A THREAT TO PEACE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 321, 7 September 1932, Page 4

A THREAT TO PEACE

The most significant of the developments in Germany since the accession to power of the Von Papen Cabinet, has been the reappearance of the Junker spirit with the dangerous potentialities which it holds for the precariously balanced peace of Earope. Junkerism has been the word applied to the government of the military nobility, at its height in Germany prior to the war, and the creator of that "invincible German army" spirit which did so much to throw Europe and the world into a holocaust of blood and slaughter. Fourteen years have elapsed since the close of the world war, and in that space of time a dazed world has begun to gather its forces for the even greater struggle of rehabilitation. Time has perhaps brought a clearer perspective, but in spite of the lesson written in the blood and tears of countless thousands, in very many corners of the world the threatening spectres of arrogance and cupidity up-raise their heads. For despite that grim lesson, human nature has not been changed, and national characteristics remain the same; the greatest hope for world peace is the creation of a more enlightened public opinion, setting itself not only nationally, but internationally, against war. There have been many signs of the growth of that public opinion, growing behind the more obvious though less sincere forces of economic necessity. For it must be reeognised that a great deal of the enthusiasm for disarmament and the preservation of peace, has been forced upon the nations by the sheer pressure of necessity. That, however, is immaterial if it achieves the desired end and is guided by a genuine seeking after an improved social organisation for its own sake. Against the growing movement toward international understanding, how ever, are gathering many forces which must be frankly recognised if they are to be' eombatted. Not the least disconccrting of these, is the revival of the militaristic spirit in Germany, evidenced by such demonstrations as that which took place last week, when 160,000 Steel Helmets paraded with all the pomp and swagger of the Imperial days before members of the deposed Hohenzollern royal family and the lately eclipsed nobility. It was the military section of this nobility, looking upon the German military machine as the supreme evidence of the favour of the Almighty and the destiny of His most illustrious earthly representative, William Hohenzollern, which created the arrogance that led Germany into war. It is a spirit fortunately foreign to British peoples because it is so largely divorced from the saving grace of a sense of humour, but it is nevertheless a spirit which must be recognised and combatted. It is the spirit which permitted German military officers to draw their sabres upon presumptuous civilians who dared to jostle them in the street and bred a school of thought which was capable of the most remarkable military achievements, simply because it refused to recognise that it could ever be wrong. "The armies of his Imperial Majesty never retreat, they merely fall back to a more favourable position" was a dictum which many Germans implicitly believed and strong in the power of that conviction, refused to acknowledge defeat. The passage of time has shown the world the f olly of hysterieal generalisations which

classed all Germans as butchers | and brutes, but it has not remov- 1 ed the impression of a great peo- j ple misled and dragooned into j slaughter by the arrogance and bombast of a military caste. The j time has passed when it was heresy to attribute any redeeming virtue to a German, but it has served more than ever to show that a people may suffer j for the incredible stupidity and | folly of its leaders. France may j be blamed for bitterness and j cherishing rancour against her Teutonic neighbour, but the devastation and ruin of the war years are yet too recent, for their smart to have departed. At' present the greatest curb upon the revival of a military Germany, is her economic exhaustion, yet conversely it is this very economic exhaustion which has created these warring military factions. But a country cannot drag itself from the financial slough by internal bickering and parades, however impressive. When the German nation turns from playing at soldiers to devote its tremendous energies to the task of reconstruction, then will be time which will prove or disprove France's apprehension. But a proud and a great nation cannot be kept in chains and bound to its conquerors' chariot wheels and the French policy of stern repression toward Germany must inevitably continue to breed mistrust and hatred. In the meantime, the revival of the Junker domination and the growing talk of a restoration of the monarchy, though it may solve part of Germany's troubles by giving her a definite leadership, in the light of past . experienees, constitutes a definite menaee to the peace of Europe.