia, and Japan her anthe status quo in the Far East, in which 'Germany was not even consulted, although she ! considers herself, by virtue of her ari- ,„ ; . nexation. of." Kiao-chow, a Far Eastern t ' ; PowerS , Now it is this very policy of ignor.V:■'. ing that Germany most bitterly resents. T > £ Ber aim vis to place herself in a position^ >•■-• where her< approval and consent must be 4 §"'} obtained before any treaties are signed, any coalitions formed, any alliances concluded, before any annexations or protectorates , or fk;. spheres of influence are made -by any Euro- \- pean nations. In simpler words, and those .:. once used by the Kaiser himself, nothing .' shall happen in the world without Germany. ...... Therein you ; have the German policy, short fj| -and' sharps . . >',' './■■', .-',! i's:li''''"..:"..>■.- ■■■ ..-..."'.■■■.' ■.. .. ....■■'.,-■■-,,.■. „• '~ ,';-.;; ; .' HOW GERMANY IS " PENNED* IK." ■i \ Now, when it comes down to \ the cold : " - facts,' Germany -is as effectually isolated— 1 \ ; " penned in," the Germans call it—as though ;.- she were deposited, bag and baggage, on an :,-,'• island in the South Pacific. Let us glance '.;'■'<; at. the map a moment, you and I. . Here sprawls Germany, like an Old Man of the ■Sea, astride the shoulders of exhausted, ;- l impoverished, quaking Europe. Despite . ,; '/her great area and her prodigious popula- , tion, geographically r she is so hemmed in t , \ J that she has but" a . scant : 300 miles of free ' seaboard, that little strip of coastline \; • stretching from the Dutch. to the Danish frontiers, where the Elbe and the Weser empty themselves into the North Sea- !*?' Across .that sea, only a few hourj*'. -Bteain . ,_' / away, lies England, suspicious and/unfriend- . ; . ly. To the northward, overshadowing her. coasts and cutting her North Sea ports off ; : ' from the Baltic, rears Denmark, still smarta: ...;.i'ing; from the cruel .• and needj&ss war of '64. ■Still, further to the north/are the Scandinavian kingdoms, hanging/like a cloud over ; the North Sea and the Baltic. The Queen of Norway is a daughter of King Edward, ••',"" and the future Quee£ of Sweden is his niece. '; GERMANT's/ GREATEST MARKET. . '', • In the East the Japanese are England's "allies, and guarjd her Oriental possessions ■ as they do theit- own, while the Americans * are not only b/ouhd' to England -by bonds ' "{of blood and sentiment, but already they 'have had to safr-to Germany: in 'Venezuela, '. '■" Hands off I" / And so the circle . is com- - i'plete. It is/the Germans and their Ausr -*; Wan kinsfolk/ against the world; So much -i for isolation J. • '■;Up: Germany's) second reason , for going to war with England is protection, and per- . haps that ■? it the strongest reason -of all. :-'' The most infsistent demand of Germany to;:day is for* market for her goods, and it ■fiV'fe "* ree trade England that. she finds it. ,:'But Eliglajhd may not be free-ti'ade much • longer. The triumph of tariff reform in . England mto the minds of many; thinking ' men inevfjtable ; but therein lies a, very real very/imminent danger. There are no 'negotiations which demand a deeper know-,\->f)ogilm ' a«special sort than: ; those attendant I ?P?/he, treaties of commerce which follow ; ;phtyMe wake of tariffs. Protection, if it- • does/for England what its advocates claim for-/it, is going to -hit Germany a stagger;"inglblow; with one stroke :of the pen she '. V*lU| lose her best market.* Do you appre- . what it will mean to over-populated, ■ <p*-taxed, over-productive x Germany -to; ,- ■ y'Mtfjfa the / British, outlet for her Mods closed by a) tariff' wall ?, Itwill , mean ,■ bankruptcy, bankruptcy 'With a capital B, and nothing less. What, '«feen, you ask, will-be Germany's answer fro such a more on tho part of England?

