GERMAN PARLIAMENT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 48, Issue 14609, 7 March 1922, Page 5

GERMAN PARLIAMENT.

COLONIAL AFFAIRS. A WILD OUTBURST. BERLIN, Sunday. Discussion in the Reichstag on the Estimates of the Ministry of Reconstruction included a debate on colonial administration. National Deputy Levverens, who is an ex-colonial official, made a slashing attack on the alleged mismanagement, corruption, and inefficiency of British and French administrators in former German colonies.

He said the monstrous conditions were brought about by the mandate system. All that Germany had built up in three decades had been destroyed.

The European population in East Africa had decreased from six thousand to two thousand. Once blooming German plantations had disappeared, and railways had been closed. Even worse were the Cameroons and Togo, where the French had introduced universal military service. The sanitary conditons were lamentable, and there wore scandals among the officials. New Zealand had expelled Germans from Samoa, and now the plantations were being neglected and Spanish influenza was raging among the population. The mismanagement at New Guinea had attracted the attention even of the Australian Parliament. The prevailing conditions there were described as chaotic. Therefore, it was clear that the mandatory system did not promote the welfare of the peoples.

It was a peremptory duty that Germany should insist again and again that she should be allowed to co-operate in the tasks of colonisation, and should receive a mandate over the territories where she had accomplished decades of civilising work. Happily the Government had not buried the hope that Germany would get her colonies back. Aus. and N.Z. Cable Assn.