Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 6 May 1915, Page 21

Current Topics

Bernhard! and" the Invasion of Canada Last week’s cables conveyed a hint that Germany’s next move would be a raid on Canada, or rather they contained a definite statement that such an operation was actually in progress. ' A message from Portland (Maine, United States),’ says a London cable, ‘states that Captain . Branchy of the interned German barque Dolbeck, says that a German squadron of 15 vessels is heading for the coast of Canada, intending to destroy coastal cities and fortifications. This information was contained in a letter from an officer of the Germany navy. Captain Branch believes that the squadron is making its way along the coast of Norway, and will thence make a dash for Canada.’ * In view of the present naval situation, the story is on the face of it somewhat wildly improbable; and it happens that it has been denied and repudiated in advance even by the truculent and aggressive Bernhardi, who clearly sets forth very good grounds for regarding any such attempt as out of the question and impracticable. The author of Germany and the Next War has been contributing a series of articles to the New York American, and in one of the latest of these he thus discusses and dismisses the suggestion that Germany would attempt any aggression against Canada, or any part of the American continent. ‘ It is just as certain, also,’ he says, that ‘ we should never think of assuming an antagonistic attitude toward America, much less dream of questioning the Monroe Doctrine. What advantages could we possibly expect from such -behavior ? Visionaries talk of the conquest of Canada by the Germans and of the acquisition of other colonies upon the continent! How could such dreams, even if they were for a moment cherished, possibly be carried out, even if we are so happy as to achieve an outlook for enduring peace at home on the advantages of victory, by a policy of wild adventure abroad ? Whence would come the enormous fleets necessary in order to carry out an attack necessary against the enormous resources of the United States, or to maintain across the broad Atlantic a contact of combination between an attacking army and the home country? From the United States we expect neither direct nor indirect help in this gigantic struggle for existence. Long ago we understood that only the victories attained through its own strength count in the history of a nation. We shall therefore fight our battle to a finish alone, with German iron and with German blood.’ Municipal Elections Owing, doubtless, to the dominating influence of the war upon men’s thoughts and attention, the municipal elections passed off throughout the Dominion without the close interest and keen excitement which attached to last year’s contests. Where the sitting members again presented themselves, they were in the vast majority of cases reelected; and every where the citizens appear to have shown a general disposition to leave things, as far as possible, as they were. In Dunedin, the only remarkable feature of the polling was the failure of the Labor Party to secure the return of a single one of their nominees on any of the four bodies for which elections were held. The Labor organisations and their following are numerically sufficiently strong easily to secure effective representation on any of the local bodies if they were really in earnest in the matter. In the present instance it is not suggested that the Labor electors voted for other than Labor candidates, but simply that they did not take the trouble to vote at all. * * It is probable that their apathy was not without its effect on the result of the mayoral election. The three candidates, Messrs. Clark, Myers, and Marlow, were all good citizens and competent men, and so far as that aspect of the contest is concerned it may be freely ad-

mitted that any one of the three would prove - himself quite capable •of discharging the duties of chief magistrate, It must, however, we think, be recognised, if the merits of the candidates are viewed .fairly and diss passionately,: that Mr. Marlow had an exceptionally strong claim on the support of the citizens. There is -a sort of unwritten rule that there should be a certain amount of rotation in the mayoral office ; and under this head, at least in regard to length of public service, Mr. Marlow had undoubted priority. His personal merits were beyond all question ; and his fellow councillors have again and again borne willing tribute to his outstanding and commanding ability, and to the signal value of the services which as councillor and chairman of various important committees he has rendered to the city. Had the choice rested with them, as it does in great cities in other countries, there would have been absolute unanimity in the selection. But kissing, it is said, goes by favor; and so nowadays, it would seem, does election to our higher civic offices., In Dunedin, at least, there is a growing and dangerous tendency to let the religion of the candidates determine the direction in which favor shall be bestowed ; and the fact that Mr. Marlow is a staunch and sterling Catholic did not, to put it mildly, help his candidature. He may rest assured that at this moment his co-religionists are as proud of him as they have over been; and they look back upon his splendid public record with unalloyed satisfaction and gratification. Throughout his long and strenuous public career he has been the very model of all that a Catholic layman ought to be; and higher praise than that we cannot give. Good work is never lost; and Mr. Marlow’s influence as an example to the Catholic young men of his adopted city will be felt for many a day. He retires temporarily from active public life with an unsmirched record, and with the good wishes and good will of all with whom he has come in contact. How the Neutrals Failed Some months ago we expressed the opinion that if at the outset of the war President Wilson had put on record a protest against the violation of Belgiumwhich it was America’s duty to do as a signatory to the Hague agreement guaranteeing the inviolability of neutral territoriesthe war would have been much less savage and sanguinary than it has been, and might even have been considerably shortened. The same thing is now being said more strongly, and with more emphasis and weight than could ever attach to our humble utterance, by American citizens themselves, and by some who are specially qualified to speak with authority on the subject. Mr, Richard Harding Davis, the well-known war correspondent, who was in Belgium when the first early havoc was wrought there and has since returned to America, declares in all seriousness and with the utmost earnestness that the neutral nations, by protesting against the invasion of Belgium, might have ended the war; and because they failed to do so future historians will not hold them guiltless. Mr. Davis says: ‘ No individual, no matter how just may be his indignation, can communicate that indignation to the German Emperor. His Government must do that for him, and as no Government had the courage to protest, to speak sharply, to brandish the big stick, Germany exclaimed, “We have a free hand.” And from bad she has hastened to worse. From the moment she broke her word and entered the neutral territory of Belgium the rights of every neutral were in jeopardy. A man who is false to one will be false to another, but the neutral Powers could not see that. Belgium seemed so far away, and in the United States wo were so entirely surrounded by water and so comfortably safe. So, although as joint signatories of the agreement made at The Hague, it was our privilege and duty to protest, we said nothing. Nor did any other neutral. And, emboldeiied by the silence, Germany,,one after another, broke all the rules of war. If at the start of this war our Government and those of South America, Italy, ‘ Spain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, and Switzerland had jointly protested to Germany against the

