PROGRESS TOWARDS DEMOCRACY IN GERMANY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3277, 3 January 1917, Page 25

PROGRESS TOWARDS DEMOCRACY IN GERMANY.

HOHENZOLLERNISM MUST GO. AN AMERICAN VIEW. (By Dr Fbank Bohst, in the Now York Times). Our. whole attitude as regards the prolongation of the war must be largely dependent upon our knowledge of the present condition of Germany. Recent speeches by Bethmann Hollwcg and Asquith have brought the matter of the termination of the war into the field of practical discussion. Our conclusions must result from our study of recent facts in connection with two questions. The first question concerns tho length of the war if fought to a finish. The second has to do with the development of democracy in Germany ._ Mr Herbert Bayard Swope, in his most illuminating series of articles in the New York World, has performed a great service to tho American public. His observations have been, generally, most careful. His manner of statement, though he deals with difficult generalisations, is lucid. His entire fairness to Germany is indicated by constant effort not to let his admiration for the wonderful defence she is making impinge upon his sense of justice. Without thestory lie himself has given us from day to day with such admirable success, I could not feel nearly so sure of my own conclusions, which, in part, differ from those- to which Mr Swope has been led by the same facts.

Mr Swope places before us his views on tho present state of the liberal democratic movement in Germany. This article contains tho following paragraph: " But in the very unity of tho nation, engaged upon the struggle for self-preserva-tion, can be found tho certain evidence that when tho time shall come, this unity shall bo used for their own purposes—for tho establishment of a truly liberal Government in which each shall govern as well as be governed.

'■ And the Kaiser himself has approved. Perhaps he has read the signs of the times; perhaps he is actuated by a finer motive, but whatever the impulse, I was told in Berlin by one of the high officers of the General Staff that the Emperor had said: "My people have shown that nothing is beyond them, and they shall have as large a share as they desire in the affairs of their Government."

If these conclusions are correct, then they are of fundamental importance. If, of a certainty, Germany is to develop into a political democracy, then we in America must, forthwith, become advocates of an early peace. I, for one, cannot accept these conclusions. A Germany unbeaten is a Germany victorious. And a conquering Germany will bo a land in which democracy will not have a "look in" for a generation to come .

Iho article from which we quoted above begins with the following striking phrases: "Seventy million people with their backs against the wall. Seventy million people lighting as one. Seventy million people and not a quitter among them ! That is one of the deepest impressions that I brought back with mo from my visit to Germany! Powerful as is the pressure under whicli they are standing; heavy as arc the blows they receive; dark though (heir eventual prospects may be, the spirit of patriotism. of steadfastness, of courage, of defiance! that the Germans are showing, burns as brightly and as fiercely to-dav,' after more than two years of war, as at the outset" Such a war as Ihese words desribe, if even partially successful, never has pro duced and never can produce a fundamental alteration in the Government which gives it direction. Upon this point the facts of history indicate that the inherent character of the human species stands opposed to the conclusions reached.

Tf, in such a war as Germany is now fighting, her Ilohonzollerns. and her Junkerdom. with their general staff and their army, finally triumph to the extent of securing a favourable peace, then they will bo firmly established for a generation as the Government of Germany. The very foundations of their power will lie laid in the receptive and grateful minds of a subservient people. As regards abridging that power, mere forms of constitutional liberalism, even if granted, v ill be absolutely impotent. Tf a democratic form of government establishes a democracy, then Mexico and Panto Domingo would have democracies for nearly a century. The law of the Constitution of the United States guarantees to the negroes of South Carolina the rierht to vote. But their right to vote has no existence in fact.. A democracy can live onlv in the collective mind of a people. Without the cornerstone laid there the superstructure must be a fhirer of putty and paint. A victorious Germany will mean a German people kneeling for a (veneration at the feet, of the Kaiser and Marshal von Hindenburg. A victorious Germany will he a Germanv hnted by half the world. a_ country in which the whole male population will sleep on its arms in self-defence; The militarism of the

past will seem to us school boys' play in comparison with the defensive militarism of a Germany unwhipped, in such a society, democracy is unthinkable. As a matter of history no ruling family and no ruling clajis has ever yet handed the means of political power down to a patient people, 'ine liberals oj.' Prussia were eieariy and emphatically promised constitutional yovornmenfc when, in ibid, they joined loyally witn the Hohcnzollerns in Lho so-cailed "War of Liberation" against Napoleon. After Napoleon was placed on tic. Helena these same liberals wore put in jails tor asking the Hohenzoilerns to .fulfill their part ot cue eon-* tract. i

