LORD DICTATOR.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 211, 22 September 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

LORD DICTATOR.

THE HERR VON BATOCKI. GREATEST POWER IX HISTORY THE MAX WHO DEFIED THE KAISER. Germany's toughest dictator, the man who proclaims that he can make her hold out in happy starvation and healthy privation till everyone gets tired of war and goes home to tea, is Privy Councillor von Batocki (writes the Berlin correspondent of the Springfield Republican). His friends call him the Napoleon and the comic papers call him the Potato Xapoleon. Der Kato-ffel-Xapoleon! Batocki is an unpleasant, rough man, a pusher, bully, and pedant in private life and public who always knows what other people want, and sees that they do get it if it is bad for them. When Batocki was appointed food dictator of all Germany, that ia, president of the War Nourishment Bureau, a newspaper man had the assurance to ask him what he meant to do, and Batocki answered gruffly : '' I shall do everything!" " Ich werde alios maehen!" the newspaper man found Batocki in the Berlin Adlon Hotel with four giant potatoes on his desk. He was studying the potatoes in the way less eminent men study metaphys:cs. He refused to say more than that he would do everything, (and when the newspaper man, amazed at Batccki's modesty, was going away, in came the Austrian. Prof. Fischer, the greatest potato expert on earth, who has written an essay to prove that out of potatoes may he made everything necessary for war except guns, powder, and diplomacy. In the newspaper man's presence Dr. Fischer proved that uniforms may tie made of potato fibres, synthetic meat out of potato pulp, and paper for ordres do bataille out of potato skins. Fischer as a potato enthusiast sought out Batocki for two reasons, because Batocki is the best farmer in East Prussia, and because batocki now has the ticklish task of feeding 70,000,000 men on potato meat, potato vegetables. and potato milk. (Fischer declares no can milk potatoes.) Batocki has been given greater power than any individual ever possessed in humanity's history. For this he is prepared by race. He is a typ'cal hardheaded managing Prussian of new nobility, but ancient militant blood. Batocki's great uncle fought a duel with Bismarck, and was the only man of t dozen duellists who ever struck Bis-

marck hard. He ran a buttonless foil deep in the student Bismarck's leg i Batocki's grandfather bought a big estate in East Prussia near the ha thin a; resort of Crantz on the Balte. In those days feudal conditions prevailed, and the King of Bledau, as old B'atocki was called, set out to take advantage of them. Two unpleasant peasant cabins overlooked his land; and as even in. feudal days you could not burn down unpleasant houses, Batocki built a screen 200 yards long and 30 feet high For the ten years which it stood, the peasants, find : ng it shut out the lor Baltic sun off their cabbages, tough" lawsuits with Autocrat Batoek'; and " Batocki's Handkerchief "—so it was called —filled the Courts and the newspapers. The Courts refused to order it to be taken down", but Providence was kinder. One stormy night it blew awav the handkerchief. Batocki died a month later; the peasants said of grief. JUST LIKE HIS GREAT-UXCLE.

The present Bstocki ; s just lik* his great-uncle of the buttonless foil anl his grandfather of the handkerchef. He began life Hi the East Prussian Cuirassiers, and fought a bad duel before ho was in it a week. Then he got tired of drilling, and went back to manago the estate, and it was mortgaged for mora than it was worth and badly mismanaged, but Batocki stands no mismanagement, and :n six years he paid off the mortgage, and turned tho estate into the best managed in Prussia. Batocki's potatoes wero famous. When Batocki finished that—long before he was known in Germany—lie went to America and studied in California how to nurse, twist, and contort plants into noblet use* than nature meant them for; and Batocki knows more about American agriculture than any Prussian Minister of Agriculture. Batocki, like all Prussians, was an army reserve man; and when the war broke out he went as a colonel and got tha Iron Cross. But Kaiser Wilheim had resolved not to let him be killed. Kaiser Wilheim set his eyes on Batocki four years back when Kaiser Wlhelm made a scandal by announcing at a public assembly that a tenant on his East Prussian estate had been thrown out" for incompetence. Everyone attacked Kaiser W'Jhelm and sa:d the tenant was highly competent; but Batocki proved that the tenant was not competent if judged by a really high standard ; and this was the stjanflard > 1 tho Bledau estate.

Kaiser Wilhelm knew how Batocki had saved his estate from ruin, and that Batocki was a terrible despot. Last autumn he chose him to be over-presi-dent, that is, supreme Governor of East Prussia. East Prussia was twice invaded ; and all over the part near the Russian frontier nothing remained except walls of houses. Near Allenstein, shell fragments lay thicker than potatoes, and tens of square miles were so furrowed with trenches that it took tho average fanner three months to fill them up. Bactocki showed his pugnacious character by ehalleng ug, a month alter appointment, the highest miltary authorities. He drew up plans to rebuild Lyck and Loetzen, which layin ruins, and he wanted to make new roads to them. The military commandant of the province said no: that would interfere with our defence plans Batocki said yes. lie appealed from the commandant to H ndenbuig. who is himself an East Prussian, ami has authority all the way from Poland to Danzig, ami H'ndcnburg to the Kaiser. He hod the greatest respect for Hindenburg, he said, but also, respected himself, and as civil Governor he must stand for a civil Governor's rights. Kaiser Wilhelm bifeked up Hindenburg, •Hid Batocki lefufnl to 'rebuild th"i towns— badiy rebuilt towns, be said, are worse than picturesque ruins, in the end Hiudenburg gave way. Batocki can say be is the only man who defeated Hindenburg. Batocki in bis new post a-- president of tho War Nourishment Bureau has far greater powers than Kaiser Wilhelm ever bad. He can do things which Kaiser Wilhelm cannot, do, and things which even the Bundesrat, the clref repository of civilian authority since flu war bt-gan, cannot do. His authority exemplifies Carlyle's saying that a man who owns sixpence is autocrat of the world to the extent of sixpence. His omnipotence conies from the fact, which is new in h story, that he can fix the price of sale and purchase of any single thing or of all things : n an empire. This includes everything that is eaten, manufactured, and traded m, including specially food materials, raw materials and metals, fodder. eattl-\ '■lothei. He has power to ssuc anv regulation whatsoever, concerning trading in anytlrng, import, export, or distribution ; 'and by a stroke of his pen he can expropriate anything that is found in the empire. His powers as defined in the Bundesrat nomination

decree are so wide that the Frankfurter Zeitung says, "Heir Batocki has literally power to seize an individual and cut him up for food." He can further give orders to the twenty odd Stat 3 Governments of the Empire; and in this respect beats the record, as tin German Constitution 'in peace time rigidly limits the Imperial Government's power over the Affairs of the constituent States. If Batocki liked he could starve a man to death, for ho has power to say that in such a place or to such a man bread must not be sold at less than lOdol. a pound; and if he considers that Kaiser Wilhehn's thirty estates are not being farmed on the right lines from the standpoint o c feeding the people, he can expropriate Kaiser Wilhelm's .estates at any price ho likes. He can dose any factory, compel a manufacturer to open a closed factory, compel him to stop manufacturing one tlrng and substitute another thing. And in all those things no one can overrule him. Every other administrator in Germany can be appealed against to the courts of administration, and if he has exceeded his power his decres3 are quashed. Against Batocki there is no appeal; and no appeal would be any good because the decree appointing him does not place any limit on his powers.