ELIMINATING THE GERMAN LANGUAGE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3275, 20 December 1916, Page 31 (Supplement)

ELIMINATING THE GERMAN LANGUAGE.

In certain parts the interior of Australia, and more particularly in South Australia, there are districts and townships where nothing but German is heard. English is understood, generally, but all business and social intercourse is carried on in •German, which is the native language of

the older people, and which the younger generation understands fairly well. An astonishing number of these young Germans are to be found in the commcroial and professional classes in the Australian c ties —and a remarkable number, too, are in khaki. That trait of the Teutonic character which makes a regard for the Fatherland endure through several generations is the disturbing feature of the AustralianGerman population, and it provides Aus-

tralian statesmen with a difficult problem. Many German-Australians are loyal; many others, just as certainly, are traitors at heart. Many of them are in the internment camps, the majority of the others are under police surveillance, and a number stiil move freely about without hindrance. The South Australian Government is doing what it can to guard Australia against a menace from within; but, as one Minister, when criticised, remarked plaintively:

'One can't intern whole communities.'* In past years the German settlements have had utcrman schools, in which German children have been taught in German by German masters. The system has been strongly attacked in Parliament several times, and, though no one wanted German schools, that honest British desire to allow all possible freedom to the stranger within the gate has resulted in the continuance of the system. The position was reviewed at the outbreak

jf war, and it was decided to allow German to be taught during a certain period. But this did not please the public, and now a Bill is before the South Australian. Parliament, and will probably be passed; through quickly, excluding German altogether from the curriculum of the primary schools. t It will be hard on the German, communities; but, in view. of all the circumstances, it is difficult to see what elsecould have been done.