THE NAVAL DREAM OF GERMANY.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 September 1924, Page 4

THE NAVAL DREAM OF GERMANY.

SEEK INC TO RKCAIN SKA-POWER (Christopher Hart in Daily Mail). lIAMBCRC, July 17. Most people would understand Ccrmaiiv belter if they remembered that she is a quick-change artist, a country whose cue it is to lie everything by turns hut nothing long. Each stage in the path of opportunism which she is so cleverly treading lasts only long enough for her (•'overniii.ent to exploit it before lias-dug on to the next. In the foreign Press the well-or-

ganised iCcriiiaii propaganda always manages to stress the seamy side (ire. vailing at the moment. The outside world is thus taught to look with pity on each temporary malaise, to regard ii as a chronic malady of the Fatherland and to believe that there is nothing permanent in Ccrniany except

The (loveriiment is still sending out its hundreds ol* thousands ol leaflets describing tl-.e hardships suffered by certain rla-ses in ()i toiler Hk?;l, during the transition from the paper mark to the stabilised rciiicnm.’irk. and many people abroad still take this "to lie an authentic picture of the (lermaiiy ol to-day. The foreign observer as a rule culllloi he bothered emitinually to readjust the an 'Jo ol his sympathy any more than he can he bothered to lathoiu the ioliliite variety and kaleidoscopic rralti ness of lhe (ierniaii mentality and Ccruniti policy. Alter living in Ccrmany for the pa-t I'.ur \ c:i I's, I loi'.e < ome to the i olli lusj, n that the only tiling that is pel'liiaiieiii about her is her steady will in retrieve, for the present by eniiniiig and later on by main force, the deleaf of If.|M. ’l hanks to the revelations ol the French, the military preparations ol the Fa r I'd la ud are no longer a secret. As lor the Meet, there is e> iden.-n . nou-h that various ambitious and subterranean projects hi- already alool. among the elect for the resurrection in due con,-sc of a fleet ill being. Despite the prohibitive clauses ol the ’livaly of Versailles, it is eoiiuiloll I: ii .wleilge, moreover, tiial you can order in ('ermauy anything from a torpedo to ,s submarine — it you go I In* right way a’ I it. The work dene in the reorganisation id the uavi'.l harbours tinder the pretext if ei.nlinei rial reeoiisl mot ion, too, is patent m everybody. In May it was Kiel, in June ii was Wilhcimshaven. The Cernian Covcrnment has agreed to present the States of l’russia and Oldenburg with the joint naval harbours

of Wi lliel mslia veil and Rustritigeii, provided these two States form a trust company and spend L'7oll,lUt) oil preventing these naval relics iron) rusting. It is further proposed to spend a million pounds on a new canal connecting Williclm-shavcn with Oldenburg, to say nothing ol the large cost i f upkeep necessary in the cum* of the naval Kms-.Jadc ( anal. Before the war the notorious Flot-

tenverein or Herman Navy League was indefatigable in trying to teach Halts and Fritz bow to ••understand t lie sea,” as Admiral TirjiiV'. eunliemislieally puts it. Outside Germany most people, believe that this Navy League is defunct. On the contrary, it is now livelier than ever and is at present represented by no fewer than eight separate and energetic organisations hard at work all over the country In cure Germany of the mal-do-mer from which she has been suffering since Jutland. Dame History lias still many stir prises no bar sleeve lor the iinimagitiatiic. Temporarily, it is true. Germane is a demon-racy: temporarily she means to keen the peace. Who can say for how long? In ifll I the German tiger spaing Imt missed its kill, only breaking ils own claws. Its claws are growing again, and growing last.