THE REASON WHY!

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2486, 12 June 1915, Page 11

THE REASON WHY!

The more intelligent of the Germans nre constantly asking why it is that the world does not love Germany. The experience of Ellen Key, a prominent Swedish feminist writer whose works are particularly well-known and esteemed in Germany, makes it clear that it is quite useless to expect to do any good by answering the intelligent German's question. Ellen Key refers her German friends to the treatment of the people in the Danish districts of bchleswig Holstein, where the oppressive conduct of the Prussian authorities is far more severe and illegal than anything the Finns have ever suffered. She cites also the Prussian methods in Poland and in Alsace-Lorraine, and concludes: ''Those who, tilco me, love tho Germanic spirit in the German peoplo know that Germany's most dangerous enemy is not Moscow or London, but Potsdam." Tho reception given in Germany to this candid and friendly criticism is quite characteristic. The Munich "Neuesto Nachtrichten," for example, points out that Ellen Key owes her position in the literary world to Germans, and declares that as this is tho manner in which she shows her gratitude Germans will know how to treat her books in future. History abounds with proofs that ruin is tho inevitable end of any monarch or nation which, like Germany, will not listen to "true things" about itself, but only to "smooth things "