Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star "MONDAY, JANUARY 26th, 1920 A NEW ERA FOR GERMANY.

Hokitika Guardian, 26 January 1920, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star "MONDAY, JANUARY 2 6th, 1920 A NEW ERA FOR GERMANY.

With the completion of peace, comr ments an exchangy, Germany’s future lies in her own hands. It 18 f? r the German people to prove the sincerity of thpir repentance, and to recover the esteejn wjijch they have forfeited. History supplies no precedent for the magnitude and dramatic quality pt Germany's disaster; never has the working of Nemesis been s p strikingly illustrated. The dec-jinn apd fall of the Roman Empire was spread &fjsr centuries, ifl a lingering process 9 f decay; five years w.erg enough to hurl Geimppv from the ?pex of feer power to tlm depths of hiinjiliation agd eotfamje. Just before d* »*V GeynWs was at its highest, g })P W P h P arm- and the second fleet in ft? MW her‘colonies had turned the corner, Mul were beginning to pay their way. Her *fbips parried her flag to every harbour earth, frep merchants flooded the globe with their wares; h*F f.9 m ' merep «»» fast overhauling f h 4 « Britain, if sho find bgen .content to go on as die was doing IWhM ha '’ e gained a bloodless victory. insolent by prosperity, and insane with ambition, she preferred a short cut, and piuugtid the world into the bloodiest carnage -which ft lias ever known It was ail affront to the c/umPfl ce civilisation, and civilization took up tne challenge. Now, as ft re§«R of her TP for world-supremacy, Germany hnds herself bereft of her navy, her mercantile marine, and her colonies. Her army is reduced to the dimensions of a police .force, and she is shorn of territory in Europe. Her manner of waging war has earned her hatred of her enemies; sine has, indeo/jl, )ost everything, including honour. Aw* ? n her downfall she looked in v pip for anyone to rally her forces and inspire her purpose. In other countries in the mvl4 of catastrophe such a man has often appeared. France’s defeat brought forward a Gambetta and a Thiers. But Germany’s Renders failed her, and pone arose to {bake their ,pj.aca J the soil of Gemmy «'**# tptfavffiirablc to the emergence of greatness unsupported by authority, and the nation paid for its acquiescence in an obsolete system of Government. To-day a new era dawns for Germany ; it remains to bo <>see,U what she will make of it.