GERMAN TREACHERY.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 57, 7 March 1916, Page 7

GERMAN TREACHERY.

WHAT AMEKICA KNOWS. If anyone has any doubts as to the manner in which Germany, for many years past, has been preparing for the war which she has forced upon the world, they cannot do better than read the “Life and Letters of John Hay’ (Constable), a man who, from comparatively humble origin, rose to be American Ambassador in London from IS9G-S. Queen Victoria referred to him as “the most interesting of all Ambassadors I have known.

Writing in 1900, Mr. Hay said, in letter: “I would sooner bo the dupe of China than the chum of the Kaiser.”

It had occurred to Berlin that there were many ways of colonising a country. “The,United States held the largest number of emigrants from Germany. They have come here to escape military service at home, or to break through the rigid lines of caste, or simply to better their fortunes; and they had thriven here. Under the pretence of promoting political and commercial friendship, the German Government began secretly to organise the German-Americans. Age-tits of all kinds were sent out front Germany, and the German-Americans, who had been looked at rather as absconders by the Imperial Government, • were now flattered, courted, and encouraged in all ways to renew their intimacy with the Fatherland and to regard that as theiv real home. “The time came when those among them who had achieved wealth or eminence- visited, Germany. They were effusively welcomed. The Emperor condescended to receive them, and permitted even German Jews to penetrate to the antechambers of the Court. He distributed decorations lavishly. Towards native Americans, also, he showed great affability. His paid pamphleteers discovered, in essence, the Prussians and the Yankee were singularly alike. ATo form of seduction which occurred to the Prussian imagination was left untried. . . ”

Accordingly, the United States were permeated with spies, advocates, and surreptitious promoters of the glbry of the Hohenzollern dynasty. Mr. Hay was always suspicious of German treachery. He probably hoard from Mr. Chamberlain himself the remark which the Kaiser made to an Englishman, who reported it to Mr. Chamberlain: "If I had had a larger fleet I would have taken Uncle Sam by the scruff of the neck.’’

This was shortly after the SpanbhAmericau War, and while, as Mr. Huy says, the American relations with Germain- wore perfectly "civil and courteous." They recognised that the Germans could not help bullying and swaggering—it was their nature.