MERCHANTMEN AS WARSHIPS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1512, 19 February 1916, Page 2

MERCHANTMEN AS WARSHIPS.

Tiik latest German announcement that all armed merchantmen will henceforward be treated as “belligerents,” so obviously ignores the Lusitania and similar cases that the civilised world receives it with contempt. As a French writer suggests: “Ever since Germany, for twenty years past, has closed her windows on Europe and contemplates nothing but herself she has lost the faculty of insight into character ; tor German character, uniform and docile, does not afford those subjects of observation which make educatipn in psychology possible. That is why all the appeals addressed to the world by the Germans are so amazingly clumsy ; the educated classes have shown no greater intelligence than the rest, because they have ceased to possess humane culture.” The French critic explains this petrifying effect of “Kultur” by pointing out that Germany overlooked the fact that “culture” is an inward and individual possession, a product of mental experience and reflection, and that it is this which alone enables men to understand and to foresee the sentiments of others ; and that no technical knowledge or social machinery can take its place. The more Germany advanced towards scientific perfection, the greater was the want of tact that she displayed. Her psychology was crude; it understood two motives only, fear and material interest, “sugar and the whip,” the methods of the liontamer. Her threats only exasperated those she wanted to frighten, and her trickery roused distrust in those she sought to win; her display of force gave offence.