THE GERMAN PEOPLE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 37, 30 September 1914, Page 4

THE GERMAN PEOPLE.

Although it was fed in the early days of the war with stories of blandly inoffensive German soldiers who wore rather pleased than otherwise to be captured, and had only vague ideas ,as to what they were fighting about, it is probable that the conception of the German people as mere dupes and pawns of their Kaiser and bis War "Party never had any very substantial foundation in fact. A much more plausible account of the attitude of 1 the German nation (says the Wellington Dominion) is given by a London

Times correspondent who claims to | have had exceptional facilities ior studying the 'development ot German sentiment trom 1870 onwards, H«| declares that underneath a surface appearance of peaceful and fiiendly feelings towards Englishmen Germans have for many years nourished a deep and general animosity against England as a Power. “During the last, twenty years,” he remarks, the eu-; onnous industrial and coinmeicial expansion, the growth of population, power, and wealth, the creation of a great Mercantile Marine and of a groat Navy have imbued the whole nation with the'same arrogance (as previously distinguished the military class). Prom top to bottom it has been suffering from swollen head and the Kaiser’s case is not singular, hut typical.” Germany’s attempt of today, may, therefore, be regarded as the fulfilment of a general and familiar national aspiration.