HOLLWEG HUMBUG.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15183, 31 March 1917, Page 5

HOLLWEG HUMBUG.

PROFESSIONS OF GOODWILL TO RUSSIA. HOPES TO RENEW FRIENDSHIP WITH CHINA. Australian su'd N.Z. (Jable Association. Received' March 31, 8.50 a.m. LONDON, March 30. Count Hollweg, in his speech in the Reichstag, referring" to Russia, said: “Our time-honoured friendship ended with the death of Czar Alexander 11. The Emperor Nicholas had drifted into the Entente’s wake, and into Pan-Slavistic 1 currents finally, because the partisan war party declined to listen in July, 1914, to the Kaiser’s appeal. When, in 1905, the Japanese War and tne ensuing revolution had reduced Russia to dire stress, the Kaiser urged the Czar to no longer oppose the nation’s wishes as to reforms, but Czar Nicholas preferred other roads. Had Russia concentrated upon internal reconstruction she would have avoided, the restless policy of expansion leading to the war. Count Hollweg characterised as lies and slanders the reports that Germany desired to abolish Russia’s hardly-won freedom, y and that the Kaiser would like to reestablish a state of Czardom over the enslaved subjects. The-method of reconstruction of her internal affairs was purely a business for the Russians themselves. We do not want to meddle therewith. We only hope the conditions in Russia will develop in such wise as to make her a strong and firm bulwark of peace.” The Chancellor asserted that China’s rupture of relations was the result of outside pressure, but he was confident the old friendship with China would revive after the war, when Germany would recover her trade with Eastern Asia.

Proceeding, Hollweg said that warm thanks were due to Hindenburg and Ludendorff for what they had accomplished on the Western front. He boasted of. the success of submarines, and concluded by referring to internal questions. He declared that the speeches in the Reichstag had not convinced him of the possibility of beginning a reform of the Prussian franchise.'. It was-a most serious matter to decide such such a question while, millions of men were in the trenches.

LONDON, March 30

. Continuing his remarks anent China Count Hollweg said:—The enemies’ pressure forced China’s rupture. We are convinced that the' result of the war will enable Germany to rebuild her trade and influence in the East at the enemy’s expense, and friendliness will revive if Crina continues the necessary resistance against her present protectors’ egoism and greed.