WORLD POWERS

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 10 May 1917, Page 6

WORLD POWERS

TWO NEW GROUPS

RESULT OF AMERICAN INTER-

VENTION,

In a forecast of the world’s political situation after the war Dr. Siegfried Heckscher, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Reichstag, predicted to the Associated Press correspondent that President Wilson’s “war policies” would result in the formation of two new groups of world Powers. He said:

“The excitement in your country over Foreign Secretary Zimmerman s instructions to the German Minister in Mexico is quite incomprehensible to us. They concerned merely precautionary military measures, to become effective only in case the United States declared war on us. They

were part of our active mobilisation plans in case we were attacked by the United States. A nation surrounded by world enemies as we now are canpot be blamed for viewing the latent enmity of Mexico toward the United States as a possible active asset in

case of war. “Did not Mr. Wilson at a time when the two Governments still were formally on a friendly footing boldly set out to marshal the whole neutral world against us? Then witness the action of the Entente in China. I desire to emphasise, as typically German, the fact that Dr. Zimmerman, in his strictly secret instructions to t:ie German Minister in Mexico, explicitly stated.' ‘You must not take any steps until the United States has decfared

war on us.’ Are there not among your citizens men of standing who have retained calm and sober judgment as did Senator Underwood, who literally voiced the sentiments expressed byfactions in the Reichstag, in pointing out the period or eventuality- when the possible German-Mexican alliance was to be consummated?” “How would the future political map of the world look if the United States entered the war?” Dr. Heckscher was asked. CONSTELLATION OF NATIONS. “It is my unshaken conviction,” he replied, ‘That a new constellation of nations, w-ould automatically result in that eventuality-. Personal sympathies and antipathies would count for nothing. It is wholly immaterial whether we lean toward Japan or Japan toward us. Japan’s life interests demands, in spite of an the solemn declarations of her statesmen, that she draw nearer to Germany, for with permanent enmity toward Germany sh© cannot counteract the the menace of an Anglo-American coalition. “•We Germans can calmly look on. Japan must find a path that leads to us, and whatever is left in Germany of common interest in the white race will disappear like chaff before the wind with American intervention in the war against us.” Dr. Heckscher asserted that President Wilson’s war policies would automatically result in a re-alignment of the world Powers. “On the one hand,” he declared, we shall nave an Anglo-American group. Opposing it will be a Gcrman-Russo-Japanese coalition, which, by- j the way, will not be inimical to the [ life interests of our Central and Eastern European Allies. Especially emphasise that Russia’s dream of a Constantinople, without conquest, will have been realised, with the Dardanelles proclaimed a free waterway. “Looking still further forward, it would seem to be plainly- indicated that with the Dardanelles open the irreconciliable contrast between Russia and English interests will stand out more than ever before because of Ensuma s masterly cunning in converting the Mediterranean into an inland sea, in order that in the future instead of facing the problem of the Dardanelles, Russia will find herself confronted with the question of Gibraltar. “The seed sown by President Wilson in this war will not ripen to-day ncr to-morrow. It will spring into maturity when the historical' exposition of the American and Japanese I Mmroe doctrines will occur on the | high seas and the battlefields.”