The Enemy in our Midst.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 169, 28 April 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Enemy in our Midst.

It has always been our boast as English men and women that we love libeity (writes Miss Bowen), have protected liberty, and have accorded liberty to those other peoples who have come under our government. And the bfcasthas been largely justified. As England Increased m power and prestige sho became more and more open-handed;, and generous to the stranger andfthe foreigner, and despite the accusation of "insular prejudice and arrogance, opened her doors wider and wider to foreign commerce, and foreign enterprise.

OUR NATIONAL HOSPITALITY. I believe that there is no former example in the; history of the world*of a great nation so encouraging other nations to mate fortunes at her expense, treating generously the " stranger within her gates," recognising so fully and paying so well fche performances of foreign workers in all branches of art, -sharing with such absolute equity the privileges of the most free, comfortable State in the world, with anyone who chose :o take up his residence under her nils. . This wide and indiscriminate hospitality has not always been graciously repaid ; the foreigner too often grumbled, made invidious comparisons, and gave scant words of tlianks and praise. But he was still tolerated; we went our way and paid down our money for foreign music, drama, literature, fashion, and manufactures, when too often our own went neglected. Again and again England made the nams and fame of some foreigner; again and again some foreigner settled down in England to make his fortune.

A TOLERANCE BORN OF SECURITY. It might be said that this tolerance, this indifference, was largely due to a sense of security. We had the money, we had the Navy, we had the colonies, we had our own history behind us —we could afford to be easy aua generous.

And this easiness and generosity were causing good feeling—we were liked and welcomed on the Continent. It was through our peaceful influence that many unpleasant jars were avoided in Europe and that there was a feeling of good fellowship abfoad. Socialism, enlightened democracy, universal brotherhood, the common interests of workers, the pleasant intermingling of nations to debate on questions relating to the common good of humanity ma do patriotism seem old-fashioned, even unnecessary. It was so easy and pleasant, so friendly and open; we were all admiring each other, all working for the common good.

FACE TO FACE WITH REALITIES

Then statecraft failed; the conjur ing balls, that had been juggled so deftly in the air, clattered to the ground with a sound that woke us all from our dreams; the illusion was over, the tricks disclosed; we were face to face with the old reality of struggle and eounter-stniggle, war, and destruction, and all our little comfortable creeds and administrations and beliefs vanished in the smoke of the first cannon shot. Then we discovered that one nation had been using us—and indeed every country where she could get a foothold —for all base ends.

The history of this great war has yet to be written; there is much that is not known to tha present generation, hut the great rough fact of Germany's long preparation for the war and Germany's achievement of the war in the face of a reluctant Europe, is perfectly clear. Her behaviour was so unaccountable, so unexpected, so horrible, that at first it could hardly be credited At first it was almost laughed at, as the doings of a madman might be laughed at, with pity and contempt.

A BITTER AWAKENING. Then gradually, as Germany, embittered by tile frustration of designs that, to have been successful, should have l>een headlong in execution and swift in achievement, descended from one atrocity to another, as the whole, ugly, bestial character of her policy and methods was revealed, wo begai- to understand with what we hud to deal. Wo found no foe with whom we could clasp hands after the fight, not an enemy who could abide by the law of nations, not one capable of honest dealing by honest dealing, but one who has trampled on every code of honour, and who brought back into the very heart of Europe all the unspeakable horrors hitherto associated with the dark ages or the hnlfw-avngo massacres or the East, who lied and slandered, and who hated us with a bitterness as startling as it wiis unintelligible. Wc found that fr-r years we. had been spied upon hy the most dastardly and odious means, that those who had been taking ritov hospitality, oiiV \v;H.es, cur praise, had been indeed the e.nemy in our midst. And our tolerance became softness, our indifference almost apatlij, our sentiment —sentimentality. THE TREATMENT Of ENEMY ALIENS. Ther can be no doubt of it -it is not a matter that adnv'ts of argument. At the very commencement of the war al' Germans and Aiedrinns should li.iv ■ been : nt- ned or vent from tn ? country, m.'n and women alike, .nd tin..-' who bv uairiage mixed parctaye < •• long residence in tin''; country, may have been considered to have earned the l right to remain ; n the country where they have made their home, shou'd have been forced to remain in obscurity, unmolested, but watched, and on no account allowed to hold any public post, any Position of authority or confidence. Not only are people

Cue of the burning questions of the war, just as much in Australasia as in Great Britain, is that of our attitude to the enemies in our midst. In the current issue of the "Royal Magazine," Miss Marjorie Bowen, the well-known novelist. , has a strong article, or. the subject, wherein she advocates the adoption of sterner measures against the Huns who still nourish in the Empire, despite the war.

with German blood and German relatives holding such posts, but they have their defenders—we are told to respect their sufferings, to pity their position, to treat them kindlv.

