GERMAN EXPANSION

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 18, 15 July 1911, Page 2 (Supplement)

GERMAN EXPANSION

WHERE CAN THE EMPIRE COLONISE? (Chronicle's Special Correspondent). The growth of new industries in a country which was undeveloped 40 years ago, the stimulus given to trade by the activities of the State, and the great development of national undertakings and resources, such as railways, canals, forests, etc., have enabled the German Empire to check emigration and to keep its readily increasing population at home during the last two decades. The pressing problems for the Government are: How long can Germany cope with the increase in the way that she has done hitherto, and in what direction will she seek fresh outlets when the necessity for them can no longer be met by the creation of new channels of employment at home? . The population of the German Empire is increasing at the rate of a million a year Between MO and 1805 it rose from 40,818,000 to 60,641,000. It now stands at over 65,000,0000. At the same time, CTie density is still comparatively low being 290.4 persons per square mile, as compared with 344 persons to the square mile in the United Kingdom, 588 to the square mile in Belgium, and 409 in Holland. Assuming—rather arbitrarily, I must confess—that the empire could without congestion support a total population equal to the present ratio of Rhineland and Westphalia combined, giving 552 to the square mile, there would be room for millions beyond the present figures, so that if the existing rate of multiplication continued, the growth of another 30 years or so could still be absorbed. Thirty years, however, are only a page in the life-history of a great and virile nation, and the statesmanship which did not look much further ahead would be lamentably wanting in discernment. Hence the question is being asked in Germany with increasing exigency: As outlets will be necessary sooner or later, where shall they be found? The Pan-Germanic idea of the absorption "of the Austrian part of the sister empire may be dismissed at once as chimerical. It is true that the population question is not nearly so acute there as in Germany. Austria, with its area of 115,900 square miles, has a density of 226 persons to the square mile, or 51 fewer than Germany, and the two countries together have a density of 267, while on the potential ratio of Rhineland and Westphalia they would give space for a population of 179 millions. Here arises the obstacle to what ma} otherwise be regarded by Germany as an attractive scheme. The Pan-Germans, who never yet faced hard facts seriously, ignore one fatal objection to their pet proposal for drawing together the Ger-man-speaking peoples. Of the 26 million or more inhabitants of the Austrian monarchy, onV about a third are German by language, and a far smaller number are German by sentiment, while the remaining two-thirds are made up of at least a dozen races.

It is obvious, then, that the nationality difficulty alone would make any such accession of territory more dangerous for Germany than a Grecian gift, for among the Austrian races are 4% million Poles, and in a present Polish population of far less extent Germany has already in the East of Prussia a larger problem than it can digest; furthermore, the fact that the population of Austria is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic would greatly intensify confessional feuds in Germany. Nor would the absorption of Holland or Belgium or Switzerland, or all these three countries combined, help Germany one whit in the population difficulty even could one take seriously the mad-hatter stories as to German aspirations in those quarters. When we turn to German's colonial empire, we find that, large as it is, it offers no opening for white colonisation on any save the most magnificent scale. The entire area of Germany's oversea possessions is roughly a million square miles, of which over one-third fall to East Africa, about one-fifth to the Cameroons, less than one-third to South-west Africa, and the rest to Xew Guinea, and other islands of the Pacific. Against a native population estimated at some 13 millions, the white number 25,000 all told, of whom 21,01)0 are German settlers, Owing to climatic reasons, the whole of these colonies save one are unsuited to colonisation by whites, and their value to Germany will therefore be limited to such wealth as can be derived from them by plantation culture, by mining, and by trade exchange. The single exception is South-west Africa. Portions of the central and southern hinterland of this colony offer limited opportunity for farming on a large scale, though the colony is handicapped by lack of serviceable seaports.

The outlook is not more favorable from Germany's standpoint when we consider the countries to which its emigrants have hitherto directed their attention, for there is no possibility of any territory belonging to these pawing under German influence. For a long time a steady stream of emigration passed into Brazil and Argentina, where there are now several strong German settlements. The number of German emigrants to Brazil alone probably falls little below 100,000, and natural growth •has more (than trebled this number, so that now there are whole districts in •the south of the Republic which are quite German in life and language. The German colonies in Brazil have, indeed, become so large as to be regarded for some reasons as a menace to the State, and measures are said to be contemplated with a view to breaking down their influence. It is no doubt partly owing to the fact that German colonists in Brazil have outlived their welcome that emigration to that country has of late fallen to small proportions; during the past five years not more than 1300 Germans settled in the whole of Brazil.

If Germany is ever able to colonise territories for its own sake, instead of for tho sake of other Powers, it will have to look in new directions, and the question arises: How far should England go in facilitating Germany's natural desire for more effective outlets than it at present possesses?

If, for example, the pressure of eventß should seem to urge Germany to seek relief in the direction of Asia Minor, would it not be a mistake on our part to stand in the way of any arrangement which that Power might be able to make with Turkey? It may be granted that if Germany wants territory for colonisation it might go much further without faring as well. The Government of Mesopotamia alone, with an area of 143,250 square miles—an area exceeding by 18 per cent, that of the United Kingdom—offers an enormous field for colonisation, inasmuch as it has only nine persons to the square mile, making it by far the least densely populated part of Asia Minor.

While it is notorious that Germany's gaze has for a long time been turned towards Asia Minor, there has been no Bug gestion as yet of territorial acquisition in that part of the Sultan's dominions, and hence it may be contended that it is premature to discuss a "deal" which may never come off. It is not premature, however, .to recognise frankly and fully German's population difficulty and its need of outlets, and to abandoi once

and for evef the old attitude thtt the expansion abroad which is necessary and right for us is unnecessary and wrong for Germany. Such an attitude cannot possibly be lied with wisdom, justice or even safety towards a country which has given such hostages to the future as Germany; a country, moreover, with an ever-diminishing margin of space for its proiuifl population, and one whose economic development compels it, with the force of inexorable law, to work out its national salvation on industrial lines. Nor is it a defensible attitude for ourselves, seeing that all sane publicists arc agreed tnat the motto of the British Empire needs more and more to be "Consolidation, not expansion."