The Dominion. FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 1918. THE GERMAN COLONIES

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 234, 21 June 1918, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 1918. THE GERMAN COLONIES

$ The representatives o! New Zealand and other British Dominions who aro now in London arc faced by sorao more or less perplexing problems, but they can be under no uncertainty when tho disposal of Germany's former colonies in the Pacific is in question. Our own Ministers and those of the Commonwealth in affirming as they havo done that these islands must never revert to Germany are undoubtedly expressing a view that is held all but unanimously in the Dominions they represent—a view at all events that is strongly upheld by the great majority of thinking people. To. say that'tho islands must not be returned to Germany is not, of course, to say that thoy must of necessity bo annexed by tho x ßritish Empire or must be placed under its protection. No doubt, as Mlt. Massey contends in a speech reported today, the best solution of the problem would be to place _ the _ islands and the people who inhabit them under British rule, but tho question is one for the Peace Conference to decide. What is essential is that Germany should not bo allowed to regain her foothold in colonies which were chiefly important from her point of view as strategic'bases from which to develop at a fitting opportunity her schemes of world empire. In the simplest terms the restoration to Germany of her Pacific colonies' would mean from the point of--vicw of the people of Australia and Now Zealand that wo were giving her an opportunity of attacking us at her own time and in circumstances highly advantageous to herself. Naturally wo aro keenly averse to such a folly, and our representatives in London have laid no more than just

I emphasis upon our attitude and desires in the matler. Our attitude is in the fullest sense consistent- with the universal determination of the Allied nations that at the end of this war every effort shall be made to create conditions in which war will be- impossible. It is the core of the- matter that her former colonies in the Pacific were from,the first chiefly important to Germany as elements in her organisation as a world-Power bent on aggression and conquest. As affording scope for peaceful development they are comparatively unimportant, but they are so placed, practically at our doors, that wo have every right to enunciate in regard to them just such a doctrine as the United States' does in regard to the continents of NVirth and South America. General Smuts drew an analogy which must appeal to any reasonable man when he declared that a new Monroe Doctrine- should be applied to the Pacific. ,

If Germany at the end of the war is prepared to co-operate in laying the foundations of future pca'ce— and she will certainly not reach that frame of mind until the Prussian military caste is overthrown— she will attach much less importance to her former Pacific colonies than is attached to them by her present rulers and those who support their policy. If, on the other hand, she talks of peace and professes her willingness to enter into an international pact to preserve peace, while at the samo time insisting on tho return of these islands, there will bo every reason to suspect that sho is merely using peace talk to cloak designs of renewed aggression and conquest at a suitable opportunity. It is probably well within the facts to say that the only parties in Germany who are determined that the Pacific colonies must at all costs be recovered are those who bear the- guilt of this war and will bring even, more terrible calamities upon the world if they arc- not finally crushed. Most interesting evidence on the subject was afforded yesterday in a cablegram which mentions that the German Government has officially recognised Ernest Kienetz's book on tho value of the "German South Sea Islands." The book is presumably to be regarded as an authoritative interpretation of German colonial policy. Its author is commissioned to reply to suggestions' that these islands "could be advantageously bartered for more substantial possessions elsewhere." He does so first of all by insisting upon the _ economic value and potentialities of Germany's former colonics in the Pacific, but he gets to the heart of the matter in tho frank statement that "the real value of our South Sea and Australasian possessions is to be found in other regions than the economic."

Wo must (ho conlinuos) hold them for world prestige, without which we cannot havo a world or colonial policy. Wo dare not disappear from the earth's greatest ocean, if only because of tho antagonism between China and Australia, between tho Anglo-Saxons and the Japanese. This antagonism must bo exploited to the utmost. Let lis therefore retain our South Sea possessions, an.l try to increaso tlicm. A design is hern shamelessly avowed which not only the British Dominions, but America, Japan, and all nations which desire to preserve tho peace of the world are vitally interested in defeating. To Herr Kienetz, whose book is officially recognised by tho Gorman Government, the real value- of this islands in the South Pacific from which Germany has been expelled is .as military and political bases recovering which Germany would bo favourably placed to exploit antagonisms between the British Dominions and America and the yellow races, and to increase her own possessions. Happily the war has done much to extinguish tho antagonisms that formerly existed or threatened to arise between the Far Eastern nations and the_ Anglo-Saxon races fronting the Pacific. Japan is loyally assisting the Allies to uphold'the ideals of liberty and civilisation which Germany has so basely betrayed and attempted to destroy, and we have every reason to believe that Germany's projects of setting white and yellow races by the cars are fantastic and incapable of realisation. Nevertheless such views as Herr Kienetz has- expressed afford all necessary justification for a solid determination that Germany's exclusion from tho Pacific shall be permanent. When in good time Germany is compelled to renounce her projects of world dominion her motive for contesting this determination will disappear. So long as she contests it no better proof will be needed that she is still under the domination of those to whom worldpolitics is a term synonymous with unscrupulous provocation and aggression.