True enough, whenever despots or privi leged classes get into a tight place they are liberal enough with promises. Charles I, preceding his linal surrender to the Parliamentary forces, went about for months whining an affirmative to every demand made by Parliament and its generals. But Oliver Cromwell was far too wise to think that "Yes" from a beaten ivmg really meant "'Yes. 1 '

George 111 and his hireling Parliament, after the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, consented to every demand the colonists made up to July 4, 1776. Had tiiosc same colonists accepted the compromise Mr Swope is willing to accopit for democracy in Germany, then New York City and its suburbs would still transform itself into one vast crescent-shaped rubber-neck every time some new duke or marquis would bo sent over from London as our Governorgeneral. The conflict for the new democracy in our day will be bitter enough, Heaven knows. Let us bo grateful to the memory of those who, in the American Revolution, pushed their awful light for the old democracy on to completion in their own day. In our civil war the representatives of the Confederacy, at the Hampton Roads Conference, wero ready to grant almost everything else if only the Confederacy were recognised as a sovereign government.

"Charles I," said Alexander H. Stephens, "was not. above treating with the rebels." "All I know about Charles I," replied Lincoln, "is that he lost his head." On March 7, 1865, the Confederate Government paased a law for the enlistment of negroes, and thus consented to their emancipation. But the war went on until the job wag done. Eleventh hour, death-bed conversions never make much of an impression upon men who have mind enough and character enough to direct the course of history in a great crisis. Democracy on the part of the Kaiser is, of course, nothing but a line piece of comedy. Only very young children in the study of world politics conceive it to be reality. Every intelligent, decent person in the world admires the common people of Germany for their well-known virtues, and wishes them peace, prosperity, and freedom at the earliest possible time. The curse of Germany is that patriotism and militarism have run as warp and woof into the fabric of -her national consciousness. In the course of time militarism became the end of German national life instead of a means to an end. Patriotism became first a religion and then developed through a period of fanaticism into a condition of national insanity. This insanity afflicts not only the ruling classes; it affects the commonest people of Germany. I sat one day with a German private soldier and his sister. The soldier boasted that lie had helped slay wounded and helpless British soldiers on the field of battle. His sister, in cold blood, laughed at his narrative. It satisfied her desire for revenge against England. An old German shopkeeper, whose son was a reserve lieutenant, told me that that son had commanded a squad of men in Belgium who captured an old woman guilty of having French soldiers in her house. She was taken out in the dead of night, forced to dig her own grave, and shot to death. If this is not insanity, then I would like to be informed as to the meaning of the word. Even democracies are endangered by military success. England made a reactionary and incompetent Premier out of Wellington, and used him to fight the Reform Bill in 1832. America elected General Taylor President because ho beat the Mexicans, and Grant "because Lee finally surrendered to him. Thomas Piatt . made Theodore Roosevelt Governor of New York, VicePresident, and President because of the sensational newspaper advertising which followed his four days of very poor tactics as regimental commander in the Santiago campaign.

Furthermore, a groat and exhausting- war saps the vital strength of a people mentally and morally as well as physically. We in America had turned the new century, a full generation after the Civil War, before we took up seriously the work of social progress which our grandfathers had discarded after the passing of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.

.After this present war the German people will be busy bind.ng up their wounds and making a living. The German propertyholding classes will be happy in having a Government which runs smoothly and which will make no large demands' upon their time. In a recent statement llerr Scheidernianii, leader of the " Kultur " .Socialists of Germany, declares that: " We know that these millions of soldiers will come back with a courage they never knew before, with a vigour they never had before, _ with new views of life, with newideas of their country, and oven with a new understanding of other people. They will come back fearless—that is one important consideration. They will come back conscious that each one has been of service, and has given something worth just as much to him and the State as that which any other mail has given. They will come back enthusiastic for their homes, and enthusiastic because of being convinced that their own political ambitions are not futile. They will come back as German peo£>le, just as they fight as German people." What Herr Schcidermann neglects to take into consideration, however, is that several millions of these men between the ages of 13 and 40 years will not come back at all or will come back without arms, or legs, or eyes. That yawning; chasm in European life will be some time filling up. Meanwhile, progress toward democracy will wait. Germany in peace and war has been organised into a new social system. That system stands with one foot upon absolute monarchy as the foundation of law, and with the other upon the machine process as the basis of material power. A victorious Germany will mean the victory of that system, in part, throughout the world. An * unbeaten Germany and the generation of militarism in Europe which will follow will force a generation of constantly growing militarism in the United States.

Unless the courso of the war results in such a conclusion as will give democracy a chance in Germany, democracy will have very little chance anywhere else. The hope of the world in this decade and generation lies in the abolition of militarism. The

very first step toward the abolition of militarism is tho abolition of the Ho'lienzollorns and the Hapsburgs.