GERMANY MUST FAIL

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2346, 31 December 1914, Page 6

GERMANY MUST FAIL

, THE REASONS WHY "OUR FORCE WILL KILL THEIRS." This interesting discussion of tho reasons why Germany must fail by M. Henri Bergson, was published in tho "Figaro" on November 4:— The issue of tho conflict is not doubtful—Germany will succumb. . Material and .moral force, everything which is sustaining her, will in the end fail her, because she is living ou provision nvulo, because she is exhausting that provision and has no means of renewing it. Of, her material resources, ■ all has been sold. She has money, but her credit fails, and no ono can see where she is to borrow'. She needs nitrates for her explosives, fuel for her motors, food for her sixty-five million people; for all this she has made provision; but tho day will come when her granaries will bo empty and her reservoirs dry; how will she refill them? War as 6he is practising it entails a frightful consumption of men. Yet even here recuperation is quite "impossible ; no aid is coming to 'her from outside because an enterprise launched tor the imposition of German ruie, of German "culture," and of Gorman products is only of interest and will be of interest to what is German. Such is the situation of Germany face to face with a France who is maintaining her credit, and whose ports are open, who prooures victuals and munitions, as'she wants them, who reinforces her armies with all that her Allies .bring her, and who,- because her cause is the cause of humanity, is able to count on ever more and moro active sympathy from'the civilised world.

' But if this is thecaso with the .material force-which we see, what can be said of the -moral.force which, we do not see, but which is of greater consequence, inasmuch as it can, to a certain extent, make good the want of material force, and without material force itself is worth nothing? The.moral energy- of nations, like that of individuals, is only sustained by an ideal higher and stronger than they are, to which they, cling firmly when they feel their courage growing weak.

What.is the ideal of tho Germany.of to-day? The time has gone when her philosophers proclaimed the inviolability of right, the supremo dignity of the person, the obligation on nations to respect one Germany militarised by Prussia has' cast far from her those noble ideas, ideas which, moreover, for the most part she received from the France, of the eighteenth century and of the Revolution. -She has formed for herself a iiew soul, or rather she has accepted with docility that which Bismarck has given her. To that statesman is attributed the famous saying "Might: is right." But, in fact, Bismarck never used it, for he was most careful to. distinguish right .from might; in his view, right was simply what the strongest wants, what-is embodied by the conqueror in the law which he imposes.on the conquered. A whole ethic is summed up ill that Germany at the present time knows ho other. Hers is the cult of brute force. And as she believes herself the strongest, she is entirely absorbed in self-, adoration. Her energy comes from her pride. Her moral force is only the confidence which her material' force inspires 'in her. And this'means that in this respect also she is living on her reserves; she has no means, of'recruiting. Even be-fore England had begun tho blockade of her coasts, she had blockaded herself morally by isolating herself from every ideal capable of revitalising her. We see her, then, wasting at once both her strength and her courage. But the energy of otir soldiers is drawn from something which does not waste, from .an : ideal of justico and liberty.' Timo has no grip on us. To force sustained only by its own brutality we are opposing a force which looks outside itself and above itself to a principle of life and renovation. While the one is being gradually consumed, tho other is being continually renewed. The ono is already giving way,< the other remains unshaken. Have no fear, our force will kill theirs."