GERMAN EXODUS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIX, Issue 13906, 6 November 1919, Page 8

GERMAN EXODUS.

OFF TO SOUTH AMERICA

In the period of Germany's great trade- expansion before the war. restriction-; were thrown around emigration liy ihe- Imperial German Government. ; !ii the 2(J years from 1870 to 1890 nearly 2.000.000 Germans had left the country to find homes elsewhere. In the following 20 years there was a sharp drop to one-fourth of the number of the preceding two decades. The Gorman Government was keeping its men at home to organise them into a great military machine to "tsinqtier the world by a concentrated assault from German soil. Xow the.new German Government is encouraging emigration, not by the thousands but by the millions, and :u tliu opinion of some well-placed observers in Washington the plans under way at Berlin represent the old German Imperialism in another guise, says the New York Times. In the scheme of

world doriiinibu drawn up by the Germans before the war much dependence was placed on assistance from German immigrants in various parts of the world, especially on those in North and South America. .Elaborate efforts on the German theory that a nation could be held intact within a nation and rallied- to the aid of the Fatherland were made to maintain and' deepen the attachment of overseas groups of Germans to the country from which they or their ancestors had emigrated. But when the test came, and the choice was between the Fatherland and the adopted country, the ties to Germany broke, in the main. In the United States by far a greater number of citizens of German birth or parentage were loyal to the United States. In South America, with large 'bodies of German colonists widely distributed, there was also disapointment, though tho results there did not fall so far short of expectations. It has been learned in Washington that the German General Staff had a plan to enlist soldier* in the. large German settlement in Southern Brazil to aid the Ger-

.mail colonial forces in SoUth-West Africa against the British. The early .-sweeping of the seas by the British Fleet prevented the attempt to transport recruits from Brazil to Southern Airica. but it is doubtful if many of

the German agriculturists would have lei i- their farms, at the bidding of the Fatherland.

However, though the nation-within-theory did not stand up to the u-.>t in tins'war, the German Imperialists, according to indications from Berlin, do not consider it disprov-

Ed; in stead that the handling of it was wrong. Formerly emigrants left Germany as individuals or in comparatively small groups, with no systematised effort to keep vital connection with them from the time they settled in the new country. . Furthermore, with not many exceptions, the Germaii immigrants scattered widely in the land of their new homes, and when, aj'ter the connection •with the Fatherland had been broken for a greater or less number of years, organised propaganda was started to reawaken and quicken it to use in the dream of making Germany world dominant, the primary problem was difficult. The. ne,\v attempt- tc establish German influence and power in places outside of Germany undertakes to avoid what "'as considered a mistake at the beginning of the previous emigration. The plan is to colonise the Germans in great blocks and to have ready at the outset a machinery that will hold the settlers in vital contact with the Fatherland. This problem of establishing new or enlarged German centres in whatever place in the world an opening is seen has been recognised since defeat stared Germanv in the face as a leading one in the first necessity of rebuilding German trade. Germany's colonies are gone; 1,027,820 square miles and a native population of 12,000,000 removed from theiivexploitation.

A German commission was sent to Buenos: Aires to study "the possibility of accommodating 5.000,000 immigrants." This was the number mentioned in an inquiry addressed to the Mexican Government.

The -iroposals were made on behalf of a German, colonisation corporation, and not, of course, for the German Government, though the plans of settlement. pronosed are known to be in line with the Government poliev towards emigration. What the attitude of Argentina. - ambitious for the develonment of its rich resources, will be is not known, and before decision tliei-" would doubtless be a careful investigation of the German Government's connection with the scheme. Tli". course the Mexican Government will firnlly talc* has not been announced, but- Mexico's Secretary of the. Interior has taken a position in onnosition. stating thai" the Mexiro" Congress would be asked to pass a. Bill

to m'pvent the threatened influx of Germans. A rebuff nt tli". start, however, will vot prevent the Germans from pushing their nlans to the utmost.