The Dominion. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1917. GERMANY'S INTERNAL PROBLEMS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 69, 14 December 1917, Page 6

The Dominion. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1917. GERMANY'S INTERNAL PROBLEMS

Poetic justice would be satisfied if Germany in her turn became a prey to the forces of anarchy she has done so much to foster and stimulate in llussia, and it seems not altogether impossible that this retribution may be in store. The attitude of tho German authorities in recent events and negotiations on the Eastern front certainly suggests uneasiness and an anxious desire to prevent free contact between their own soldiers and tho Russian revolutionaries, and the proposal of the Bolsheviki to flood the German lines with propaganda leaflets is perhaps not as harebrained as it may at first sight appear. The 'deas and appeals of the Bolsheviki are not likely to carry weight with tho citizens of any frco democracy, but this has no bearing on the case of Germany. Its people, and particularly those of tnem who are rendering ' military service, are suffering in full measure the evils invited by a nation which yields blind submission to military despots, and it does not seem extravagant to suppose that tho German soldiers about to be transferred to new fields of slaughter may see much in common between their own case and that of the Russians with whom they have been to some extent in touch. They may be more than a little inclined to hearken to tho promptings of the Russian extremists. It is ono of the penalties of the policy of crime and duplicity which Germany has consistently pursued that her people and armies aro wholly denied the inspiration and the steadying inlluence that como from the consciousness of a just cause. As a well-known neutral observer (Colonel Feyler) observed recently in a comparison between the German soldiers and those of tho Entente armies: "The German soldier is exhausting himself in a struggle _ in support of a cause which ho mistrusts, and can look to no ono to aid him. No one is inclined to help him to gain a victory for the lie of his chiefs. There is nothing behind him, no help, no support." This lays bare Germany's most fatal weakness. It is the supreme advantage of the Allies that they arc lighting for objects which they arc not only, able, but proud, to dcclaro in the light of day. Here and there detail dif-

ferences and dissensions may appear, but tliu dominating feature in the war organisation of the Allies is a united concentration upon objects and ideals which are approved, not merely on grounds of interest, but on grounds of the highest justice. Germany has no counter-balancing asset. She relics instead upon the habitual obedience of her people. It has been rendered hitherto almost irrespective of moral ideals and considerations, and the day of a real moral and political awakening in Germany may be distant. But the existing state of affairs on the Eastern front is an interesting addition to evidence already visible that the rulers of Germany are increasingly apprehensive that the habits of obedience in which the German people have been drilled and trained may give way under the sufferings and privations of the war. It need not be doubted that the German authorities are in fact desperately anxious tp make an end _of the fraternisation thoy have hitherto used as a weapon ou tho East front, and to prevent communication between their soldiers and the Russians. Events, of which the rccent naval mutiny is the most definite example, have made it perfectly clear that German discipline and obedience are not what thoy were in the clays when the Kaiser poured his legions into Belgium. Striking evidence to the same effect is afforded in recent political developments in Gormany. It is commonly agreed- that at their quietest the political conditions now being experienced in Germany are those of an armistice between contending parties. Even tho inspired newspapers of the Central Empires arc not able to ignore or hide the fact of acute political dissension. An example of their attempts to minimise it appears in a recent article in tho Neuc Frtc I'rcssc, which declared that tho real cause of thopassionato movement in Germany is the gulf that divides political parties in internal questionssuffrage reform and the Prussian Diet's views on the limits of Parliamentary power, and on the influence of the Reichstag. This may be accepted as part_ of the truth, but it is at least as important that tho German Government is in a hopeless dilemma owing to tho impossibility of reconciling its vague professions oi honesty and moderation with its studied and determined refusal to renounco the schemes of unbridled conquest with which it entered tho war. This has a bearing upon Germany's internal affairs as well as upon her external problems. Tho peace resolution passed by the Reichstag in July, though it fell far short of stating the terms of a peacc acceptable to tho Entente, marked the consolidation of a definite revolt against tho Pan-German extremists. To-day tho German Government is in the extraordinary position of at once parading the Rcichstag resolution and organising against it (to quote the Journal dc Geneve), "a monu-, mental propaganda, the immense cost of which is defrayed from an unknown source and the agents of which throughout the Empire arc Government officials and soldiers." This is an allusion to tho recentlyformed "Fatherland Party,''' of which a good deal has been heard of late. This so-called party is in fact a lato addition to the German machinery of State. Its working methods are illustrated by an account given in the Ktcuz Zeituuq of a meeting held at Dusscldorf to further its causc. Tho chief speaker was a Catholic priest'named Engel, and the following are extracts from his speech as reported in the Kreus leitwng \

Wars such as the present break out \\ lieti nations with groat vital interests como into collision in irreconcilable conflict. _ If we were to come to an understanding now we should not really conclude peace; wo should agreo to an armistice. \Vo shall hftvo peace only when ono of tiie belligerent Powers is utterly defeated. It is either England or we. There is room only for a few races on earth. If wo should now renouneo tho intention of acquiring territory and indemnities our future would bo a miserable one. Every one of our soldiers went into tho war with tho conviction that his children should bo better off than lie. If you are convinced, as I am, that the future of Germany cannot be assured bv piper agreements, and can bo assured only by real power, then join tho Fatherland Party. Tho creation of the Fatherland Party is in fact an effort to defeat and overwhelm whatever forces of moderate and liberal opinion are rising in Germany by a clamour of propaganda, and it is safo to conclude that the German autocrats, have not launched this new political venture without feeling the spur of a very definite necessity. A culminating touch is added to the involved and self-revealing policy of the German Government in the fact that tho spokesmen of tho Fatherland Party have made no secret of tho fact that it is one of their leading aims to prevent the democratisation of Germany. By the tactics to which it has been rcduccd after a long course of dissimulation, tho German Government is doing not a littlo to demonstrate the truth and justice of the contention repeatedly emphasised by Allied statesmen and expounded by President Wilson in a series of eloquent- speeches, that tho leaders and factions in Germany who sought to enslave the world are identified with those who seek to perpetuate the political slavery of the German people. Even in Germany such a demonstration should be not without effect in stimulating the forces which are making, though perhaps gradually, for revolution.