MISTAKEN SYMPATHY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 50, 15 October 1914, Page 4

MISTAKEN SYMPATHY.

The impression appears still to prevail, in one shape or another, that British people should feel friendship and syiu-j pa thy for the people of Germany as distinct from their ruler and his officials/says the Christchurch Press. Wo gave some time ago what seemed to us the unanswerable reasons why the Gorman nation must be held responsible for the war, and why they must be considered as actually supporting it and approving of the methods of the forces in the field. On this second point confirmation now comes from Sir Valentine Chirol, an almost unrivalled authority on "the subject. Sir Valentine notes that even the "Vorwarts," the official organ of the supposedly pacific Social Democrats, "broke out, just at the most acute stage of the crisis, into a sudden outburst of praise for Germany's War Lord as a great prince of peace." He adds a personal reminiscence :—"About twenty years ago I was watching, with Herr Bebel, a Prussian regiment of Foot Guards marching out of the Grandenhurg Gate at Berlin. The Socialist leader told me, with some pride, that more than half of them probably were. Social Democrats. I asked him whether, in the event of war, that would make the slightest difference, and he replied to me quite frankly, 'No, I am afraid, not the slightest. Nothing will happen until Germany has been sobered by a great military catastrophe. Das Volk ist noch immer sie gestmnken' (the people are still drunk with victory)."