PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOY?.

Otago Witness, Issue 3278, 10 January 1917, Page 57

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOY?.

"MEMORIES OF FATHERLAND." This is a half-guinea net book just come to town. The authoress is Arme Topham, who, just after the war broke out, wrote "Memories of the Kaiser's Court," a book now procurable at 2s 6d net—about os 6d here. Miss (or Mrs) Topham spent seven years in Germany, being engaged in 1902 as English governess to the Kaiser's only daugh r, Princess Victoria Louise, who, the year before the war broke out, married Prince Ernest Augustus, the Duke of Brunswick. Ido not study Royalty much, but I think ho is the son of the Duke of Cumberland, and that as Duke of Brunswick he gave up his British citizenship and became a subject of the Kaiser.

"A NATIONAL PERSONALITY." Never before, says Miss Topham, has the national character been scrutinised, criticised, and analysed as has been the character of the German nation, and the following condensed description of what she says will be interesting, because, living as she did, at the Court, she has inside knowledge. Bear in mind that she does not write in any abusive. spirit, for, as far as the book is concerned, I daresay she could go back to the Court to-morrow. Leaving out asides and subsidiary details this is what she has to say : The German nation is a nation of tremendous cohesion, hammered and welded into homogeneity by methods which do not commend themselves to our English minds which have been developed in an atmosphere of purer freedom and more individualistic tendencies; but it is difficult for the ordinary Englishman to realise the difference in point of view between German and English ideals. The picture of Germany as it existed before the war, to those of us who have lived there, has been one on which we have fixed our gaze with a desperate hope that after all it was not a travesty of the real thing; but day byday the outlines of this picture have become blurred by the horrors and agonies of a warfare of such ruthless type as the modern world has never known. To those of us who know Germany fairly well the seeming inconsistency in her conduct, the sentiment and idealism which seem so incongruously allied with an overbearing brutality and diseased egotism are partly explainable. We know that they arc docile and easily led. of somewhat plastic and childlike mind, kept carefully pruned and only allowed to shoot forth in governmentally approved directions. We know that they are a people passionately trained from childhood to believe in the divine destiny of the German race, that their patriotism is as their religion, blind maybe an 1 Eanatical, but followed with a faith fill sense of the duty and necessity for selfsacrifice, of whole-hearted self-abnegation, a people that take a ceitain pride in their lack of refinement, which they regard as verging perilously on effeminacy. They have an intense and inherited hatred for French refinement and subtle wit, and present a blunt coarseness, a rather broad form of humour, because in it they see the virility and downright hone ty which they imagine to be a purely Teuton charac-

teristic. Such, in brief, is Miss Topham s estimate of the German national character. "PASSIONATE ENTHUSIAM FOR FOOD." This is her way of saying that a German is good to his stomach. And .she gives several illustrations of which this is one. "Prose and Poetry" sighed a German friend as they sat down in one of the many restaurants, and as he sighed he nodded towards a lady who was devourins Kalb-Schnitzel mit Bohnen—l don't know what that is—"with the wholehearted energy and ohvious enjoyment characteristic of her nation." Then he turned to view the beautiful scenery, and after musing said: "The Ideal and the Real, always they torture us with their incongruity. . . . Why must people

eat? It 'is really a stupid inrcsthetic arrangement. The world would be so mueh'more beautiful if we did not need to bo continually replenishing our bodies with greasy meat and vegetable.'—pieces of dead catth —and ho looked with disgust at the Kalb-Schnitzel." She ventured diffidently to remark that: Hunger was a great motive power in the economy of Nature. Ho looked bored and stopped talking. And then?—"ordered a large and succulent supper not at all of a vegetarian nature." enjoyed it thoroughly, and did not look up * until he had cleaned the

plate ! Ho then lit a large and rank-smell-ing cigar, became sentimental again, and broke into snatches of song and poetic apostrophes to the moon ! And this reminds me that a series oi articles has been appearing in tho London Times written by a D. Thomas Curtin, an American, who until recently was in Germany. One is headed '* Germany s Food," with numerous sub-headings, among them " A Nation Growing Thinner," "Fats and Oil Vital," " A Chemist's Testimony," "Typical Meals," "Ticket Larceny." This was published on October 11 and after reading that article and the news cabled last week that Holland had agreed to supply cheese, eggs, meat, and butter to Germany, one is driven to the conclusion that the peace proposals—not so definite as ours, though—are not because Germany wants to stop slaughter as much as because it is "a nation growing thinner." "Deprive Germany of oils and fats," says he, " and she will scon collapse." PRINCE VON BULOW.

This Prince has been mentioned lately in connection with the peace proposals. According to some he is a discredited exPrime Minister in disgrace. But why.' Some years ago, and after the Boer war, the Kaiser announced that—the Germans used the Boer war as a lever to expand their navy, and the Kaiser had sent a cable of sympathy to Kruger—he had sent to England a plan of campaign which would have enabled them to win the war easily if it had been followed; and as proof that it wasn't a yarn said it was pigeon-holed, and could'be produced to prove the truth of his statement. For some time his revelations placed him under a cloud, and he felt very much his temporary alienation from his subjects. Miss Topham tells us that she saw Prince von Bulow when he was on the way to the palace " for that fateful interview in which he was pledged to wring from the Kaiser a promise to abstain in the future from further ' revelations ' to the press." When he stepped from the railway carriage a cheer was raised, only to be immediately quenched, as the occasion was felt to be too solemn for such a demonstration. He succeeded, but the following year retired, ostensibly over the finance reform measure, and was succeeded by Bethmann-lroll-wegg—first word pronounced like our English Bateman. The interview, says Miss Topham, was the beginning of the end.» Here is a description of him: •• Prince Bulow was a man of the world and of great diplomatic experience. He pos.-essed great charm and urbanity of manner, and knew how to amuse and keep the Emperor in a good temper, and his abilities were perhaps greater than is generally known. The difficulties of his position' have probably never been completely realised by those unacquainted with the Emperor's restless temperament. His retirement was a great loss to the German Empire in many ways, but chiefly because his personality was one that corrected and restrained much of the exuberance in that of the Emperor." Naturally, a man of the Emperor's stamp dislikes any personality that conflicts with his own. "He is still, as ever, the monarch who dismissed Bismarck, the greatest German of his age, also, it may be, the least scrupulous." Perhaps next week I'll give you a little more about this book. As far as I know onlv one has come to town yet.