UNKNOWN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 127, 26 June 1909, Page 4

UNKNOWN

EYES■IGNORANCE OF GERMANY

iility CM/b Smythc, in the Sydney * Morning Herald.) > "'*' : ' '.ln his remarkaole study of French r '*«&»*•■* institution., Mr Bodley r -r Kntally contrasted the Englishman. SToi France and its people with k Ignorance prevailing in Engird about Germay and its people. The Ktaaiup oi the two nations, their affinity "> Trewrious outlook, the intimacy of , ,eir historical relations, not to mention ction, would all seem I tics of sympathy bei Germany and enof the language and 3erman people by the ourist, as they have study the literature England. But that The countries that potwed the attention ;he average English ) and Italy. A glance lent of the leading London immediately lat Germany is niiwn the average tripper al, enemy, France, or visit to the two art Englishmen make anv ial Germany or under i if the various races it most complex of problems, the German ey suggested that the f" had a good deal to ;ve repugnance of the • Germany. "The Gerid, "are burdened with they themselves wilAnd Heine doubted with such,a cumbrous 'could ever accomplish literature; whereas red quite an easy lanD acquire a colloquial is, of course, a fallacy. deed that a foreigner, Englishman, speaks ny good accent and a of the niceties of excquire a mastery of 8 much sedulous effort istery of German. Max hat he had only met who spoke Trench to •were Lord Granville, , and Mr. T. P. O'Con--11 educated, partly at But a comparison of r English, or even Ansj for French and G«r----m which of the two imohly believed to be Serman is nowadays the r the practical affairs ities;will dispute. Yet Bodley Suggested, the quickly substitutes an for his mother tongue, at «o much, because of aktogit as from a deGermanism, and there ociety, ■with the proud •ves-Germanism serves Jished in Berlin under nage, with the purpose he. German millions in Switzerland, and elsetheir native tongiie to in auch measures are iry with people of Gerirth, one can scarcely t the average English b fp struggle with the cities of German gramthe inharmonious gut- . pronunciation.' ' { tfGAGY OF GERMANY

las almost an axiom at, without a good angnage and literate attempt a leal foreign people. For sition to avoid the its, hotels, and peng the people themnany the stranger, igttistic endowment, Stacles to a proper e country and its t found in the study land. Some writers ibored to diagnose pical German, only g us with an ideal J&s. Sidgwick, for y of domestic man Gtarmany is in many e ibest by far in our lithe portrait of a lan wife that really as typical It is certain classes in There is; strictly lung as a German the German Empire [ their inhabitant ced individualities, ending to speak uf Between the pnmi Jve£*oWhrtn.(ype to lie met in the tiW*Hp <** Etfoeck and the intense JrnjfiMi type of Koenigsberg, or the IjßpiafciKwiPrussian of Berlin and the ntHotionßkfKian of Regensburg, there fj'aafwarlfed » diversity in ideas, manP,i;owU6ok, and even language, as esg between an inhabitant of Inveri&y'ilidfftT citizen, of Canterbury. In piotigqL again, the visitor is repeatedjgSieriwW ot .France (the resident is atte'fjmidE of- the likeness). In Breand sympathies arc All this disturbs the pfSifyjSiiJtor'e standard of measure|wtsWsß» very multiplicity of the is confusing. In Wunr'tten to jw newspaper or penwSTjflirt can.te accepted as typically iMMfjiMlWy in the sense that The pPlifsP&j*§7 Tetegmpb, or the Spec and the Temps, the yjna&jffX tnV-,pebati u in France periodicals abound in gwniurjjlwfth.-ft ranker growth than fgKtiloSmn in .America, and with a iiniijojKef voices that has not been Babel. Yet it would be ,t» describe any section journalism as the "provincial |»>/ r '3pich BT'thaf term is applied in S||jjsma7pr France. It would indeed be rSosfrjaearer jfrjthc facts to say that FffiVpnty provincial press in Gcrmam the capital. Paradox apart, |wevei£ for the authority of the opin prcexpressed and' the influence exergreat dailies of Cologne pjnkfoit, Hamburg, and Munich, to jShtaos' Only the chief centres, equal Mljgnretiniw even surpass, those of fie rajeVppblished in Berlin; and it is ccr tofif>«urprising for the stranger to dis ttferi'olie of the leading organs of Ger opinion is published in t&pafa.ni that the greatest illustrated jgMpW Jtfce lUustnerte Zeitung, which SMppuds, to the Graphic or- Llllustia Sfegml to mv mind is the finest pnh it&Jcind m the world, is issued jfcSjKßerlin but in the comparatively BjOplity' of Leipzig. IN GERMANY of politics is an a re tint the representatives of tin aSphx-'llades, > according to the old §yj*,j«j.merely "the most numerous' ffl*tjffuent of the Empire, and the Em pit "the "first among equals" of the airman rulers But the scrupulousness J.th"'jvfhich even the smallest State inSts upon its independent existence and loyalty of the inhabitants f their territorial prince are not so Jmmonty appreciated. The people of,, it*- instance, 'Mecklenburg-Schwerin re(trd, fne!* Grand Duke with almost ffldal awe and reverence. Indeed, that BSy; territory seems like some belated jjjfvjval of the Middle Ages that ha» rated alongside the most prodigious of European nation-! g-feeling of the Bavarian for the Witmad, as the family ■p toiWt h 80mething v deeper than KaMtraent inspired among the Bi Kw^PT v the,Emperor. Again, in ■MJhSfeffi'jfcaßa' Bremen, we have leirs of the pure HjjljWWjtoefci and regard the ncighlittle lower than the IKPj|n|pifcMnirgers are fond of jDnstrating the proud 1 is the representnin the Bnndeirath. Empire; and the stnrr ft* burgomasters. Dr acknowledged and on a later receiving a Hamhurs to have said, in "Plea«e rememlfl -the world presents of State separ-

Uundesrath. Curiously enough, the Australian Commonwealth provides the closest analogy (a superneial analogy, of course) to the great German JSnipue. The sense of individuality and sovereignty, within certain defined limits, of the component Australian States, does suggest some similitude with the position of altos in (iermany, only, if anything, the intensity of the idea of separate sovereignty is stronger in Germany.

