THE EX-KAISER

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19906, 17 September 1934, Page 10

THE EX-KAISER

DRAWN FROM SHADOW OF EXILE JOURNALISTIC FEAT The ex-Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany recently received at luncheon at Doom Mr Randolph Churchill, special envoy of the “Daily Mail,” and discussed international affairs with him with the greatest frankness and energy. Thus (says the “Mail”), by a fine stroke of journalistic enterprise Mr Churchill was able to draw the former Emperor from the shadows of exile and to obtain from him highly interesting views on the subjects as diverse as the attitude of the Hohenzollern family to modern Germany, Adolf Hitler, world economic depression, the Far East, India, disarmament, and decomracy. “I look at the world to-day entirely from the standpoint of a private gentleman,” uhe Kaiser told me when he received me at Doom (wrote Mr Churchill). Both yesterday and the day before I had the privilege of meeting him at luncheon, and he has talked to me freely on a variety of topics, ranging from the drought in America to the political situation in the Far East. It is now some months since he celebrated his 75th birthday, but from the vigour and alertness of his mind and conversation one would judge him to be at least fifteen years younger. “If They Want Me Back.” Exiled monarch though he is, he does not live in the past nor does he consume himself with idle fretting for the return of his dynasty. Though he must look back on the past with regret, it would be hard to guess it from his manner. He is still to-day as gay and engaging a being as you could wish to meet. “The German people,” he continued, “turned me out, and if they want me back they will have to come and fetch me. Hitler has done a marvellous work in putting new life and soul into the German nation. If ever they felt it right that his endeavours should be crowned by a return to a constitutional monarchy I am sure that my family would not fail in their duty.” The Kaiser leads a life of considerable retirement, but as a detaghed observer he is in a position to form many acute judgments about the modern world. He spoke with horror and amazement of the folly of the world in attempting to restore prices by destroying goods. “First f all a large acreage of wheat Is deliberately destroyed in such places as the Argentine and elsewhere. Coffee is taken out to sea and sunk in Brazil, and now the world-wide drought threatens us all with famine!” Power of Japan. The Kaiser is greatly impressed with the increasing power of Japan. My Dutch host received from the Kaiser only the day before yesterday a copy of Viscount Rothermore’s article, “I want friendship with Japan,” which appeared in the ‘Daily Mail” some time ago. I asked the Kaiser whether he agreed with this attitude. “Emphatically,” he replied. “Japan is as capable of giving to China peace and order as the British were of giving it to India. It is useless to think that the growth of Japanese power in China can be prevented. Japan, moreover, constitutes in the East a bulwark against Bolshevism, as strong as Germany provides in the West.” The Kaiser also showed much interest and, indeed, perplexity as to the British policy in India. “If the British leave India, you will be bound to get a cleavage between the Mohammedans and the Hindus,’ ’he observed. “The Mohammedans are not only a stronger race, but they are more highly organised. The Hindus will be found to go under. India is incapable of governing herself; all the great Moguls were foreigners.” The Kaiser is sceptical of the League of Nations. “I always remember,” he said, “how one of your generals, Sir lan Hamilton, described it—‘a smoking club which meets in a powder magazine. ” He laughed at the folly of merely talking about disarmament when all the nations of the world are busily engaged in re-arming. “The Talking Circus.” “The talking circus of Geneva,” he added, “does nothing but bring international co-operation into ridicule. The trouble with Europe to-day is that there are plenty of politicians but few statesmen. A statesman may also have the gifts of a politician, but a politician never has the gift of statesmanship.” Those who know the facts laugh at the exaggerated stories which have been spread as to the Kaiser’s fabulous wealth. More than 80 per cent of the Licome which he derives from Prussia is consumed by taxes, and on the remaining 20 per cent, he has to support no fewer than 14 families. Nothing could exceed the simplicity of his existence and surroundings, yet despite this simplicity he still retains all that dignity and courtliness which one associates with a monarch. He has many friends* among his Dutch neighbours, and has built for himself in his retirement a new life largely devoted to study. He is still proud of his rule. “Many things in my reign,” he told me, “were distorted through the inevitable bitterness of the war years. Many people must reflect, however, on looking back, that those days before the war were the golden age of Germany. Under a constitutional monarchy the German people enjoyed a full demorcracy and a freedom of speech and of the press, and an academic liberty which has rarely been rivalled in any other country. “Those who accuse me of having been a hard-fisted autocrat might remember the significant fact that the half-century of the German Empire did not produce one political martyr. Today, however, democracy seems on the wane. Sterner measures appear necessary everywhere to combat the perils of anarchism and Bolshevism.”