GERMANY TO-DAY

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 39, 10 November 1919, Page 5

GERMANY TO-DAY

CLOSE DP IMPRESSIONS OF A BEATEN NATION ■■■■

MENACE OF MILITARISM

I waited for the signing of -tho Peace .Treaty before going to, Berlin (states ' Madeleine Doty in (.he New York "Evening Post"). It .wo? three years since I had' been in Gormany. In the fall of 1816, in "the middle of the war, I traversed tho length and. brendth of tlio' land. I 6aw then that tho nation faced ruin. I wrote of. the. thin people, the Germane with flat stomachs and thin hands; I told of tho lack of groniso nntl 1 fat. of the slow starvation, of the internal decay, of the impending revolution. To-day that picture is a reality. Germany is a beaten land. Thin and listless people walk the streets, people with ■ haunted eyes. Aβ in the ancient davs ■ ■Rome's power slipped away, 6.0 Germany. ■ is declining. The houses need pnintinn. many factories are shut, the plumbinp is out of order, the people want food and clothes, nerves are on e<l2o. tho nation has reached rock-bottom, and grinds along on the roadbed. "" In addition to the enormous war casualties and deaths! from epidemics, between 1916 and 191* .763,000 havo died of starvation. The death-rate for tuberculosis has doubled. In 1917 alone 50.000 children between 1 and 15 years diod from slow starvation. These are the figures of the former Imperial Health Office. In Berlin. ' I arrived in Berlin early one morning after a night on tho train. Train travel is hideous.- Germany's unoiled cars and engines lave broken down. The good «mes have been given to the Allies. There are' but three fast trains a week. A fast (train is one that takes six hours instead of ten to cover a distance formerly done in two.. The good trains aro packed. People stand in- the corridors, and even-the compartments. <■ First-class is as crowded as third. Occasionally there is a sleeping-car, but that.car is" like a, needle in a havstack. I flat urj all night and thankfully raid a bribe of 2fl -marks for the seat. Under such conditions trade if? almost, impossible. Transportation of goods is at a standstill. •■ ■ .; Yet Berlin to the casual eye is not abnormal. There is more life than there was in the fall of 1916. Taxis and horsa. cabs move about the streets. People throng the avenuee. The restaurants, theatres, and moving picture shows are crowded, good food can be-had-at enormous prices, but this outer display of returning Ijfe and nrosperity is a crust beneath which is misery, hunger, restlessness,, and despair. Tn .the poor districts poor people struggle for food, thousands wander about seeking., employment, discharged soldiers sell newspapers or peddle cigarettes. The unemployment pension is 60 marks a week—less than 10 marks k day. For 10. marks one can buy a cake of. American soap, or 4 eggs ,or half a table d'hote dinner, or one-stocking. Industry is at a standstill, for .want of raw material. .Without raw material there is no production, without production thitre is no .money, without money food cannot be bought. Stores in Berlin are still open. In the windows are meagre displays of goods, but these f,oods are chiefly smuggled products. The prices are enormous. For a cotton waste, which here would cost a dollar, ono .pays five dollars. It is only the millionaires who can liva. Smuggled food and smuggled clothes still "make life possible for the rich, but the poor go unclad.- At, least half the school children have no shoes or stockings. The rest wear wooden shoes or sandals. The tap, tap'of the wooden shoe is ae familiar a sound in Germany as Japan. Even' young working women in the suburbs appear without shoes or stockings, or ■wear sandals on naked , feet. There are stories where Temnants of stockings are made into. one. whole-pair. ....-There, are , otW places where' clothes are turned. Many men's suits button from fight to left,' tell-tale evidence- o'f -'the turned coat—and "frequently it is their last suit. Table-cloths have ■■ the best hotels use paper ■ ones and paper napkins—and one towel a day is the allowance. In the' hospitals paper bandages and paper drewings are used.. The new-born baby of the poor must bo wrapped in paper. Under such conditions Germany is no longer proud. Tho strutting officer is gone. Gone are the aristocrats. There are no royal equipages, no elegantlydressed people, no bowing nnd, subservient men and women. Crowds that move in and out of the restaurants and hotels are the prosperous bourgeoisie. The power in Germany has miirrated to the traders, the business men, the capitalists. The Govern mont is no longot that of a Kaiser.