The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24, 1912, GERMAN EXPANSION.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1345, 24 January 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24, 1912, GERMAN EXPANSION.

Just at present ifc is difficult to say whether one should credit the Saturday Review's latest revelation concerning diplomatic relations between Britain .and Germany. According to a cable which we published yesterday, the Saturday has declared that Portugal, at a date not specified, offered to German enterprise, for a valuable consideration, her African colonies of Angola, San Thome, and Principe, and that Sir Edward Giiey privately intimated that Great Britain would oppose the deal. Now, recent files of English newspaper,", contain evidence that Great Britain would not have been likely to adopt such an attitude. Lord Haldane told an audience at Accrington, on December 9, that,the oversea expansion of Germany was actually desired by the British Government. The righ'ts of other people, he' said, must be respected, but there were largo limits. "The thing he most desired was to see Germany expand herself oversea, and make her- beneficent influence felt in distant parts of the world. He considered that there could be nothing better than that we and Germany should work side by side in raising the level in more remote and less civilised parts of the globe where the field was open;" In these words the Secretary for War went further than the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary in their repeated declarations that the Government is not jealous of German expansion. But Mr. Haldane did not go on to indicate where the field is open, and it is really rather difficult to see where Germany could expand territorially without violating the rights of other Governments, unless 'she could take ' advantage of such an offer as that alleged to have been made by Portugal. The whole question of German expansion was discussed by the Spectator on the very day of Lord Haldane's speech, and the paper's reference to Portuguese Africa was particularly interesting For ourselves, we will Bay bluntly, declared the Spectator, "that we should have no objection to German expansion in those huge slices of Africa which are nominally held by Pprtugal, but of which she in reality holds only the coast and a few posts in the interior, and holds them largely in the interests of slave raiders and kidnappers." The spectator considered that Portugal, by her toleration oi slavery and slave-raiding, had forfeited both her moral right to these possessions and her claim upon Britain as her ancient ally. Accordingly, "some rearrangement and redistribution of Portuguese territory under a European agreement," would, the Spectator thought, be a good way of allowing Germany what has been fancifully called "a place in the sun," but it feared that Liberal and Pacifist opinion, overlooking the question of slavery, would say that Germany must not be encouraged to act a predatory part. . AVhere, then,' is Germany to expand? The Spectator, taking the map of the world, sets out to answer the question. "Why not give her Ualfisch Ray, that small British possession which is set so inconveniently.inI tha midst of Germany's oouth African colonies?" Because to do so would rouse such a storm of indignation as might lose us British South Africa. Why not abandon the British, portion of New Guinea ? Australia and New Zealand to a man would protest. And so on, all round the Empire. '-'Possibly Imperial opinion might consent to some rearrangement of our possessions on the West Coast of Africa by way of exchange, but further than this it would be impossible to go in the way of surremlenng what is our own to Germany." Could we help her to acquire any of the possessions of other people? After dealing with Portuguese South Africa, as above, the Spectator mentions the Belgian Congo, and claims that as the Leopoldian rt'i/imr is done with, and Belgium is not flagrantly misusing her colonial possessions, it would be impossible to suggest that, merely because she is small and weak, she should be ousted. As for China, "if Germany were rash onough to embark upon an attack upon the giant who is just now awakening so uneasily from hisslpcp, we can hardly doubt ihat Russia, Japan, and America would bar (he way. ... It is not we who are the obstructives." In South America the obstacle to German expansion is the United States, with its MoN'noK Doctrine There remains Asia Minor, where Germany iilI'eady has large interests, and Hie Spectator thinks that if Germany could 3xuajiEc tuaicably with Tur-.

key for an Asia Minor protectorate, Britain would nut object. Summed up, tile Spir/tiltir'.i survey of flu: world goes to show that, I lie re is not much room for German expansion, but "it is the force'of circumstances and not Britain which enters the caveat." But the most interesting noint in the Spectators argument is that Germany! does not really desire colonial expansion at present. She has not asked for any particular part- of the world to expand in, but- she finds it convenient to have a grievance against Britain. ''It would suit our purpose admirably for Germany to acquire more colonies and more • coaling stations abroad, and so dissipate her naval force. On the other hand, it would not pay Germany to enter upon a policy which would lead to such a dissipation of energy." An oversea empire could not he securely held without sea power, and therefore, the Spectator argues, Germany's policy is, first to obtain naval supremacy. That once accomplished, either by a war or by immense shipbuilding, colonial cxpan sion would come easy. _ Interesting and well-reasoned as this theory is, certain evidence that has come' to light since the Spectator article was written does not fit in very well with it. It appears that after the dispatch of the German warship Panther to Agadir, Hem: Kidkj'j.en von Waeciiter informcd'a journalist that ho "wanted Mogador at least," and the German Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs told the Pan-German League, "We want Morocco." Of course, it may be said that these assertions were merely designed to make the most of the "grievance," and that the German Foreign Office only "wanted Morocco" because it knew that Morocco was not to bo had. However that may be, the cable published a day or two ago showed that these Ministerial statements, which came out in the coursc of a libel action in Berlin, were taken as serious expressions of German policy. _ Moreover., it was shown in a discussion in the French Chamber of Deputies on December 14 that Germany had repeatedly pressed France for a large cession of territory in the French Congo as a compensation for acquiescing in a French protectorate in Morocco. What' was eventually decided, according to the statement of M. de Selves, the then Foreign Minister, was that any changes in the conventional basin of the Congo should be discussed by all the Powers. Another objection to the Spectator's theory is that the German Government, in its endeavours to popularise a big naval programme might find it convenient to be able to point to more colonies requiring protection. In any case, it seems to be prettv certain that the new Reichstag will be asked to_ provide money for a considerable increase of naval armament.