THROUGH GERMAN EYES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 466, 12 August 1909, Page 3

THROUGH GERMAN EYES.

“We can now understand the force of the race, and the reason of its domination of the world.” Thus Dr Riecke, Buergermeister of Berlin, in summing up his impressions of Enland, and particularly of London (reports the London correspondent of the Sydney Daily Telegrapn). Dr Riecke is the chief of the body of Berlin aldermen, who have just concluded a visit to this country. Dr Riecke has been struck more than any-: thing else, by the Englishman’s natural dignity and restraint. Even a little cobbler he met by the roadside at Windsor, impressed him with his quiet assurance and self-respect, and the Buergermeister goes on to say : —“lt is the fundamental quality of the English race, this supreme selfrespect, this Innate consciousness of his own superiority. He never doubts but what the English race is the salt of the earth. This feeling is England’s strength —and at the same time England’s danger. It is this indifference to other nations which made Rome and which destroyed it.” Then he makes contrast with his own people : “We, in Berlin, are eager to convince every newcomer of bur progress. We like to assure everybody how great we are, because we are not so dead certain about it ourselves. You in London, have the instinct of race preservation very strongly expressed. One sees it in your massive horses, in your massive policemen —both the result of centuries of clover. I was at the Carlton the other evening—what a wellbred race of tall, well-groomed men, what clean-cut| features, the result of hundreds of years of racial selection. And this tribute to England’s women: —“What graceful, divinely tall, daughters of the gods.”