MAKING FRIENDS AFTERWARDS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3188, 12 September 1917, Page 8

MAKING FRIENDS AFTERWARDS

AN AMERICAN ON SENTIMENTAL PRO-GERMAN REACTIONS (By Francis Grid-son, in tho "Morning Post.") As some of us expected, a reaction has set in against the prosecution of the war by tho most drastic. means—a reaction based on the old sentimental reasons that made people use traps that cause the death of rodents without tho infliction of pain. History is being repeated with formal precision. Tho sentimentalists who conjured Lincoln to end the War of Secession when it was only half won. aro with us once more. But tlieir number "has increased with the years, and the danger now lies in the fact that their influence is being felt both in England and America —the same classes are ftt work in both countries, nishops and clergymen, editors, senators, authors, members of Parliament, and professors, the one aim being how not to inflict punishment on the rodcuts that have been gnawing at the vitals of' humanity for the past threo years. I am writing this as a warning to people in England who may be thinking of nibbling at the sentimental bait the Teutons have already put forth emitting, a_s it does/the tempting flavour of social comradeship, international fraternity, and good feeling after the war. . , Talking with Germans now m Washington who held situations in 3xll clou the outbreak of the war, one is struck fiumb with , their naive complacency in regard to everything English,: to say nothing of America. Talking with » German manager at a fashionable restaurant hero, who was engaged at the kftvoy when hostilities began, he was asked what he intended doing after the war. The wry thought made him smile from ear to ea as ho responded: "Roturn to London, of course; there is no placo like it. "And you really think yon can go back and take up your old occupation?. "Why not?" he said, "everything will go on just as before; it is easy to placate the English." . , • , . , I mention this one instance as typical of] hundreds that have come t? my l'.otice in America since the beginning ot the war. The naive assurance ot Teuton is such that lie firmly believes his presence and his money will bo v 'Ci' corned in Paris and London m tho future as in the past, and that he can resume the old game with the rid caids as they were left on the table at the. sounding of the order for general mowneation. This is tho appalling parooox. The fact that, to. a German, _ die war means nothing more than a pnze-uglit in which the opponents shako hands before and after! But'the difference between German naivete and Anglo-Amencan sentimentality is this—the «.®™ aa ,. s , ports his naive assurance with ruthless scientific methods, while the eentimenta - ity of England rnd America is oased en tho illusion that' the Teutonic temperament can be won over to -sivilmtion bj fine words and fine feelings. Not mora than a fourtli of the educated people ot Britain and America realise tho extent and the meaning of tho new terror uhich faces Anglo-American institutions anu m- / terests. I wish to utter a vehement protest against the milk-sop morality of permitting this modern Huns and \ andals to do all tho killing, all the smashing, all tho uprooting. ' "Unless the crocodile li*u6 of the Prussian is pierced by the same weapons he uses on others our sentimentalists will be deceived by tbe crocodile tears later on. , , Already Prussian psychology has started on a new lino of tactics. The teutons, at their wits' end for fresh dodges to fool tho people, have hit upon another idea, not one whit less naiv© than the old ones, of putting the Empress Zita forward as the champion of a patclied-up peace, for someliow- the Germans ,do grasp tho fact that English and American women aro the most sentimental in the world, therefore quite likely with their present political power to influence AngloAmerican opinion. They would off-set the brutal blunders of the degenerate old Emperor with the blushing virtues of tho young Empress, forgetting in their infantile' psychology that without Austria there, never would have been a Balkan imbroglio and wonld-war raging at this moment. And they have the effrontery to make the new Empress ask in all seeming sincerity: "Why prolong this terrible bloodshed? Why continue to create more "unhappiness?' All which tallies with the sentiments of tho German restaurant manager in Washington, who is firmly convinced that, a bold front and a mealy tongue will overcome all obstacles in London_ later on. The rude truth is that, strictly speaking, thero is no such thing as feu tonic sentimentality to-day. It disappeared with Bismarck. But the Prussian puis his faith to the sentimental -e.vtion which he v calculates is due about this time in England and America. _ For this reason the Sick Man of the immediate future will not be the Grand- Turk but the modern Prussian, as soon as he realises that the true inwardness of his mock psychology and imbecile naivete have been revealed to political and philosophical world'. But in order to insure tho complete collapse nf his beastly comedy he must bo placed hors de combat on his own ground. The least sign of sentimemal Tvenkness will mean a refrirn of the war under some new guise in the jot distant future. And, besides all this, let people who liav<* forgotten eternal maxims of the Bible, call ,to mind jus one saying: "The sins of tjie be visited on the children unto <he third and - fourth generation." The .Prussians and the Austrians mnst be compelled 1o undergo the consequences of their crimes for a hundred years to come.