IDEALS OF EMPIRE

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2339, 22 December 1914, Page 6

IDEALS OF EMPIRE

BRITISH AND GERMAN COMPARED LESSONS GERMANY MUSTEIS&RN. The arrival off Southampton yesterday of the first contingent of Canadian troops forms (says the "London Times" of October 9), the second obapter of the object lesson begun by tho Indian forces, aud furnishes another ocular proof of tho solidarity of the British Empire. The spontaneous and eager participation of the self-governing British Dominions and of the native Indian Princes in the war is a fact of much deeper significance than appears on the surface. It touches the underlying causes of this awful conflict, decides the question of right and wrong, and so makes certain tho eventual issue. For the student of political history and Iranian evolution, it is the weightiest of all the facts that are presenting themselves to his gaae in tho greatest drama the world has over seen. The fundamental struggle now being_ put to the hazard is- between two political ideals. Underneath all the surface incidents and influences that have involved nine nations in war, with as many more trembling on its margin, lies tho conviction of their Imperial destiny held by the Gorman people. This conviction, .deduced from history and confirmed by philosophy, has been methodically impressed on a people peculiarly susceptible to intellectual teaching, and has gradually taken possession of them. Tho Salt of the Earth. The destiny so held out can only be achieved by removing the obstacle of British rule, which blocks the way in every direction; and this can only be done _ by force, not by agreement or treaties, because nothing less than tho supersession of British by German rule is involved. Justification is found not merely in Germany's need of expansion, but in tho essentially false and immoral charactcr of British rule. According to the German reading of history, tho British Empire has been won by theft and trickery—tho other day English prisoners in Germany were received by the crowd with shouts of "colony thieves"—and is held together by weak rule. -Now—so runs the German theory—rule by a weak nation is wrong and contrary to the laws of development, and, therefore, contrary to the welfare of mankind. It. is immoral ; and such is the British rule, because the British are an effete, decadent, and worn-out people, who nave no right to a world-empire. Their Empire is, infaot, a sham. The interests of mankind and the future development of the human race demand that tho weak British rule should be swept away and superseded _by the strong rule which only tho virila German people—"the salt of the earth"—are able to exercise. Cermany's Lofty Mission. The plan for accomplishing this mora] and lofty mission was to crush France while Russia was fully engaged with Austria, occupy Belgium, and seize Algeria, thus gaining eimmand of a seaboard on . the North Sea, tho Channel, tho Atlantic,_ and the Mediterranean. In this position, with unlimited financial resources extracted from Franca, preparations for the subjugation of Great Britain could be carried out. at leisure and on a scale sufficient to command success. The plan was, as we all lmow, upset by the "scrap of paper" guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium, which brought the intended eventual victim prematurely into the fray' in company with the rest. "We have talien the field against Russia and France," said the "Hamburger Naohrichton" at the outset, "but at bottom it is England we are fighting everywhere." The ideas and intentions thus outlined have been set out by a great number of German writers and speakers, of whom only one, General von Bernhardi, appears to bo well known to English leaders, and ho is one of the most moderate and judicial. A fuller exposition of German theories and policy may be found in Dr. Charles Sarolea's book on "Tho Anglo-German Problem" and Professor Cramb's'"Germany and England." General von Bernhardi is comparatively mild on the subject of Great Britain's failure as a World Power, but ho suggests that if hor hands were tied by a great war the "centrifugal, forces of her loosely compacted World Empire" might be set in motion, that the self-governing Dominions might seize the opportunity to cut themselves loose, and that a revolution would probably break out in India. In any case he thinks that the Dominions "can be completely ignored so far as concerns any European theatre of war." Views Put to tho Tost. Those viows have now been put to the test, and have proved to be totally false. The action of the Dominions, without exception, and of the nativo Indian rulers has conclusively. refuted them, and at'the same time triumphantly vindioated the British principles of Germany alone, but for the world' at large and for some of our own politicians at home. The miscalculation of Indian feeling is particularly instructive. Here wo have an irrefutable proof that the world-empire of Great Britain rests upon a far more stablo basis than superficial observers have supposed, and that the British ideal of world-power is tho true one. It re6ts on the twin principles of liberty and diversity, and it is these, not the opposite Gorman or Prussian principles of compulsion and uniformity, which are truly in keeping with the laws of human development. The German attempts at colonial expansion have been a lamentable failure because they violate those deep-seated principles, and the. German claim of a superior moral right to rule on the ground of superior strength is based on a superficial and fallacious conception of the nature of strength and weakness in world politics. If, indeed, we had borne ourselves cravonly in this crisis and had behaved as some of our politicians would have had us behave, the German estimate of our Imperial weakness might have been justified. The Indian rulers and tho Dominions have rallied to the flag because it is. manfully upheld in a just cause. The Germans will learn through bitter disillusionment that their teachers are wrong and that our apparently weak rule conceals a virility equal to their own and more stable becauso rooted in liberty. South Africa presento this lesson in tho most diVcand convincing form, because there the Boers, converted by British rule to be its enthusiastic supporters, aro defending it against the Germans, to whom they loolted as isavious before they knew what British rulo was like. Their choice i 6 as deliberate as it is decided, and no German thinker can honestly misread the lesson it contains or ignore the contrast it offers to Alsace-Lorraine under German rulo.