GERMANY AND BRITAIN

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 77, 26 December 1918, Page 5

GERMANY AND BRITAIN

LATE HERR BALLIN'S VIEWS ;

HIS COUNTRY'S FOLLY DENOUNCED

The late Herr Albert Ballin's views on Germany's folly, as shown in Eer policy towards Great Britain and America, are contained in a letter dated Hamburg, December 4, 1917, and addressed My dear Herr Gehpimrat" (understood to be Privy Councillor Dr. Rathenau, Berlin). The letter is as follows: _ "You honour me in asking me to express an opinion regarding the probable course of our economic policy after the war. But I cannot do this in any satisfactory or sufficient way within the brief compass of a letter. All I can do is to jot down a few thoughts that striko me as being applicable to tho present 6M 'oiie situation. I must say at once that neither in this city nor in any other part of the country do I find a definite or well-conceived plan of action for the j-e-establishment of after-war economio relations, nothing advocated which can be adopted without gravo misgiving as to its feasibility. Most of what we read in the newspapers as to our preparedness for embarking on brisk trade and manufactures as soon as peace has been concluded is, I fear, written with the manifest intention of . heartening our people, who are notoriously ignQTant of our actual economic conditions, and all that threatens them. . "Take, for example, that branch of commerce with which I am supposed to be familiar—shipping. What sorry hes have been dished up to our people on this .subject: One reach of the resounding hamnier stroke of riveters as they workat the creation of new leviathans for our overseas commerce. Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Danzig, Stettin' are supposed to be buzzing with shipbuilding. Not long ago one journal asserted that nearly 400,000 tons were almost ready for launching. And there is hardly a vestige of truth in any of these statements. Our yards .are only working for the Navy, and as for other ships, we have not the material or accommodation, and, above all, we liave not tho necessary labour, 6killod and unskilled. "Believe me when I say that our mercantile marine is in a perilous condition. The Bill to re-establish and strengthen it, which is now before the Reichstag, evon if passed in its integrity, .will Ghow no results for at least five years, and it is in these five years that our fate will be most adversely influenced. What will not our great maritime- competitors make of these five years—Great Britain, the States. Japan? What will not neutrals make of them—neutrals who have enormously added to their reserve capital—Norway, Denmark, Holland? _ I almost despair when I think how different it all might have been.. You and I were never advocates of this fatal policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. You will remember how. I went to Berlin to seek to stay the hand of the authorities. I begged;them to reflect, and they told me the country insisted on it. This was not truD. I pointed out how it would inevitably draw America into the conflict. They pooh-poohed me, smiled at America, and scorned her threat. Do they smile -now?. Let me tell you that it is my oninion the entry of the United ■States into* this struggle may spell absolute disaster for us.

"Our people havo little or no knowledge of the American character. You and I have made a most careful study of it. What stuff our publicists and journalists write about their Mammon worship, their greed, their envy of other nations, their lack of discipline—oh, that blessed word, discipline! You and I know that the Americans are probably the most idealistic nation on the earth's surface. We know that they would riot have entered the lists of our foes had they any doubt as to,the justice of the cause. Nonsense to say they "have been influenced by Britain, We are mad'not to see. where we are and whither we are.driving. .In antagonising America we have done a disastrous thing, a thing which will throw its cold shadow on our economic life for a generation. "But if I am concerned about our relations with the United States, I am still more anxious about our relations with Britain. I realise as never before that all the increase in our wealth, all the success which attended our enterprise in the yeats before the war, was owi.ng to our intercourse with the British Elnpire. Her Home ports, her dominions and colonies" wer.fi freely opened to our shippers and traders.. Sometimes I wondered at this generosity and even called it folly. Is it to be imagined for a moment that those old relations ivill return? / "I am not to be supposed as saying one word in favour of Britain's policy in this war. I believo that she entered it from some base motive. Not for a moment do I believe in her liumanitarfanism, her alleged desire to liberate or protect small nationalities. Britain is a Rreedy und unscrupulous Powet, as all her pfcst history proves, but now I am only dealing with the fact that by our conduct of the war. bv the insensate folly of our Pan-Germans, and out unspeakable Press, we have turned her inborn dislike of us into a loathing so cold, and fierce, and lasting, as sometimes to mako me tremble for the whole future-of our economic existence. "Consider what ,we are risking. We look forward to resuming our sea trade. Wo build our proudest expectations on this. How are we to resume it in face of an Anglo-Saxondom which loathes, and' must loathe, " our presence' among them ? Do our fools of Chauvinists realise that we have hardly a port at which our ships can call, and where friendly welcome will be extended to them? Dover, Falmouth, and Southampton, Gibraltar, Malta, and Alexandria, Aden, the Persian Gulf, Bombay, _ and Colombo, Singapore, and Hong-Kong—what are they? Great British arsenals, naval bases, coaling stations, repairing • docks in which we dare not show our faces if Britain so wills. It is the same around the African continent, the same in tho .West Indies, and in the Pacific. Wo Jiave not a coaling station of our own, not a place where we can effect repairs— Yet in face of this—a: most deadly and serious state of affairs—we go on piling up offence on offence. ."But we must beat England, you say, no matter what the consequences. I ,agree. All I say is that whether we beat her or she. beats us, the consequences will be the same—disaster to our overseas trado if Britain so wills it. We may, in the event of victory, impose all sorts of conditions, securing us most-fav-oured-nation treatment, securing us entry into British ports everywhere. No sane man believes that these conditions will help us.

."And just one point more, and it is, perhaps, quite as serious. With a hostile British Empire, galled and fretted with our military success, raging at its losses, hopelessly alienated, how are we to' procure the raw material which tliis Empire alono can supply? You have studied this question, and I am sure of your agreement. You do not believe in the silly assertion that after the -war these British markets for raw material will be open to us. 1 ,Where are we to procure our supplies of jute,' if not from India? If we are driven from Africa, where , aro we to seek our full supplies of rubber, palm kernels, and copra? "What a prospect! Within tho British Umpire aro produced countless articles on which we heve hitherto relied, and which will be indispensable.in tho future if we aro to swim and not sink. Wool from South Africa and Australia; spelter, -wolfram, nickel, cobalt, and endless more. That great Empire' is selfcontained, and we arei not, and all tho military victories, and all the wild will-o'-the wisps about 'Hamburg to Bagdad,' will, not help us.. - "1 remain, my dear Gehoimrat, etc., 6 "ALBERT BALLIN."