GERMANS IN ENGLAND.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 65, 16 March 1916, Page 7

GERMANS IN ENGLAND.

IMPUDENT USURPATION OF RIGHTS. In his book “The Germans in England, 1066 —1598,” lan D. Colvin contends that English history consisted throughout the Middle Ages of “a long, fierce, and irregular conflict between Germany and England for sea power and commercial supremacy. ’ ’ The author accuses the Germans of interfering in English policy, bribing an English Chancellor, financing an English invasion, and raising and pulling down English dynasties. The German Hanseatic League commanded the supply of silver, the trade routes, The sea power of the Mediterranean and the Baltic, whence cam e hemp, flax, pitch, and timber —all necessities for sea power in Mediaeval Europe. And the Germans took from England the full toll of their advantages. “They had their fortified Guildhall with its wharves and storehouses on the riverside; they were free of most, if not all, English taxes, and paid less in customs than Englishmen; they had not only their own court and aldermen for the government of their own affairs, but had special judges to settle their disputes with natives; they were above English juries and English law. .. . they held their houses in London and other ports in freehold; they had control of on e of the gates of the City of London, and 1 were free to go out and in without paying municipal duties; they dealt not only 'in gross’ but in retail, in defiance of English custom,”