- but it is out-and-out bourgeois and reactionary. It possesses not- one atom ! of Socialism. Seheidemann, with hi* title of leader of the- Majority Socialists, is a figurehead. He has bten the curtain behind which srather anew the foroes of greed and militarism. Militarism Not Dead. The one tilling- in Germany that is not dead is militarism. The Kaiser isgone, the working people are broken, but militarism is ramipanb. Ail the officera and under-ofticers who never risked their lives' • on the battlefield thrive and prosper. ' The business man lias poured out his money to build up, a new army. In the new army the desperately hungry find food, clothing, Twer, and cigarottes. The gossip is that a mil'ion men are already equipped.. It is a deadly irnny, for in its ranks are all the trained, drilled, 1 and arrogant Pan-German militarists. | Tinder-officers volunteer as privates. "We might os well die fighting," is their verdict' ' The great war against militarism has | only created a new and more deadly militarism, and these militarists poßsess the same old dream. They hop? to Wat their people again into submission, build nn army, and await the right moment. That moment is the day of the "revolution" in France. If that da-y comes, German militarism will turn and try. to smite France. The Goveiminent tales of Communist uprising, of desperate pjotis of the Left, are lies. They aro told to quicken the revolutionary spirit in France. Uprisings in Germany to-day are the riots of hungry and wretched people The masses, have no programmes, no plans. They want peace, they want food, they want work, they want to be. rid of tyranny at home. The Germans are a slow people.' They are not teuvneramenl- . ally and intellectually quick. They Imvo none of the Russian's ardent passion for freedom—this the German, , Govemmont knows. But it hides :t knowledge. Out of the spontaneous outbursts of the bun- , gry peotfe it creates stories of bloody terror of f;lio Loft. It does this for Allied consumntion. Tt nmkes an army necessary. It justifies the manufacture nf munitions, tho planting of maohine-iruns ond barbed wiro entanglements about the oity. It justifies the wholesale imprisonment and murder without trial cf ftnyono who has nn independent, thought. And Always the Spies. On the first night of my arrival in Berlin I. was followed to my hotel. All the old Bpies aro still in existence; tho same spie.? that, worked for the Kaiser now work for tho new Government. Yet in epifco of tho spies, in spite of the relentleseness of tho new Government, : there was no reason to fear. For thero ' are two distinct groups in Germany to- '■ day—ono of the militarists; the other.of the peoplo; an.l beneath the menace of > militarism thero breathes a now spirit.! The mas 3 of tho people is nt last-awake. Tfcey-ero with a clear vision. They hatn the alten Deutse.hen with deadly hatred. They prefer tho Allies to their own militarists. For tho moment the mass are helpless. They ire feeble, undernourished, nerve-racked; Ihe forces against them possess Hip food and tho hand grenades. But ihey arc no longer: deceived. Until tho armistice they thought Germany had won tlie war. Now they know tl'ey have been' heaten ami humiliated. They know that Germany began tho war. They begin to hear stories of the de- . rjort'atior. of Belgian women, and a slow ; but ever-increasing wrath mount* hitrher and higher. For four years the German people have been etarred and beaten. For what? For nothing,.

They think tho Peace Treaty is vile, but for the moment they caro not. They do not wonder thnl tho Allies hike vengeance on a Government which they, too, despise. They smile at the coining trial of the Kaiser. The Allies are welcome to tho old man, onlj* , he was not tho greatest culprit; Why not take Ludendorff and the whole militarist gang? For the execution 'if these men tho German people would lie truly thankful. There is a curious lack of animosity toward the Allies among the people. Except for the militarist group all are friendly. They cannot understand why the world should hate them. Nearly every German I met minted to go to America. That America would shun tho door in the fnco of Germans had not entered tlioir heads. The German possesses one great passion to get away from the land of misery, and tho mors I was the less I wondered.