They may be worthy people, they may be good and honourable people (though if we doubt this, they have but to thank their country people who have fattened on us and spied on us), they may even be loyal to their adopted country—and of their private virtues we know nothing and care nothing. Yet it is no less than an outrage to every Britisher who is asked to give his blood and his gold in a war caused by no fault of ours, and from which we can reap no possible advantage, nay. for which it is very unlikely wa can even be adequately recompensed, to tolerate in our midst, to suffer in any position, high or low, those of German or Austrian extraction.

PAYING THE PRICE. • Let them at least relinquish their posit.ons, let them retire into humble obscurity, let them pay this prica for belonging to a nation who has so utterly disgraced herself, so fallen in the mud that she cannot recover her pride or her honour, at least while the memory of the present generation lasts. In moments of world upheaval like the present the individual must be judged by the nation to which it belongs. It is useless to say there are exceptions, and to try to defend or com. miserat-e any particular person. This is sentimentality—false, wrong, pernicious. We need all our pity, all our championship; for our own.

NO GUARANTEE OF GOOD FAITH

What guarantee have wo that these smooth-spoken people of German blood who profess their loyalty to England and complain of the cruelty of the suspicions they arouse, are not at heart what their compatriots have p'oved to be?

Have we not been ueeeived often enough to be for ever on our guard? There is no need to recapitulate what our enemies have done—it is too bitterjy fresh in the minds of all of us. There Is no dishonour to which they have not stooped, no outrage they have not committed; of some of the things they have done it is well not to think. There is now, alas! no doubt of this; even the most incredulous are convinced. The short and ugly history of the German Empire, the long and ugly history of Austria are stained on their last pages with every degree of iiorror and disgrace; it is scarcely bearable to read of, the sufferings of the interned Italians in Austria, of the fate of the Italian prisoners under Austrian rule, of the treatment of the British prisoners, of the agonies of Belgium and Servia. And we arc asked to make every sacrifice, nay the supreme sacrifice, to crush the nations who have hurled our civilisation into this chaos of terror—and we are willing. It is Britain's task.

She has already given of her b<?st; she is still giving; not one of her people but has suffered or will suffer in this war, which is not a war of aggrandisement or political quarrel, but a war to uphold all that our thousand years' history has taught us to admire and cherish.

AWAY WITH FALSE SENTIME.VI

This is no moment to show leniency to tlie enemy. From the first wc have been too soft; instance after instance of weakness could be multiplied The German servants of .Ministers were allowed to naturalise since the war, a German pilot was permitted to steer an Englsh vessel, a German was Buffered to live on the coast and assault an English boy, a w omau of German extraction was given a post which many Englishwomen covet, wealthy Germans of position retain their wealth and their position—even their British friends; we trust thorn as we have always trusted them, and are perhaps being deceived as we have before been deceived. On one of the voyages of the Lusitania, the ship who.se horrid fate afterwards made the civilised world .shudder, travelled no fewer than fifty Ger-man-Americans, who boasted thev could land in England without question.

A PROOF OF ESPIONAGE. Mr. Joynson Hicks, MP. jpeaki.iji at the Constitutional Club, mca r i mod that he bad received in one day i>3 letters giving instances of spying, signalling, etc., on the part of Germans. On the same occasion Mr. William Peterson quoted the incident of the capture and sinking of one of his firm s ships running from England lo Brazil laden with coal; two others, that could easily have been sunk, were allowed to pass. The captain of the suuk vessel. or asking why lie was singled out, was told by the Gorman lieutenant that as the other steamers were loaded with gas coal, useless to the German cruiser, they had not been considered worth powder and snot. The point is that all the steamers had been loaded in the Tyno, and the German cruiser, 1000 miles away, could only have received her information from espionage.

Neither can there be an reasonable doubt that the raids on the Fast Coast wore the work of spies; the German quoted above had been living on the roast until he was brought into prominence by his assault o:i the boy who. he declared, had insulted him. His penalty was a fine of three pounds; he was not natifralised.