-', ■. ' —«^——■ [The "answer will come from the guns other : battleships and the rifles of' her > soldiers ; ; the', answer lies behind that toast which is drunk in every ward-room and mess-hall in the r Empire j the answer is war. V I can hear you ' laugh as you sit . in your comfortable club, or by your cosy fireside, and, say thai, all this is nonsense, is visionary, that for a nation to declare v because a neighbour decides to change its fiscal policy: from free trade It) projection macks more of the Middle Ages, with their sense- j less quarrels, than of this twentieth century civilisation of which we arc so proud. I repeat, that protection in England means financial disaster in Germany, and to avert that financial disaster Germany, unless I very much mistake the sccpe of the imperial, mind, is 'prepared to light for those lifc-stiKtaining markets with every ship unci every' man. Why, she went to war with France for far less reason, and the. ghosts of Bismarck and Von Moltko still flit through the corridors of that old palace in the ■ Wilhelmstrasse, still.. hover over the chair of the Foreign Minister, still stand behind tlio throne of the War Lord. ,■.'■■ ;■ In such case what, think yon, would those old men have done? TWO MILLION' BABIES A TEAR. ■ One of the most potent reasons for Germany's attitude towards England, the real reason why the nations are bankrupting themselves * with their fleets of Dreadnoughts and their avalanches of armies, the underlying cause of all the uncertainty, and uneasiness and unrest, are the babies, the German babies, the chubby, lusty, crowing Hans and Gretchens who are coming into the world so fast that Germany is at her wits' end to.know what to do with them all. Already there are more than sixty million Germans, and the babies, the little, fat, chubby babies, are pouring in at the rate of two millions a year* And the worst of it is that neither they, nor their hard-work-ing fathers, nor their thrifty, industrious mothers, can get out. On every side the Fatherland is hemmed in by countries as populous as itself. Thousands upon tens of thousands, of course, have emigrated, and are mining in South Africa, or sheep-raising in Australia, or beer-brewing in the States; and in the course of time their children are named John or Jonathan, and Sadie or Rose, and they forget the mother-tongue and give their allegiance to another flag,. And what is more important, it is a stranger's land that is made fertile by their labour. Now all this is a bad thing for Germany. It is losing its life-blood, its vital sap, and no one knows it better than the Kaiser. Could there be a more pressipg explanation of the necessity for expansion? Here is the reason for Germany's determination to obtain, by hook, or by crook, peaceably if she . can, forcibly if she must, a colonial empire of her own, wherein the little Hans and Gretchens of to-day may find homes and lucrative, empire-building occupations to-morrow. ALL DEPENDS ON ENGLAND'S NAVY. Let us look at the situation 'now through the British monocle. The foreign policy of England is summed up in the old motto, "What we have we'll hold," and the afterthought is, "If we can." And there comes the rub. Look at it any way you will, there can be but one end to the race for naval supremacy, which is impoverishing both nations, and that end is war. If England wins she will have secured herself for half a century" to ' come. If Germany triumphs, her victory will give her the position which England holds now, it will make her mispress of Europe, it will place her in a position where she.can make free trade in England one of the terms of peace, it will give her a free hand in the Balkans, in Mesopotamia and in Persia, will give her the pick of England's colonies oversea, and an indemnity with which to build a navy that will overawe the world. If England's battleshin bulwarks hold, then all is well, but if her fleets are outmanoeuvred or meet with disaster in battle, then the game ;is lost. \ The world has moved since Napoleon's day;' the invasion of England by a Continental Power is not as formidable as it. seemed in other centuries. A famous British general once said, "There are 17 different ways by which a German army might get into England, but no single way by which they could get out again" ; to which the German General Staff may add, "But"we don't want to get out again.": , i:x f ,■'..-',•„• .-v./;'..' •■ .:>"■.. - ; •'•:'■ . t The fear of a German invasion is no delusion bred from fear, no Jingo rallying cry ; it is the deep-seated-belief of all is clear-headed and : sane in Britain. Lord Rosebery has preached it from Land's End to John o* Groats, ; and Sir Edward Grey, as sane and shrewd and cautious a statesman ;as Dowhing-street has known these many years, ', has gone , out of his way to back him up. . < -■