THE CHOSEN PEOPLE. It must not be imagined for one moment that this-sense of separate sover- : eignty is in any measure a uistiategratmg eieiutb m the Imperial fabric. Xowuere in travelling through Germany eaa the curious enquirer trace any such eifeci. On ihe contrary, even in those southern parts where the Catholic States resent more than elsewhere the arrogant primacy of the Prussian the feeling of loyalty to the Empire is as unshaken as when, elated by the communicative ardour of victory, the independent German States elected William I. as Emperor at Versailles. There is one other vital respect in which the Germans in the four quarters of the Empire are united as one man; that is, the complacent confidence 171 Germany's destiny to rule the world. No observant traveller caii fail to mark this feature of modern Germany. The motto of the society quoted above, "Who serves Germanism serves humanity," tereely expresses a widespread sentiment bred of an uninterrupted series of triumphs. The great apostle of this sentiment was' Professor lleinrich von Treitschke, the founder of historical teachiug in modern Germany, who is still regarded with a respect closely akin to veneration* The sentiment that animated the scholar Treitschke has prompted the amazing commercial expansion of Germany, and, next to their military prowess, there is notttiag of ■which the Germans' are more proud than the positon won by the Jforddeutscher-Lloyd and the HamburgAmerica line, the two richest and greatest steamship companies in the world, the modest motto of the latter ltae, "The world is my field," is inscribed in majestic lettering over the door of their head office in Hamburg. It was precisely this perfect confidence in the national destiny to lead Creation that animated the conception of the great Bismarck memorial in front of the Reichs'tag, Berlin. This monument is the work of Reinhold Begas, the Emperor's protege, aad probably the.most stupendous "display artist" in bronze of the present time. Compared with Rodin, he is as Paderewski compared with Carreno. fle has decorated, or, as some critics' insist, disfigured Berlin '.with a score of fantastic groups. la these monuments Begas is generally considered to have embodied suggestions from his Imperial patron; and the obscure allegorical' details' of the splendid Bismarck memorial are, by the envious, attributed to the Emperor. But there is one important detail which admits of ao misunderstanding. Next to the figure of the warrior-statesman, the most conspicuous feature is a colossal figure of a kneeling German, in the role of Atlas, carrying the planet on his' shoulders. The modern Germans arc thoroughly convinced that "they shall inherit the earth."

AN EMPIRE OF PRODUCERS. -. To justify these pretensions the Germane are meanwhile doing their best to provide the waste places with population and supplies. Every week about 20,000 Germans are added to the population of the Empire. That is said to be now the excess of births over deaths. That is to say, every week measures have to bo taken to feed, clothe, educate, and ultimately provide with employment 20,000 new inhabitants, and the number will, of course, increase every year. That fact alone, coupled with the immense oversea markets of the Empire, explains the unexampled prosperity ■which the most cursory observer cannot help remarking everywhere in modern Germany. To one like myself, Who has not been in Germany for a decade, there is nothing more startling than the expansion and opulence of the great ports and the growth of industrial centres everywhere. It 16 not merely in the old manufacturing regions about the Rhine' that this is' noticeable, but from Lubeck to Breslau,, from Koenigsberg to Karlsruhe, there is the same amazing display of industrial activity, which has even overflowed into Northern Italy and helped to transform Genoa into the principal port on the Mediterranean. A few years ago Nuremberg was little more than a mediaeval relic; it is now a. vast manufacturing centre of 700,000 people. Hildesheim, formerly a '"haunt of ancient peace," now echoes with the hum of industrial activity. All this means an inexhaustible demand for labor, and it is one of the boasts which nowadays one hears on •ill sides in Germany that there is no leisured class in the Empire. Everybody seems to he at work; the men in the factories', the women in the fields. Women not only till, manure, and sow, the ground, hut between Potsdam and Berlin they are employed on railway construction works. In the very heart of Berlin, in the beautiful Tiergarten, the work usually done in London, Vienna, and Paris by men. the turning over of the beds and the cleaning of the pjiths, is done by women. This general employment of women in Germany, never entered in the English statistics of wages earned on the Continent, upsets' all the calculations on which'are based the usual comparison of the relative standard of comfort among the working classes in England and Germany. The boast that there is no leisured class in modern Germany seems to be justified. The old idea that the Germans are a race of idealists and philosophers must be revised; they are an empire of stern realists and tireless producers. And (with the exception of Berlin there is very little luxury or extravagant display of wealth to be discerned. There is a high standard of comfort everywhere, hut no waste. The shops present nothing comparable with the exhibition of costly costumes to "oc seen in London or Paris; and in the theatres, even in the State opera houses, it is quite the exception to see a "grandc toilette," except occasionally in some private box or at a gala performance. This is even tho case in Berlin, which the ordinary German regards, comparatively speaking, almost as a modern Babylon. It is an extraordinary city. Here, in the greatest industrial and commercial city in Europe to-day, with a population Of close upon 4,000,000 people, the great conundrum is when the inhabitants work and 'when they sleep. The streets and cafes' are never empty; and between 5 o'clock in the afternoon and 3 in the morning they seem as thronged as at midday. The "boulevardier" and the "badaud" are no longer "articles do Paris." TLoir headquarters are the prodigious capital of modern Germany. j