NATIONALITY AND GERMANS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1519, 7 March 1916, Page 4

NATIONALITY AND GERMANS.

In a recent article on the problem of nationality, Mr Austin Harrison says : ‘ ‘There is the case of the unnaturalised German ; the case of the naturalised German ; the case of the British-born German. Logically there is no difference between any of the three categories. The man who voluntarily denies his country can never be a patriot, for he is either false to his own country or false, as a man, to himself. What are we going to do ? We shall have to take a decision about this question of nationality. Humanly speaking, it is almost inconceivable that a naturalised German, or even a British-born German, should think and act as an Englishman, should not to day in his heart lean towards Germany and wish to save her, should be able, in short, to dissociate himself from his blood tie and Fatherland. There is dishonesty in the very idea. It is an insult to these men to attribute to them such perversity. In America the Germans remain German. War, which touches the primitive instincts of man, has revealed this truth to the world. But in Britain we have made a pretence of regarding ‘our Germans’ as honest renegades. It has been our vanity to flatter ourselves that the Germans who come over here are not like other Germans. All this is illusion, just as the talk about the ‘quick change’ American citizenship has proved illusiouary. The truth is that we live on an island in serene ignorance of Continental people. We did not know even that the German naturalisation laws provide especially for a dual nationality, for purposes of espionage and military utility. We knew nothing of the unexampled patriotism and pride of race animating the Germans. We were just taken in, as the Government were taken in—by ignorance, by that peculiar form of English vanity which refuses to face facts and probe things to their source.”