BRITAIN'S DEBT TO HER PEOPLE.

A spirited and well-written paper which drew attention to the employment of persons of German extraction in high positions of trust and honour, has sinre hern suppressed, having been

treated with far greater severity than the scurrilous'portion of the Irish press which, at the commencement of the war, was so long allowed to abuse Brit, ain with impunity.

It was our ancient privilege, my Lords, To fling whate'er we felt, not into words. And even if we are in no danger from spies, disloyalty, and treachery, even if the enemy aliens among us are harmless and even estimable, it is not good or fine to tolerate them. Britain owes too large a debt to her own people. There is no need to persecute, to lower ourselves to any of their own methods, but justice is far removed from harshness, and sternness from cruelty. STERN MEASURES REQUIRED. This is the moment for justice and sternness; let us keep our places, our noney. our care, our sympathy for our own, who have never needed it more than now.

Let those of Germon blood who rcaliy feel grateful to England show their gratitude by stepping aside and remaining as much in obscurity as possible. That they should any of them chose to remair in any conspicuous position shows that thev lack all deliuoy and sensitiveness. There is no need for their services, great or small —Urn in has men and women sufficient for i'.er work.

CAST OUT THE ENEMY. All of us must stand together now, in ranks so close that there is no room for th-3 enemy among us. Now is no time for maundering over the possible suffering of people proved insensible, the possible discomfort of those far, far better off than many of our own and many of our Allies. Now is the moment to resolve, one and all of us, to stand by our own, for our own, to make good our sacrifices, to redeem our pledge to the little countries, to establish or.ce more liberty, order, and decency, to sweep from among ourselves those who have fattened on us, lied to us. spied on us, and laughed at us, to dissociate ourselves for ever from a nation which has proved so vile and degraded. We are silent pecp'e and slow to rouse, but once stung by the whips of folly and injustice we turn and turn terribly. It would be well if those m authority watched the temper of the people and took warning.

BYGONE MEMORIES.

Smithkins was reciting to .a little circle of his club friends the thrilling story of a shipwreck in which he had all but lost his life. It was a long story, for it was filled with many tales of heroism —chiefly Smithkins'. Smithkins had just come to the passago describing the moment of his own peril. "Utterly exhausted,'' he went on, "by my strenuous efforts to save as many of the ethers ?.s 1 could, I had no strength left to kocp myself afloat. Weakly f sank a first time, then a second. As 1 was going down for what f believed tc be the last time, the panorama of nry whole life w.is unrolled before me. Every deed, every detail, every moment in my life was unveiled in a series cf pictures " Jones, sitting quietly in the corner dozing, suddenly woke up. "Smithkins," he interrupted, "did you happen to notice a picture of me lending you half a sovereign in the spring of 1914?"

THE SEA STORY OF FIFTY YEARS AGO.

Effrts have been made by German agents in the United States and South America to fit out commerce-destroyers by purchasing fast steamers and manning them with Germans from the '.•rows of the German liners interned in neutral ports. Should this be the explanation, the State which allowed the commerce-destroyer to b<> fitted out would he responsible to Great Britain (or damage under th.' Alabama rules.

The Alabama was a Confederate (i.e., Southern States) cruiser in the American Civil War. She was built in England, bought for the Confederacy, and armed at sea. She captured in all (58 vessels and sank one warship before she herself was sunk by the. United States uruisei Kcarsargo off Cherbourg in 1864.

On.? of her prizes, the Tusca'oosa, was turned into a cruiser and captured it sni.il] number of ships. For not preventing her and certain other Confederate vessel* from putting to sea and obtaining arms (heat Britain I>v the Geneva Arbitration was ordered to pav £3,100,000, a sum in excess of the damaye actually done. SIDELIGHTS. The "Observer" of the 3flth January contained the first pari of an article by Sir Oliver Lodge on the inferences legardmg ruturr- of the material universe to lie drawn fro:n the law Hirst formulated l»v Lord Kelvin) of lh«. Dissipation of Energy. Tfe tells us that it is bv no means likely that the Maze of the sun w : ll last' for < ve-. Hence death se.-ins to Ik> the probab'e destinv fo the earth and the solar svsteni. But their fate, he add«. is a d.lferent tiling from the fate of th ■ Cosmos. ''The death of the whole existing order of things is quite a different ae.d far more portentous conclusion, if ,t is forced upon ti-\"