UNCULTURED KAISEROOM.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2360, 16 January 1915, Page 9

UNCULTURED KAISEROOM.

Sir, —I read Mr. Willis's letter "German, v. British Ideals," in this morning's Dominion with very great interest. I take tha object of his letter to bo to point out the necessity of a true recognition of tho tremendous vitality, scientific resourcefulness, intellectuality, and general power of the German nation, and the importance of--.we, her enemieß,. fully comprehending the stupendous task 'we have in hand in her subjugation. With these facts I fully agree. I would' add that if Germany can beat us so soundly in scientific methods of manufacture and commercial trading, a-i your correspondent suggests—and I do not dispute his facts—then we must not fight her in the' spirit of revenge, because of. this , superiority, or with the object of stifling this competition. To do that is toprocoed along lines of national decay. The law of natural progress will give victory to the side most likely to advance human progress. We must beat her in these respects by improved commercial, scientific, and intellectual methods, of which I fully believe the British nation is quite equal, and perhaps more than equal. Probably facts could be elioited to show that in other spheres than those quoted, on the same planes, we are more than holding our own, otherwise we would not have been able to hold our world dominance in commerce and manufacture, and incidentally in'war soience. But it was not jealousy of, recognition of„ or fear of any. supposititious German superiority in the respectß named that involved us in this war. It was merely oiir moral obligations. Germany, of oourse. bolds. that it' was the former- reason.

But I would chiefly point this' out: That any superiority the German nation may show must be traced to that portion of Germany which is not Prussia. I have gone to the trouble of looking up the biographies of all the great Germans, those who have really assisted in the culture of the world;, and 1 find that in music, philosophy, science, orientalism,, art jn all its branches, and in literature, those Germans who have given us so much are of the federated races who are now under tho heel, and at-the Beck and call of the Pomeranians, or Prussians. Only in tho. case of Niotzsche, and in one or two other similar instances, do we find tho Prussian. And we are fighting in this war the Prussian, or rather, the Prussian spirit, and not really Germany as the world of culture knows. Iter. A Saxon, or a Bavarian is no more a_ Prussian than a Bohemian is. Prussian spirit, a spirit of. brute, uncultured dominance, has successfully welded Germany together, and for tho moment overshadowed her traditional ideals—which has materialised culturo and brought superiority in this respect temporarily to the lower plane of ambition—but this very fact will bo one of • the causes of Germany's downfall. Those who know the-Southern Germans can the better understand how they, will view this war . Soon the Prussian will find himself only the leaven of enthusiasm in tho sullen, fighting miss of his Army. We must hammer at'the German until thevawakening comos, until tho'Prussian spirit in all its material brutality and crude ambition and tho awful error-of it is exhibited to tho rest of the German confederation. Tho German nation generally must inevitably pay the price of her .weakness in listening to the voice of the charmer, and turning aside to bow beforo the altars of tho Prussian Baal; already sho lias paid somewhat in her failure to add to tho culturo of the world during the last twenty years of Prussian dominance; but when the awakening comos it will mean forever the off-throwing of the Prussian yoke, and the end of uncultured Kaiserdom as the world knows it at present.—l am, etc., H T.B.D. Woiiiiuiton, January 15. 1915.