UNCONSCIOUS HUMOUR.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 50, 2 March 1915, Page 4

UNCONSCIOUS HUMOUR.

Amusing is the surprise of certain Germans at the fact that Germany has no friends, says a writer in the Christchurch Press, who proceeds:— Dr. Karl von Heigel, president of the Academy of Sciences at Munich, can easily understand the hostility of Franco and .Russia, and the jealousy of England, hut finds it harder to understand why Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, and Italy, “the very countries which draw from Germany a considerable part of their intellectual food,” should sympathise more, a.ml more with the “self-confident Englishmen and Frenchmen” rather than with the “more modest Germans.” That Dr, von Heigel should wonder why the Belgians do riot sympathise with Germans indicates an incredible ohtuseness, or suggests that many Germans, including this doctor, have not been permitted to know a little of the truth about the German infamy. Dr. von Heigel reminds us of King Gama in “Princess Ida” : Yet everybody says I’m such a disagreeable man! And I can’t think why! Dr. von Heigel, however, has four reasons for the Germans’ unpopularity Germany has not been sufficiently

ready to loud money to foreign countries; until the outbreak of war Germany paid too little regard to the Press of other countries; by her na-' tional characteristics she has made foreigners believe that the Germans are “quarrelsome, divided, and unfortunate people,” whose friendship brings neither honour nor advantage; Germany has made too much noise' about her intentions. In the third reason lie has a glimmering of the truth, hut only the fourth accounts for much. Might it not have been, more profitable, he asks, to set about| the construction of the navy with less noise? “The war was bound to come in any ease, but was it necessary thus to fan the flames and so put" upon us the reproach of incendiarism ?” Posterity will account it one of the strongest features in German psychology that men like Bernhardt should have told the world exactly what Germany meant to do.