Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1908. THE GERMAN PERIL.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43382, 13 October 1908, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1908. THE GERMAN PERIL.

This above all—to thine own self be true , & nd it must follow as the night the day Thou canst not then be false to any man Shakespeare.

whatever opportunities Germany may take of advertising her allegedly pacific sentiments, the Kaiser fully intends some day to take advantage of such a complication as the present and make a move in the direction of seriously upsetting the balance of power, or rather readjusting in Germany’s favour. . The Kaiser is progressive, on distinctly militant prin* ciples, he is moreover too wise to be in a hurry at the wrong time. The rapidity with which Germany can move in the direction of extending her territories was seen when, during five years under Bismarck’s direction, she secured territory at the expense of Denmark, Austria, and France. As we have previously pointed ont, Germany is preparing for some great move with England as her object of attack. And things may eventuate at any moment which will throw Germany into a stronger 1 position, by putting within her j reach opportunities which she will not fail to seize. Take her present i relations with Austria. At the present time she can afford to remain on terms of alliance with Austria. Ibe Austrian Emperor is an old man, the succession is problematic, the AustroHungarian Empire is, after all but a congeries of disunited peoples. In the event of the present Emperor s death there is no saying what course Germany might not adopt, and every accession of power to Germany is but one weight more thrown into the balance on her side. But though Germany is progressive in the matter of extending her territories, and though she desires to follow Britain’s example in the matter of colonizing, and though her people possess the capacity of successful colonization, she has proved a pitiable, even a shameful failure as a colonizer, judged from an administrative point of view. We quote from Rowland Thirlmere who in his “Clash of Empires” makes the following statements : —“ The land hunger of the Germans is ex ceedingly keen. Their national genius requires colonies, but the cast-iron methods of autocracy have not helped forward colonial development, and the odious cruelties of such men, as Horn, the late Governor of Togo, Vest Africa ("who suspended a native from a flagstaff, and left him there a day and a night to die of maddening thirst), have unquestionably retarded it. For over twenty years our rivals have been in possession of territory in South Africa, nearly as large as their own country Damaraland and Great Namaqualand. During the first three years of war, over 2,000 lives were sacrificed in these colonies, and four hundred million marks were squandered on military operations. This region, which is fully one and a-ha’f times as large as the Kaiser’s entire Empire, would easily hold Germany’s surplus population ; but a woeful beauaocratic administration, and an oppressive treatment of native subjects, has given rise to a national uneasiness which deters young Germans from emigrating to those parts.” Now, if Germany knows no better than this how to administer her oversea territories, is she fit for the possession of them ? Assuredly not. As the same writer points out, she has “ failed dismally in shaping new countries from the wild places of the earth, “ but nevertheless, if ever she gets the chance to do so, she will unhesitatingly wrest from the more successtul British the lands which British administration and British industry have redeemed from savagery, and filled with peaceful industries. It is not for her own sake alone that Britain requires to keep the balance of power in her favour, it is for the saki of those subject races which have come under her kindlier control, also those other races, which, while not under her administration, are obviously safer with her in the ascendency than they might be with a tyrannical and autocratic Kaiser as tiie dominant factor in international affairs.

If the present crisis in the Balkans has served to show us anything, it is how very quickly Europe may be precipated into war. And every such object lesson only serves to reinforce the strong conviction that