VISIT OF THE EMDEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20302, 9 July 1929, Page 14

VISIT OF THE EMDEN.

Sir, —The visit of the Emden appears to have passed off without incident. The manners and behaviour of our visitors wore beyond reproach, and our reception of them was courteous and considerate, and naturally without any evidence of hysterical enthusiasm. I wonder now, was it just a clever little comedy, with a carefully selected cast, and excellent stage management and production ? Or has there been some profound alteration of the German psychology ?—has the mind of Germany which led toward war changed to a mind which leads away from war ? It is really a very important, question for u», for if the answer is " No," then not all the Leagues of Nations that the wit of man can devise can mako us feel sure that the sword has been sheathed for good and all. I do not think the Prussian was over much other than a brute; 1 always found him so even before the war; but the peoples of South Germany seemed to lie cast in a different mould. Thence came all the art, the music and the poetry; there lived the kindly folk, of whom all sorts of observers have written. They seemed to bo men of a different race. So far as I was able to judge in Belgium and France, there was not a pin to choose between the German peoples during the war. The atrocities were well shared among Prussians and Saxons, Bavarians and Westphaliajis. Have such men gone back to normal life and become kindly simple-hearted people ? Can the civilians who cheered the sinking of the Lusitania and the bombing of London lay aside the past and turn their faces to the light ? Let us not forget that we underwent changes. When the war started a thrill of horror would have gone through us if we had read of our soldiers bombing civilians, or of our troops hurling poison gases that sent soldiers back coughing Ilicir lives out behind the lines. And yet in the later phases of the war we did not worry when we were using gas; and we were"quite disappointed when wo did not read one of tlio Rhine cities was attacked from the air. We were asking for many weeks why our airmen had not spread death over Cologne. And I believe it was a big disappointment to large numbers of people that Berlin was not bombed before the signing of the armistice. I know we did not start any of it; that we felt we were only getting a bit of our own back; that the only way to make the Germans feel how vile were their deeds was to let them see I lies other point of view. From whatever cause. I think it must bo admitted thnt the majority of the people involved did change during the years of war; that war did something to brutalise us, just as it did to brutalise them No so much, perhaps, but still it was there. Have we changed back again? Yes, I'have no doubt that we are now as gentle and chivalrous as over we were. If we can go back, why not the Germans? As a mere matter of logic-chopping, I might be ready to admit it But all the same I feel that T shall never have any kindly thoughts toward Germans. However smiling and nice they might be I shall still think: That man tnav have tortured my prisoner brother, or may have done some of those horrible things in Belgium at which we still shudder when we think of them. I do • not think the German shudders! Those Germans 1 knew before the war, who were so friendly and hospitable to mo on my soveral visits—to them I never want to speak or write again. Very likelv others who were at the war have such feelings. It mav fade with me in time, but I do not think it will go altogether while I live. Probably our children will grow up free from it, for wo certainly have not tancht tliein legends of hate in New Zealand. In that day, may bo, the German will have shaken off the things that have made us loathe him. Or is it like the leopard and his spots ? Old Soltiieb.