GERMANY’S PRETENCE OF PEACE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1315, 24 October 1914, Page 4

GERMANY’S PRETENCE OF PEACE.

Historical accuracy is not violated in speaking of the Pretence of Peace. We are familiar with the expression that Germany’s true policy was the maintenance of European peace. We are familiar, too, with the expression that the Kaiser’s true role was that of the Peacemaker. At no period in the last quarter of a century did either expression embody even a partial truth. In point of absolute fact, neither was warranted nor deserved. It is perhaps very easy to write that now in this momentous mouth of this historic year of 1914, and it is very much easier to believe it when it has been written; .but a survey of German development, German policy and German preparedness can end in only one conclusion ; that, independent of the evidence of present events, the doctrine bf blood and iron has been perpetuated in its brutal fulness, even though it has not until now been put into actual practice. Europe has witnessed a pacific Germany construct the Kiel Canal, systematically strengthen Heligoland, Borkum, Cuxbaven and Wilhelmshaven, and erect those long platforms at Emden which no civilian travellers ever use; Europe has read of the elaborate strategic railways reaching to the Russian frontier through Posen and to the French frontier through Luxemburg ; Europe has heard a pacific Kaiser, himself assuming the character of Admiral of the Atlantic, declare that Germany’s future lies on the water ; Europe has lived through the Agadir episode and the sabre-rattling when Austria tore up the Berlin Treaty by annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina ; Europe has seen a pacific Germany pass laws providing for the construction and the maintenance of mighty expanding forces pn, land and sea and in the air- These things the Europe of this generation has known and watched. These things are matters of recent history, and*of ascertained fact. They do not admit of controversy, much less of contradiction. And with these things in its mind, one section of Europe was sentimentally disposed to trust the pledge word of pacific Germany, to crown with a laurel wreath her pacific Kaiser, and to co-operate with her statesmen in her pacific policy ! The methods of blood and iron were neither buried with Bismarck nor resuscitated by the Second William in the days of Lijs maturity. They have uever been abandoned, they have never been discarded in the interests of the higher diplomacy. Bj’ blond s:.d iron modern Germany was by blood and iron her leaders vvAextend their dominions in Eurof. theoj as Bismarck intended ‘.hey should extend, from the North Sea to the Mediter ..- nepn and the Adriatic.