CAN GERMANY BE TRUSTED?

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 18 May 1901, Page 4

CAN GERMANY BE TRUSTED?

The Kaiser and his People.

(From the London Express)

Since the Emperor William lias shown his friendship for England in so marked a fashion, people have begun to wonder whether the British Government will not aim to draw tighter together the bonds bind us to Germany. They recall how on one famous occasion Mr Chamberlain hinted that in certain eventualities England, Germany, and the United States might stand before Europe shoulder to shoulder —and they ask whether already the first steps to this new world-alliance have not been taken.

To understand the position properly, however, a glance should lie taken at the tasks that confront the Kaiser himself. Germany lias a policy of her own, adapted to her own peculiar requirements, not England’s, as Sir Sjulney Brooks lias pointed out in a clover and well-reasoned article on the subject in the current issue of the “World’s Work.” Only Half a Nation. Germany, one must always bear in mind, is still only half a nation, and needs, and will need for some time yet, a strong paternal Government to rally round. The war of 1870 achieved a political unity, but even its fierce flames could not wholly destroy that localism of interest and aim, that narrow and stubborn particularism, which runs all through the tale of German history. Only a wise and beneficiont absolutism creating and infusing a sense of oneness and common patriotism, can do that. The Kaiser never loses sight of this necessity of generating a spirit of broad nationality ; and, the fact that ho has such a task to address himself to explains much that seems obscure and fantastic to Englishmen ; explains, for example, his insistance on the divine right by which he holds his title, the emphasis he lays on the sacredncss of allegiance, and the habitual glorification of himself as the figurehead of the State. /

His is indeed a task beset with difficulties. The German Empire is made up of the fusion of twenty-five distinct and sovereigns entitles—four kingdoms, six Grand Duchies, five Duchies, seven principalities. throe free towns, and the Reichsland of Alsace-Lorraine.

Within his own domains each ruler, whatever his title—king, prince, gmnd duke, or duke—is virtually omnipotent. Each, too, is independent of the German Emperor in all local matters. It therefore needs vigligence, activity, and a rigid insistanco on his prerogatives to enable the Kaiser to disentangle himself from the crowd of petty princelings and to educate his people up to the point of subordinating tho State to the Empire, as recent German press criticism has shown.

Trouble is Brewing.

The coincidence of a weak Hohenzolleru with one or two able and ambitious grand dukes or kinglets may yet produce a severe constituted deadlock.

Even as it is probably one man out of every ten is disaffected to the Empire; some because they are Southern Catholics and resent the rulership of Protestant Prussia almost as much as they resent the exclusion of the Jesuits; some because they arc ultra-Liberal of the the extremest doctrinaire type and impatient of everything short of the full shibboleths of democracy—impatient of Prussian paternalism, of a Parliamentary regime without the party system, of Ministers responsible to the Crown, instead of to the people, of the übiquitious dolice agent, or of whatever stands in

the way of the dominion of the incorrigible mob. Others, again, are impatient because they arc social democrats and in opposition to everything ; others from an old-standing jealously of Prussia and resentment of “Prussian arrogance.” It is no exaggeration to say that (he most persistent and capable foes of the Gorman Empire are within her own borders.

Against these centrifugal forces the Kaiser lias striven with indomitable vigour and ability, and on the whole with success. Still, much remains to he done, and many gaps have yet to be bridged over. The Kaiser and his Colonies. Of the part Germany is to play in that future, it may be admitted quite freely the Kaiser lias large and grandiose views, and a clever knack of getting them realised. Nothing except the imposing development of Russian policy in the Ear East has been liner to watch of late years Ilian the masterful fashion in which he has transformed Germany from a European State into a world-Power. Duty or privilege, or both, the Kaiser S' ;sses forward to his goal unfalteringly. e colonics, it is true, have not so far proved a great success. The estimates for the current year show that subsidies from the Imperial exchequer of just under £1,000,000 will be needed to balance the African and Pacific accounts.

Look carefully into the statistics of Germany’s transmarine possessions, and you cannot find that more than 3500 Germans—of when nearly 1500 arc officials—have settled under the German flag. Yet in Africa, Germany controls an area of 1,000,000 square miles, and an estimated population of about 14,000,000.

Her stake in that continent will bo, however, considerably increased when (he Anglo-German agreement of 1898, which provides for the division of (bo Portuguese possessions in Africa between England and Germany, takes effect. But it is clear that Germany’s holdings in Tongaland, the Camcroons, and East and South-west Africa arc not in any real sense colonics. The Kaiser may go on annexing swamp after swamp, and coaling station after coaling station, but he will find himself in the end no more a veritable colonial Power than lie is now, unless he strikes out on a now trial. But tills, it may be said, bo lias already done in China, and this leads us at once to Germany’s chief poltical consideration. The Question of Russia. To many thoughtful observers the keynote of German foreign policy is, and inevitably must be, friendship with Russia. After Bismark’s valiant declaration that “We Germans fear God and no one else,” it might seem unkind to suggest that perhaps the Chancellor had confounded the Deity with the Tsar.

But it is at any rate clear to dombnstration, and scarcely a week goes by without making it clearer that in spite of an instinctive antipaty between the two peoples the Germans are most nervously sensitive on the question of Russian goodwill.

They have not so far been obliged to make manj r sacrifices to secure it, but they never let a chance slip by of assuring St Petersburg, as the new Chancellor put it last November, “that between a well-conducted German policy and a wcll-conducted Russian policy there ought to he no radical opposition, or, at least no opposition which cannot be bridged over.”

Under the circumstances, however, much Germans may inwardly revolt against it, this is said by many to bo the only possible line for the country to take.

If so, how cun the Kaiser help England ?

Nor, unfortunately, is there an easy limit to the ambition of .Pan-Germanism. Just across the south-western borders, in Austria-Hungary, arc some eight-mil-lion Germans, growing year by year less and less satisfied with their position in the realm of the Hapsburgs, and insensibility graviataiing towards Berlin.

Them Pan-Germanism has already marked for its own. Both in Berlin and Vienna exist fully formed and active parties with no other plank in their platform than the consideration of all Ger-man-speaking Australians with the German Empire. If their projects ever came to a head, only one more short step will be needed, and Germany will debouch on the Adriatic.