GERMAN NEW GUINEA.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 16049, 6 February 1918, Page 7

GERMAN NEW GUINEA.

, HUNS RESOLVED TO HOLD ON. CONTEMPT FOB AUSTRALIA. The following is extracted from a striking article by Thomas J. M ‘Mahon in a recent issue of the Bulletin: — The German# of this territory do not recognise the possibility of the defeat of. their nation m Europe. Their cocksureness as to the ultimate results is profoundly impressive. Their merchants. are pushing their trade for all they are worth, and making more money than ever they did under their own rule, an admission they freely grant; the planters, traders, and recruiters are almost feverishly developing, trading, and recruiting; and not one of them but will laugh to scorn the idea of the German territory one day belonging to England or more directly, to the Commonwealth. The suggestion -of the. last prospect sends any German into- a state of hysterical laughter;' fob Ah© contempt the average Hun here has for the Australian is amazing. Australia they covet as the crowning jewel of the German colonial Empire they have planned long since, and of which they are as confident to-day as they were in prewar days. They look upon Australians not as a nation of men, but, as one said, “a muck-heap of human beings, dumped out of Europe and elsewhere, lacking ©very- qualification that makes for national strength or for commercial advantage” ; or, as another said, “a people that has no future, that lives from day to day, asking big; wages and breaking the promises of to-day to ask for bigger wages to-morrow”; or, as a third put it, "so full of strife among themselves that when fho time comes we will lap up Australia as a'dog laps up milk.” AUSTRALIA THE MAGNET. There is not the least doubt that Australia is the magnet of German aspiration, and when they forty years ago bluffed ■'British statesmen into allowing them the possession-of German New Guinea, they- then clearly saw the strategic importance of the step—saw that a great deal more, clearly than they realised the great richness and immense possibilities of New Guinea. That territox-y has been a watch tower, as it were, and not one Cjerman official but has studied Australia with the one ambition—to lay hands on the laud. The decision in the first referendum on conscription is still spoken of in German New Guinea as proof of Australian insensibility to the dangers of the future. They do not gloat over the failure as an indication that Australians ore in sympathy with them or desire an urgent peace ate any price; they despise them rather. The following, taken from a German magazine, written by that amiable Maximilian Harden, will show the German mind in this matter. The magazine was the Zukunft, picked up from a German planter’s table:— "Wo have the greatest contempt possible for any human to possess for the Australian, doing as little work as he can, spending Ips substance in concubinage, in sport, in gambling (which is big religion), and in drinking. We who can claim to be honest laugh at the Quixotic bravery of the Australian whoso enthusiasm carried him away to face our God-led army.'-. . We will break the hearts of unionists for all time. We are gratified at the success of our agents in Australia and the power of German gold. Those Germans who, like Judas, have turned against the in its hour of trial will be suitably dealt with. Those who have stood firm - and are now interned willlio placed over their captors and in high administrative positions. . . . . The Australians are the most ignorant people in the wide world. They cannot speak er write correctly the British language. . Our propaganda in the land of the Southern .Gross lias been most successful. .-/We will, scatter them over the face of the earth, whilst we will retain in Australia their women to he mothers of a new German race in the great Pacific.” The first referendum produced those remarks-so full-of love and goodwill. It will be interesting to read German magazines on the last decision.