A SERIOUS CRISIS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18591, 27 June 1922, Page 5

A SERIOUS CRISIS.

THE REPUBLIC ENDANGERED.

MONARCHIST PLOT ALLEGED

BERLIN, June 25. There is no mistaking the fact that a very serious situation has been created by the murder of Dr Rathenau. f lh© Government Party is convinced that the Republic is Endangered, that Dr Rathenau was murdered because he was trying to make the Republic a success, and that every earnest Republican leader avail meet the same fate as Dr Rathenau. Herr Ebert (President), Dr Wirth, and other members of the Government have daily received threatening letters. Possibly by a mere chance Dr Rathenau was the first picked. The crimes are part of a deliberate action to restore the monarchy by exterminating the men who hold the very delicate balance between the parties forming the Republican Government. Failing a* coalition between the Left and the Centre Parties, a fulfilment of the Allies’ reparation demands is impossible and confusion will reign in Germany. The Monarchists see their chance in tins. The Socialists have issued serious warning to all their societies to prepare to fight the forces of reaction.—The Times.

CAUSE OE THE WAR.

A POLICY OF COWARDICE.

DR RATHENAU’S VIEWS.

NEW YORK, June 24. Mr Hawkins, a New York journalist, interviewed Dr Rathenau a year ago. The statement was given conditionally tha,t its publication should not take place until after his death. ‘‘Cowardice caused the war,” said Dr Rathenau. “The Kaiser rattled his sword until he frightened himself and all his Ministers out of their normal judgment. Dr von Bethmann-Hollweg and his Ministers sat all night in fear and trembling, hoping and praying that the Czar would succumb to the terms of the ultimatum, and they would escape the disaster into which their cowardice had led them. The policy of frightfulness was a policy of cowardice. It was a policy of a man who is afraid, and who makes a great noise in hi.s effort to frighten the enemy, hoping that he may avoid fighting. All Germany knows this, and there is no danger of the ex-Kaiser ever returning to Berlin. The German people have for ever been cured of royalty.”—Reuter. [Dr Walter Rathenau, who was born in 1867, was a son of Herr Emile Rathenau, the founder of the Allgemeino Elektrioitat-s Gesselschaft. After studying mathematics, chemistry, and physics at the Berlin University, he went in for research work, and made some discoveries in eloctrotechnics that enabled him to start factories of his, own. Later on ho joined the A.E.G. The various undertakings that have grown out of the parent firm form to-day a huge trust, of which he was managing director, with ramifications on many branches of industry. In 1908 Dr Rathenau travelled through the German African colonies with Her Derburg, then Colonial Minister, and afterwards recorded his impressions in a memorandum advocating a more enlightened policy than that of the Junker offshoot which had made German colonial administration a by-word. In the years before the war Dr Rathenau was in close touch with the Kaiser, who, it is said, was always ready to listen to his broad views, even though he was never willing to get upon them. Daring the war Dr Rathenau organised the supply of Germany’s raw materials on the lines necessary to cope with the vast demand for guns, shells, and other munitions that arose after the Marne. Rathenau was, next to Herr Hugo Stinnes. perhaps the best-known industrialist in Germany. Since' the war he had taken a less active part in business, and an increasing part in economic politics, and he was rightly regarded as one of the new Germany’s strongest and ablest organisers. On May 28. 1921. ut Rathenau accepted the post of Minister of Reconstruction in the .Wirth Cabinet. One of his first tasks was the negotiations with M. Loucheur, French Minister for the liberated regions, at Wiesbaden, which resulted in the concluding of an agreement known ag the Wiesbaden agreement for reparation in kind in supplying material for the restoration of the houses _ and other buildings, and other reconstruction work in the devastated areas Dr Rathenau also played a great part in the negotiations between Germany and the Allied Powers on the problem of reparations. He is also credited with an active share in the Rapallo negotiations which produced the Treaty between Germany and Russia, Dr Rathenau was the principal German delegate at the Genoa Conference. . In a review of his latest book, “Von Koinmendcn Din gen,” published in Germany in 1917, and translated into English last year, The Times said: “Dr Rathenau is by no means an ordinary business man and, still less, an ordinary Minister. True, ho has been associated with, and has in reality been the soul of, some of the largest German industrial undertakings, but ho considers himself os much a seer and leader of thought as a leader in organisation and business enterprise. His book is a protest against the imprisonment of the mind in a mechanically organised world. He regards the object of human progress not as a mere increase of material well-being, but as the attainment of freedom from material restraints and the substitution of individual responsibility for blind regimentation through institutions. ‘Transfiguration’ is the ultimate destiny of man, neither fear nor hope, he exclaims, are the driving forces, "nor calculated striving after a mechanical balance, ‘but faith which springs from love, deepest need, and the will of God.’ ” The assassination of Dr Rathenau must be held to have a sinister significance, following os it does the murder of the strong men of the new Germany in August last year.] ■