NEW GERMAN CHANCELLOR.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 7 August 1917, Page 6

NEW GERMAN CHANCELLOR.

% TOOL OF THE WAR PARTY,

UTTERLY RUTHLESS PRUSSIAN. LONDON, July 17. The correspondent of the Times at Amsterdam states that Dr. Michaelis, the new German Chancellor, is known as a hard, intelligent worker, who goes through thick and thin, regardless of everyone, to attain his aims. He has never been a friend of the reactionaries, and looks a typical bureaucrat. He has a round Prussian skull strongly marked features, deep lines round his mouth, indicative of sterness a slight frown, sharp eyes, indicating sntense concentration, black hair, and a short moustache. Michaelis is rooted in Prussian officialdom, and is utterly ruthless, but he is without political opponents. He recently incurred the enmity of farmers by sending soldiers into the most secret recesses of their homes seeking hidden stores of grain. He created infinite friction for a beggarly 3 per cent, additional return. The Kaiser apparently set aside all candidates who could be regarded as being pledged to particular tendencies in foreign policy, presenting Dr. Miehaelis to the country merely as the most capable unbiased Prussian ojcial he could find. It is now accepted that the change means the triumph of the militarists. The Berlin correspondent of the Cologone Gazette describes Michaclis as the nominee of the armament industry. The Munich Neuste Nachrichten says that Michaelis will follow the Hindenburg war policy. The Washington correspondent of the London Times says it is agreed in America that Bethmann Hollweg’s resignation means that Germany has fallen on evil days, within and without but the transfer of power from one dictator, to another will not, it is thought, affect them. It merely means elevation ,of another tool of the Hohenzollerns, un-, less by a miracle the German people obtain control of their own affairs.

German observers regard Hollweg’s disappearance as final. His personal devotion to the Kaiser knew no limits. Eis private life was unassailable, even by his bitterest enemies, who were lately numerous and powerful, and utterly unscrupulous. The Kaiser, ungrateful, has tossed him to the wolves. The newspapers condemn Hollweg’s irresolution, but admit his strong sense r" responsibility. The Yolks Zeitung says that his ideal was to unite all parties for the common weal, but his achievements was an unprecedented disruption of parties, The Taglische Eundschau, a military organ, says; He will live in posterity as the Chancellor most injurious to- the Prussian Crown. The Times correspondent at 'Amsterdam states that Dr. von Bethmann Hollweg, has been given the Star, of . the Hollenzollern Order. He will retire to his estate at Hosenflow, and will devote his leisure to historical work. The "Kaiser wished to offer him an ambassadorship after the war, in either London or Rome, but this suggestion be wisely put akide. Commenting on the change in the German Government, the London Times says: “Hollweg was clearly convinced of the necessity for any early peace if Germany were escape disaster. But Junkerism could not be expected to consent without a struggle. They have encompassed his fall, but it remains to be seen whether they have Improved their case. The Kaiser probably forsees the hour when he must again don his faded mantle as Peace Lord to play to a gallery of disillusioned subjects in the hope of impressing the war-weary world. When the enemy no longer occupies allied ,territory when he is ready to recognise the claim of Belgium, Servia, Poland and France to reparation and the right of European peoples to choose, in President Wilson’s phrase, “their way of life and obedience.’ H will bp time to talk peace. Until then the enemy must be educated to a sense of reality by the pedagogy of armed forces. 'Reuter’s correspondent of Amstor- • dam says that the Premier.of Austria, Ur. Seidler, adddressing the Constitution Committee at Vienna, promised that the problem of giving equal rights to all Austrian nationalities will be solved by constitutional methods. This, be said, would deprive Austria’s enemies of the pretext of interfering in ber domestic affairs, and thus be one step on the road to peace.