The Dominion. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1918. PORTENTS IN GERMANY

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 117, 4 February 1918, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1918. PORTENTS IN GERMANY

Rkpokts dealing with the strikes in Germany embody many contradictions. Estimates of' the numbers on strike vary widely, and this is typical of the news as a whole. We are informed almost in the same breath that German , trade union leaders generally are .-hostile to the strikers, and that many of these same leaders have been imprisoned. HINDBNBUKG is quoted .13 warning tbe strikers that they are weakening- Germany and allowing the enemy to murder their brethren in the trenches, but the view is taken by a section of the London Press that the strikes are camouflage, designed to incite revolt and stimulate the spread of pacifism in British industrial districts. -It is interesting in. this connection lhat Gennama, the Berlin organ of the Centre Party, asserts that the strikes were a blessing for the employers, who were about to shut down their works for several days owing to a coal shortage. Probably, however, no great mistake will bo made if it is assumed that the truth is in general to be found somewhere between the extremes presented in conflicting reports. Industrial disorders'in Germany will only assume decisive importance when the German workers accept the advice said to have been tendered them in a strike leaflet, and rise en viasse against their tyrants. It is highly probable, also, that the German Government is making the most of the present strikes as a means of influencing opinion in, Allied countries. But it would be credulous to believe, as some British newspapers are apparently prepared to do, that this is the whole story, »u« that the strikes are simply an elaborate and. wholly deceptive demonstration, stage-managed in every detail by the autocratic rulers of Germany. The news of the next day pr two may quite conceivably show that the German people have not yet developed an effective spirit of revolt, but such evidence would by no means warrant an opinion that they are incurably submissive in their slavery, and that a great popular revolt in Germany is outsido the range- of practical possibilities.

There is a school of thought in Britain and in some other Allied countries which ridicules the idea of a popular revolt in Germany, and assumes, in the words of an English writer, that German opinion is a solid block which moves as a whole in obedienco to official mechanism. Exponents of this view seem very often to confuse ideas which are in fact distinct. They aro at pains to show that the word "democracy" has no real meaning in Germany, and that the masses of the German people show no sign of aspiring to democratic freedom as it is understood in the British Empire or the United States. For instance, Mr.' Hilaike • Belloc declared not long ago in an article in .Land and Water that it was the wildest nonsenso to say that the German peoples were the unwilling slaves of an unpopular tyranny.

Tho Prussianised Gorman Empire (ho added) is the most homogeneous State in the world. It likes jts form of government; its form of government suits it, and even whore thero is criticism it is essentially "tho criticism of the household." Thero is no shadow of renl opposition to, or real dislike of, what is an essentially .national, and to them satisfactory, form of Rovernment. The Moral Constitution, the large local autonomy, the long-established hereditary families, and the dynasty of the Eohenzollerns at tho head-every part of tho organism is thoroughly popular and 6trongly supported by tho peoplo. Wo may, and it is to bo hoped that wo shall, destroy this organisation precisely because it is strong. Its strength hns very nearly meant the undoing of Europe. But to Bay that in destroying it we aro giving back freedom of nationnl expression to the Germans is a falsehood. They have never hud so high a power of self-expression, nor have been so truly themselves as in the present war. In so far as they emphasise an absence of democratic impulse or , tendency in the German peoples,

• tho accuracy of these observations may be admitted. But the question at stake is not whether the German peoples can be awakened to democracy as it is understood in countries that are politically more advanced, but whether they arc likely to go on yielding blind and unquestioning submission to a tyranny which was admittedly popnj lar while it was successful and • brought prosperity now that these conditions have been radically changed for the worse. The people, of the German Empire approved the policy of militarism as long as it seemed likely to succeed and yield rich plunder. Theyjiavc applaiiijcd outrages and in' many ways shown themselves in full sympathy with the worst crimes of their Government. For such a people democracy, and what democracy stands for, can have little meaning or appeal, but to assiimo that they will indefinitely endure the horrors and hardships of a war in which they no longer hope "for victory is to regard them as not merely undemocratic, but as submissive in a degree to which history .affords no parallel. The Russian Revolution is a late and conclusive example of the fact that revolt against autocracy is perfectly possible in a nation which democracy has hardly touched. We cannot pretend at the moment to measure the precise import and significance of the present strikes in Germany. But to suppose that they are merely Government camouflage and of no importance as indicating a rising spirit of revolt in Germany would be to run counter to reason and to a great body of evidence to the .contrary. In spite of counter-suggestions, there is much in the reports of tliu last few days to suggest a genuine upheaval, suppressed with difficulty. The camouflage theory is far from explaining everything. It is not to be supposed, for instance, that tho German Government organised a propaganda denouncing] its own expressed desire for peace as "only a mask." Neither can it be supposed that it selected this moment to incite the (Socialist leader, Here Haase, to expose the fact in the Reichstag that Dr. Michaelis, the Chancellor who publicly assented' to the Reichstag resolution in favour of peace without annexations, sent a memorandum to Austria declaring that Germany regarded extensive annexations in South-Eastern Europeand in France as an essential condition of peacCi It is notorious that the existing political parties in Germany, including the Majority Socialists, are part and parcel of ii>o machinery of autocracy, .but even in the dealings of the German Government with these .parties it is evident that it is no longer endowed with the unchallenged authority which it exerted at the outbreak of war. From unashamed sabrerattling it has passed to professions of devotion to peace and talk ol" disarmament and arbitration. An immediate explanation of the change appears in the attitude of the Reichstag Majority, but the essential question at stake is not how long the German Government is capable of juggling with policy to tho satisfaction of existing political parties, but how long it can induce the mass of the; population to endure the frightful burdens of the war. Making all necessary reservations, the present industrial upheaval is an impressive addition to existing evidence that the German masses are becoming increasingly restivo under these burdens and increasingly inclined to revolt.