GERMAN AMBITIONS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 17, 14 December 1916, Page 4

GERMAN AMBITIONS.

Recently the Dean of Newcastle writing to the Sydney Telegraph remarked that there was a wide difference, in respect of their desires and fears, between different sections of the German people. For those uppermost in social standing or wealth the pain of accepting the terms of the Allies would consist mainly in their having to relinquish great dreams or grounds of pride. Perhaps it will never be possible to say with exactness how far before the war the desire for war went in the German people. That the bulk of the people wished for the maintenance of peace seems to be agreed. On the other hand it seems certain that in military and naval circles there was a widespread desire for war, the desire to prove the powers of the great German war machine in the "real thing." Again, a large part of the middle class, averse from the idea of war as such, had apparently been infected with grandiose visions: of," the German future. He also says .that it is, of the utmost importance for Australians that they should at the present time recognise the fact that the pre-war. vagueness of such visions as "Germany's place in the Sun," "From Great Power to World Power," etc., have.crystallised during the course of the war into far greater definiteness. Although it is admitted in some more .sober circles that "much which enthusiasts in Germany hoped for at the beginning of the Avar will not be obtained in the war," yet German ambition has focussed itself round four leading conceptions—the freedom ■ of the seas. Central Europe, fieri in to Bagdad, and a colonial' Empire. "The point to notice," the Dean goes on to say, "is that so long as any or all of these

ambitions maintain their hold upon the rulers of Germany, so long will :i peace on the Allies' terms prove unlikely." There can he no doubt of the view taken and when it is full} considered from,the standpoint given the 'impossibility of such a peace as Germany, sorely pressed, now asks is only emphasised. The overtures now made are as false and hypocritical as anything yet "put forward by the enemy.