GERMANY FROM WITHIN

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2350, 5 January 1915, Page 9

GERMANY FROM WITHIN

THE ECONOMIC PRESSURE "A PATHETIC ADVENTURE" . SAffNiPfG DAVOFRiIiN" . An account of how tie Gennans who know the truth are awaking to the fact that the Kaiser and his Prussian militarists have phlrtged the German nation liitb a which liiiiSt moan ruin to hllj is ..told, in "The Mail", by a distinguished iiSUtrSl'citizfeii, a bhiikbr, who Spent the seven weeks previous to November 6 iil Gehfaariy. ••

"It would be a grave fallacy," he laid; "to judge Grithiaii affaifi by the Gertiian neWsJagers of to-day. They hiiiSt hot bhly lupgress what the Government does iiot want printed, but bra. required to publish practically that; and that only, which the 'GbVeriliheiit lays-Before them. I refer, of course; to news and views of all sorts bearihg;: bri the' war. Everything) for iiistarice; tending to suggest that.the rigours of war are filbivly blit stireTy. underriiiniiig the national ecohomic fabric is strictly contraband. It is that feature of the situation, naturally, which makes the liveliest appeal to the imagination, of a businessman. My everyday contact witli Germans, of my class; extending oyer.a period of. rnluiy weeks, leaves me firriily Convinced that those of them who inus£ know now realise that Germany has beoii plunged into & trilgic arid pathetic adventltre, EvSn.the great industrial-ists-tif Rhirielaild-Westphalia,. though many of their works are occupied iil the production of war-materials to a wholly unprecedented exteritj. are depressed arid melancholy bvbr the aivfiii. stniggle into which Gerniany has -been precipitated.

Delusions of General Staff, These are men who cannot be deluded by official optimism and bluster. They are meii accustomed to deai with facts, Nothing .else impresses them. What are the facts ? Tlio General Staff. told the great captains of industry,.who-iii ■Germany are hardly a less important factor in the conduct of a war . than the Staff itself, that tho plan of campaigii—reduced to essentials—lvas this: We shall smash Fralice within three weeks, then wheol about and deliver Russia a knockout 'blow before she Ms' had time to cpmplete her mobilisation. Belgium will offer only the resistance of sullenuess. England will iiot "come in" at all. The German Government had the positive assurance of leading Englishmen to that effect. Wei', this hammer-and-tongd programme has not come off. Cogs have, slipped at numerous vital points. Belgium's resistance, to begin .ivithj wa& niore tliail sullen. England did "come in." Paris was not occupied by August 25, alid Russia, far from being "knocked out," has not even reeled. Not a single one 'of the General Staff's objectives has been attained. Checkmated ill all directions, Germany has little but an enormous death-roll coiihtet'bitlance tile terrific effort the first 100 days of war have costlier. . .

• These are the immutab'e things which thinking, business Germans see and know. They know. more.than that. They realise that, thanks to a very far-see-ing economio aiid financial organisation, their trade and commerce have thus far —barring the annihilation of the German merchant marine—been dislocated perhaps to lib greater extent tllaii tho trade and commerce' of their enemies. .They look across the Atlantic and seo that oven America, as could not be otherwise iii a truly world-War, feels the blight of Europe and Asia's colossal blood-letting. But what Gorman industrial leaders a'so realise is that prolongation of the war into months and years must spell eventual ruin. the Pressure of Facts. I could See ho ti'acoMhiit Germany, as yet, has actually, felt the effcct of

her great adventure. But the cumulative effect of the conditions which war brings, especially now that intelligent Gerintuiß mow it is to be, a.prolonged struggle, is measured at its full Value. It is becoming increasingly plain to them that they cannot win; How can they P A military nation trained from the cradle iij> to Bblieve in thS iriight of numbers must, ■ riewed merely, from ■that standpoint, now see that the -odds are ovorwhelniihfely ; against them. Men like Baltin and Heineken, whose liners have been swept from the sSas as if by some all-devastating. hurricahe; people like the textile magnates of Westphalia arid Saxdhj'j whose looms are silent when no more American cot to h can be imported;- irim-miifcters like Krupp, Tliysseii, arid .Stirmesi felectrical magnates .like R-athenaii and .the SiSmfens-. Schtiiikfertsj .frhb ktlow. what imirit&vrtipted supplies of staple rdwstuff6lrorii abroad such as copper 'and petroleum mean; baiikers. like von Gwiniier and Furstfehb'ergj who know the havoc which the financing of war and stoppage of exports Work to German Credits at .Bflmi aiid abrodd—these nieri ar6 tindet nb. delilsitiriS a& to what the war is doing &nd will ,d<J; tiiet iriore it defelipsiiitb a protracted, VfeH»rjrUss affair of niere. giv&dnd-take on three, or four vast firing-lines. They are inmerisely patriotic) all of them. ' They ckniiot truthfully be described as down-hearted or hopeless. , They are not grumbling. But neither can they be said to be even remotely cheerful over the ultimate prospect. The war has hot yet sapped the prosperity at .the. zenith of which Business Germany found itself three arid a half'months ago. But. war Ms placed that prosperity in terrible jeopardy. England the Enemy. A m'an cannot tarry long iil Germany these days Without having _ it borne in upon him'with What, ferocious fury all classes of the population HMS England; .England is blamed for the collapse of the General. Staff's grand plan of campaign. To judge by the language and. the headlines of the Press, a stranger could hardly 'tell,that Germany's enemies included France and Russia. England is depicted as "the one and only foe." Everybody will tell you that on th'rbttlihg Englind all Germany's energies are now beingbent: The "great settlement" is to come frith her. It has become an idee fixe among I all strata of the iiatioii that England "organised" the war and herself went into it for the sheer purpose'of ruining a feared arid 'despised, coih&ercial rival. ' ■ . . , The Emperor William onoe said that Germany, would emerge from oven a successhii war set back.at least 50 years in her economic development. Kaiserworte are iiot soon -forgotten by, the Germans. When they recall the famous dictlim abbve ijUotdd, Md contemplate the eventualities of this struggle, they cannot, be.blaiiled, I thought, for gazing into the future with troubled eyes.