The Thames Star THURSDAY, MAY 8, 1913. EDITORIAL.

Thames Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 14518, 8 May 1913, Page 4

The Thames Star

THURSDAY, MAY 8, 1913. EDITORIAL.

Our Motto: Fear of None* Favour to None ; Justice to All.

_ : ■■■■ GERMANY & THE NEXT WAR.

A REMAiRKABLE WAR PUIBITJtCiA-

TION.

GREAT BIRITA IMS DANGER,

We note that considerable interest is being manifested in ■ England in -a remarkable book, "Germany and the Next War/ by General yon Bernhardi, a distinguished cavalry officer. .It is being read by-hundreds of Englishmen and it.is in the hands ot tens of thousands of Germans. The work is said to have a distinct significance, noti only because of. its keen military, criticism, but beoause of its account of German history and civilisation, for the author wm.B a scholar, as well as a soldier. The book shows strong bias,, but it is significant to note that it is this very bias—the strong 1 ariti-Btitish note that is continually struck—that has made it so popular in Germany. He who runs may read. It is easy enough to prate of peace, but how can there fas peace when one nation is. has been, and will (be openly defiant and refuses all offers of pacification or relinquishment of her tremendous programme of warship building and other engines of war? It is openly declared that the book represents; the \iews of hundreds of thousands of Germans and we hope that to. some in New Zealand the news will come' as a surprise and proTte a lesson. To-day in Germany a principal question took 1 this form: "How do Ebgland and her Eimpire 'stand, in the way of ihe deepest desires and ambitions, and perhaps, also, the highest and most sacred aspirations ;bf Germany?" Only the other day Sir Harry Johnston was aghast at the intensity of the hate which he found in Prussia, and at the almost insane desire for a war with Ebgland. And as justification for this war, pamphleteers, speakers, and professors said that the Eingjish x-aco was the possessor, by theft, of one-third of ■• the habitable globe. Germany, on the other hand, was shut between the fßthine and the plains of Poland, between the Baltic and the Dan vibe. They asked what use was Ebgland making of this onethird, and what were the nature and the character of this race which^stood for ever in the path of Germany's course towards her place in the sun. They said that Ebglandhad failed in India because she had ceased to b& a nation of soldiers. She "had failed in Eigypt, where she crept in like a fox -to the detriment of France, and remained there only to vulgarise one of the most sacred countries in the world. In Germany, Ebgland was Regarded nn an obscurantist and retrograde nation. 'Her literature ana art were placed under a Library ! Committee whose ideas were those* of shopkepers; her religion was the most provincial of all the creeds born in the Reformation ; and as to. her law, the 'Germans said she was reviving mediaeval torture, torturing men with the lash to-day and-break-in «• women on the wheel to-morrow. They, had nothing but contempt for the British Army. Reference is also made to the women's suffrage movement. These women are declared to be evil-minded and a menace to the Government and to the State. And a contrast is made with the dignity, simplicity and; noble virtues of the German women. When German women went to war, as history showed, they fought as soldiers; they kept away from golf-links and pillar boxes. The whole book is a sweeping indictment of the social canter's that are eating; into the heart of Britain's .greatness and national spirit and should come as a timely warning to the^careless, the flippant, and the foolish.