outrages she committed, against her breaking all the rules of civilised ■warfare," they might not only have prevented the destruction of lives and cities, but even might have brought the Avar to a close. To a. committee who came to discuss our attitude towards the nations at war President Wilson used these words; -“Think of America first.” Spoken by Holland or Switzerland, or any neutral nation that is small and weak, that sentiment might be understood. Coming from a great and powerful nation of a hundred millions, it is more unpleasant. Nor do I believe the American people are as selfish as that. I also like to think of America first, and had she made protests against the outrages of Germany on behalf of the Allies as affronts to humanity and civilisation, when this Avar was over she would have stood first; but now it is too late. When the burglars are finally driven away, the man who thought of himself first and crawled under the bed is not given much consideration.’ ■* We have been invited by a visiting representative of the American Federated Council of Churcheswho is a strong apologist for President Wilson—to see evidence of America’s friendship for Britain in the fact that she is sending a steady supply of arms and ammunition to the Allies. Such material has, of course, been very welcome to the Allies but Mr. Bryan has v been careful to explain that it has been supplied upon no principle of friendship but on strictly commercial lines. In his reply to a German protest, the American Secretary of State has pointed out that it would have been a breach of ‘ neutrality ’ to have refused to send such goods, and that America would be only too glad to fill German orders for the same material if only Germany were in a position to take delivery of the shipments. The question is not whether America has been the friend either of Britain or of Gerihany, but whether, as a professedly Christian nation, she has made any sort of honest and manly attempt to act up to her lofty and loudly professed ideals. We are not, perhaps, in a position to judge altogether impartially ; but certainly, in this part of the world at least, there is an almost universal feeling that in this searching moral crisis President Wilson has acted the part of a. poltroon and a runaway, that he has thrown humanity and high principle to the winds, and that he has been guided, for the most part, by a spirit of selfish and sordid commercialism. There is, it is felt, a large element of truth in the scathing indictment of the satirist who has pilloried him in lines modelled on the immortal ' Hosea Biglow ’ : ‘ I du believe in Freedom’s cause, Her Justice and Morality : But when in her the Prussian claws Are stuck —my cue’s Neutrality. To slaughter gels and infants may —- Or may notbe improper. I haven’t anything to say, My deal is—selling copper. ‘ I du believe in treaties planned To bind the folks that make ’em, And in supplying contraband (For cash) to those who break ’em. I du believe that War is .Hell, And Wrong must come a cropper, But, if Wrong wants to buy, I sell For ammunition -copper. ‘ 1 du believe in ideals great, For Truth and Right I holler, . But what 1 love and venerate Is the Almighty Dollar. To Belgian pain and Prussian vice Oh, England, put a. stopper. But while the Kaiser pays my price I’m out to sell him copper.’ German Confidence German generals and State officials, from the Imperial Chancellor downwards, are sounding the loud timbrel of assured victory and an honorable peace for the German arms, and that at no very distant date.

