SELF-CONTAINED PRUSSIANISM.

Taihape Daily Times, 4 September 1918, Page 6

SELF-CONTAINED PRUSSIANISM.

THE HUN IN THE BALTIC PROVINCES, (By Captain E. P. P. Rowe.)) Those in authority in Germany made no attempt to disguise their principles before the war, and at the present time these arc being carried out as openly as they were proclaimed- The basic principle was the right of force to whatever inheritance it could grasp, and the western and southern territories of Russia, now provide the promised land of German ambition. Here we see the theory of domination put into practice. Esthonia, Livonia, and Finland have been all but annexed and the Ukraine provides an interesting example of the same process at an earlier stage. In the dreams of the German expiaiisionist this is only a beginning. He makes no pretence that the spirit of acquisition and domination will rest content with its present gains, »tr- indeed with buy gains. Even such a comparatively restraitiad writer as Br. R. Jannasoh, ih his many articles dealing with the extension of German power and trade, is at no pains to conceal that limitless ambition. It is worth while to quote a feiv -words from his writings, not because they are exceptional, but because they are typical of views very widely held amongst representative Germans.

“ Germany,” says Dr. Jannasch "has never had such an opportunity presented to her of expanding towards the East. . . The linking up of Germany with Siberia and the Caucasian districts is essential. The ‘Far East’ for Germany is Russia," Again. "The attitude of Germany. towards the Baltic provinces must be resolute. . . All German political interests are opposed to the erection of a Central Great Russian Fewer, Livonia and Esthonia under the sovereignty °f Great Russia would prove a source disaffection. 5 * Here we have Prussian-self-confessed. Russia must be kept Weak and disorganised in a number of separate States which can.- be Ciaton by Germany leaf by leaf just as one eats an artichoke. That German trade may prosper is the admitted purpose but it is equally admitted that such prosperity can only be secured by political domination.

Of the methods of procedure we have an interesting object-lesson both in the west and south of Russia, It was originally professed that Esthonia and Livonia were to be held temporarily nnd that subsequently the peoples of those vast districts should determine their own fate. Actually, the peoples, and such freewill as they possess are being rapidly crushed out of existence. Their country is being /' organised— that is to say, ruled by relentless force and evploited for German advantage, There is no longer any serious talk either of the return of Esthonia and Livonia to Russia of to their inhabitants. A large part of Finland has already been effectively conquered by German troops and fo'rces organised by Germany). That the Baltic is now a German lake is an open boast in Berlin, and the threah 1 to Sweden and Norway is thinly veiled" ' under the familiar formula of "trade - ' expansion." ‘ — l

“The attitude of Germany towards'' the Baltic provinces must be resolute'”' It is an unnecessary exhortation; orrather, it is a defence of a policy of: aggrandisement which has aleady beeiU resolutely adopted. The Ukraine pro-: vidos yet another exhibition of this policy. Here, because the Eada ham-'-pored Germany's efforts to rob Uk : rainian peasants of their much-ncedccl

corn that Germans might be fed with it, the steps taken were as practical ,£S they' were elementary. The Prussian

militarists, being in effective occupation of the country, put in a new Government, and had the effrontery to announce to the world that the peasants had risen to restore an autocratic rule which should despoil them of lands they did not wish to keep and of corn -which they were anxious to surrender. No wonder that the independent Russian newspaper "Pravda” comments thus violently o n the outbreak -which this action has aroused. “The masses of the peasants are rising. They will not yield the land of liberty to the landowners without tremendous resistance and if the Germa spoliators (succeed after a hard struggle in seizing rye from the peasants they can only tansporf it as far as the neighbouring railway station. To aid the peasants the railwaymen are beginning to strike and Marshall Eichoirn (is forced to kephace them with Genian workmen. . .It appears evident that it is not such an easy matter to get a revolutionary people, which has just broken the yoke of Tsardom and the feudal system of exploitation back to the pathway of imperial restoration, as was imagined by the Gorman officers, those hangmen of the world. ”

It ii the same story everywhere, German methods are no longer concealed either in principle „or in practice. The moral is obvious. Whatever else may happen while Prussian militarism stalks the world, peace can never happen. ''Peace',” President Wilson has declared 'can only come by trust. So long as there is suspicion there is going to be misunderstanding; so long as there is misunderstanding there is going to be trouble. If you can once get a situation of trust, then you have a situation of permanent peace.” They are words as wdse, surely, as they arc mild.” In one respect only can Germany be trusted. While she has the power, she will assuredly, break any peace that rests on promises at the call 6f : ' advantage. That, too, the American' President recognises, and behind him, ‘ ''sharing his purpose to the full, is one of the mightiest nations in the wrold. \ »•’