WHAT THE KAISER DOES NOT SEE

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11669, 8 April 1916, Page 8

WHAT THE KAISER DOES NOT SEE

The German foible is to seo dominion and to want to grasp itGreat Britain does not own Canada or Australia- or South Africa j they are owned by the people who live there. Even the waste lands in British oolonies were long ago recognised as the property of tho colony, and not of the Mother .Country; and . there is not an iit:re of land' outside the British lsl«s from which the British Government derives a farthing of revenue. The colonies do, indeed, help to support tho British Navy, and they have sent largo contingents to its armies in this war; but all is done by free gift and nou by imposition. The colonies aro free to govern themselves, and even to tax British imports, and exclude British subjects from their borders. {J'nly- thus could the British Empire exist, because it is based on freedom. The denial of responsible self-government to the British realms, as tiie Hohenzollems have denied it to the German people, would have broken up Wie long ago. The Kaiser envies and wishes to emulate tiie British realms; but he declines to make that sslf-saentice of wiil without which there cannot be political salvation ; and he does not see that it has only been through that sacrifice, through the recognition of the right of each British realm to govern itself by moans of its own responsiole Ministers, that the British Empire maintains its unity and strength. He wills 'the end, bun not the means; he craves for British world-power, but repudiates the conditions of its existence. Germans attribute British success to scandalous good luck. Had they possessed all Great Britain's initial advantages, they would have thrown them all away through , their will-to-power, .and their lust ior absolute tiomihion. We believe in no power that is not based on service and guarded by responsibility; they base power on prerogative, and guard it by lese-majesty Government by convuiL is the secret of empire which Germany will be taught by the present war It is a simple matter of recognising tho liberties of others, and purging one's toul of tha poison that any lnan, dynasty or nation has the right to 'govern another against its will.—A. F. Pollard* in tha " Yale RevieW >. " .

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