The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1912 GERMAN EXPANSION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 16, 11 September 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1912 GERMAN EXPANSION.

Dr, Bonn, Director of the Commercial College at Munich and one of the ablest and most influential writers on economic subjects in Germany, during the recent visit of English University students to his city, delivered a lecture to them, in the course of which lie discussed whether the expansion ot German population, trade, and industry could continue in the future as it inis gone on in the last twenty years, (t was frequently argued, he remarked, that if the German population went on increasing at the rate as in the past, Germany would either have to see some of her best stock swallowed up by foreign nations, or try to conquer lands for settlement. As there were now no vacant lands, it was said, German expansion must be aggressive. Dr. Bonn, however, held that there was no reason to expect development on these lines. The German population was only half as dense as that of England and Wales. That Germany was not yet full was shown by the emigration figures. With a smaller population Germany had at one time an emigration of 200,000 a year, but now this movement had almost ceased. More than a million foreigners were settled in Germany, and 750,000 migratory labourers visited Germany annually. Moreover, there was a decline in the birth-rate, and though the death-rate was also less, the excess of births over deaths had dwindled in the last ten years from 15.7 per 1000 to 12.1 per 1000. Population would increase go long as trade and industry expanded, and could employ increased numbers. Haw materials and a sufficient food supply must be available—the position thus being similar to that of the United Kingdom. Protection had raised the prices of provisions, but had failed to make Germany independent of foreign lands, and she would not be independent so long as the present development continued. The same applied to exports. Germany must have foreign markets. It was as essential to her to sell her goods abroad as to secure foreign supplies. Dr. Bonn went on to consider Germany’s colonies which it would be sound policy to develop, but lie held the view they would never be the home of a new German nation, for Africa was a black man’s land, and so it would remain. Germany, therefore, could not expand in a colonial empire as England had done, and her future expansion was closely bound up with the development of the world’s markets. There was, however, a, growing tendency to close the free markets of the world, not merely through protective tariffs (as to which Germany could not complain with effect), but also through the process by which the semi-developed States of Asia and Africa had been parcelled nut, and oven Central America was being brought under the tutelage ol the

United States. Germany had sccur(hl very little, except during tiro ’eighties, in Africa, while other countries had obtained large areas. Germany, however, was net dependent upon expansion for security, and so long as the new lands were fostered by foreign countries in an intelligent way, and Germans were allowed a share in their development, German interest®

were safe without territorial expansion. But there was no guarantee that fair treatment would continue. France tried to monopolise trade with her colonial empire, and the United States, Russia, and Japan appeared to he following her example. Germany, therefore, the Professor maintained, must either acquire new territories —whether or not they were wanted for themselves—or she must stop others from getting them, thus retarding the world’s development, or she must see that they were acquired only on such conditions as would guarantee her and everybody else a fair chance. Germany would not be excluded from all

participation in the future development of new lands merely because her neighbours had, as in the case of Morocco, paid more dearly for the expansion than they expected, and wished to recoup themselves at her expense. The policy of the open door must he maintained. Germany and England had jointly insisted on this in the Far East, and it had always been the interest of both countries to put down the colonial monopoly of other Powers. Yet the campaign in favour of the open door had been hampered by political antagonism. Professor Bonn concludes that Gorman expansion will remain peaceful so long as it is not hemmed in by artificial means, so as to produce a dangerous pressure.