That is, of course, as we should expect. It is the duty of the leaders of a nation to keep the nation’s spirits up; and Ave quote German testimony, not as suggesting that it has any particular significance, but as indicating the German official attitude, and as giving • a clue ,to the sentiments and opinions which • representative land-•'re-sponsible Germans profess that they hold. 1 In view of the actual existing military situation, it is difficult, in some instances, to believe that they really .feel the -sublime optimism which they express, but we may at any rate hear what they have to say, leaving ourselves free to take it for what it is worth. * General Hindenburg, . the hero of Germany, in an interesting talk with a representative of the New York Times, contrasts the swiftness of the German steam engine—i.e., the network of strategical railways in East Prussiawith the slowness of the Russian steam-roller, and continues: ‘Great is the task that still confronts us, but greater my faith in my brave troops. lam not a prophet, but this I can say : Tell our friends in America, and also those who do not love us, that I am looking forward with unshakable confidence to the final victory—and a well-earned vacation,’ he added, whimsically. The Germany Chancellor, Count von Bcthmann--1 tolweg, is even more confident and positive. In an official interview given to the late James Creelman, representative of the Sew York .1 w> rican in Berlin, on February 10, the following passage occurs: ‘You seem confident that the Avar will end in a complete German victory?’ ‘Absolutely. No one who understands the situation can have the slightest doubt of a complete German success. Remember, we are fighting on the enemy’s soil. We have possession of Belgium; we have a large part of France, and our armies are extended far into Russia. Whatever doubts there may have been in the past few months, the present situation shows that Germany’s triumph is absolutely inevitable. Every event in the field on all sides indicates clearly the ultimate triumph of the German arms, and when the day of victory comes Germany will prove that she has never aimed at the military domination of the world, and that her one supreme desire is to continue to develop science and art, to raise the productive power of her industry and her-commerce, and to continue the peaceful development of the resources of civilisation and culture.’ The President of the Reichstag, Herr Johannes Kaempf, talks loudlv to the same effect. In a short address delivered at the opening of the Reichstag on March 10, the President said ; ‘ln the west from the Vosges to the Channel, and in the east from the Baltic to Bukowina, our armies and those* of our allies are standing like a wall of steel and iron. In*the south the Turkish army is guarding the Dardanelles, which a great AngloFrench fleet is vainly attempting to conquer. An army is also threatening the Suez Canal and Egypt, which has become the prey of the. British Empire. Germany is not to be conquered by starvation. Our enemies did not reckon with our economic strength, with the organised strength of our agriculture, commerce, and industry, the unity of the nation, and our firm determination to win. Our sacrifices are gigantic, but on the bloodsoaked battlefields a lasting peace is springing up which -will load our great and beloved Fatherland to new and flourishing power.’ Dr. Karl Heiffcrich, Secretary of the Imperial Treasury, in his speech presenting the budget, followed in. similar strain. ‘No policy of starvation or strangulation,’ he concluded, ‘ will succeed in shutting off Germany’s life breath. An honorable peace will amply atone for all sacrifices and the future will be ours.’ Finally, -we are told that the German people themselves, banking on Hindenburg’s prowess to defeat Russia, are filled with a quiet but unquestioning confidence as to final victory. *To the neutral American, intent onlv on finding out the truth,’ says the correspondent of the New York Times, writing from Berlin under date February 12, * the most thoughtprovoking feature here (overlooked by foreign correspondents because of its very featureless obviousness) is the fact that Germany to-day is more confident of winning than at any time in the three months I have been

here. ; This confidence must not be confused with cocksureness it is rather the “looking forward with quiet confidence to ultimate victory," as General von Heeringen phrased it. Even more important is the corollary that, while the Germans have apparently never had any doubt that they would win out in the end, this ultimate victory" does not seem so far off to them to-day as it did three months ago.’ \ . Germany and England This correspondent is good enough to indicate just how this ‘ ultimate victory ’isto be brought about ; and his statement is interesting as showing the very special place occupied by England in the German viewpoint. ‘ There are many indications,’ he says, ‘ that the wellinformed layman expects 1915 to see the wind-up of the war, while I have talked with not a few professional men who have expressed the opinion that the war will be over by Summerexcept against England. This unanimous exception is significant because it indicates that to the German mind the war with Russia and France is, in prize-ring parlance, a twenty-round affair which can and will be won on points, whereas with England it is a championship fight to a finish, to be settled only by a knock-out; The idea is that Russia will be eliminated as a serious factor by late Spring at the latest, and then, Westward Ho ! when France will not prolong the agony unduly, but will seize the first psychological moment that offers peace with honor, leaving Germany free to fight it out with the real enemy, England, though as to how, when, and where the end will come, there is less certainty and agreement. Some think that the knockout will be delivered in the shadow of the Pyramids ; others, and probably the majority, believe that the winning blow must be delivered on English soil itself.’ All of which merely serves to show that prophecy, and especially war prophecy, is the most gratuitous form of folly.