GERMANY IN BRAZIL

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 191, 10 February 1912, Page 10 (Supplement)

GERMANY IN BRAZIL

PLANS FOR NEW EMPIRE. "It is strange," said an old German diplomat, whose insight into the plans of the men who mould the destinies of the German Empire is second to none, "that none of you newspaper men ever learn to look through the outer shell of things and discover the kernel within, but it is a most fortunate thing for statesmen that you don't." So writes the Berlin correspondent of the American. "Here all the papers of the world have printed endless stories about the Morocco question, and though some of them have been smart enough to hint that this little affair was partly brought up in order to unite the voters of Germany behind the Government and stem the tide of Socialism at the coming elections, not one seems to have discovered that Germany really cares nothing for the soil in Africa, and that the plans of the Government are to create a new Germany across the Atlantic.

"The territories of the Congo and Morocco are utterly unsuitable for German colonisation, though rich in mineral wealth, which Germany, however, can easily get her share of without burdening herself with the heavy expense of governing these vast stretches- of land, where the rulers have to waste money and blood fighting the natives for years to come. ,

"Germany wants' colonies, must have colonies to provide an outlet for her too rapidly increasing population, but she does not want them in Africa, and for once our statesmen have spoken the truth when they said that we do not want an inch of Moroccan soil. AVe want colonies, but we want them in South America, in spite of all official denials.

"To say just where the German eagle will swoop down on the South American Continent is rather difficult at present, but-probably I shall not be far out of the way when J venture to say that it will be somewhere in Brazil. Scores of thousands of German settlers are already there cultivating the most fertile soil in the world. You may travel for many miles in Brazil and not have to speak anything but German, and all these German settlers are as true patriots as the day they left the mouth of the Elbe or the Weser.

"Some day an incident will happen over there which will give the German Government a pretext for interfering, and then it will only be a question of how much land Germany chooses to take. The native people of Brazil, a rotten race of mixed Spanish, India and negro blood, are poor fighters, and will be able to make little or no resistance to Germany.

"I know what you are going to say. The Monroe Doctrine! But nobody here thinks that the United States will uphold that somewhat shadowy dictum in defence of anything south of Panama, especially against a Power as strong as Germany. We think Americans too good business men to do that. We expect the United States to protest, strongly even, but only in words, and then the matter will end with a compromise of some kind whereby we take what we want, and the United States something nearer home than Brazilian lands. "Of course, such a thing is utterly impossible as long as Germany was without a navy to back .up her demands, and this is why we 'have been spending money far beyond our means to build up an immense navy, and why we had to do it before the opening of the Panama Canal, an event which will double the strength of the American Navy. ! "Before that happens, I venture to say Germany will have a large colony in South America, and she will have got it, I hope and honestly believe, not only without fighting the United States, but even without ruining tbe existing friendship between the two most thrifty and enterprising nations in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. "England, living up to her reputation of being the most 'hypocritic nation in the world, may throw up her hands in pretence of righteous indignation, forgetting that she has stolen more land than 'any other country; but she will* go no further, having already all she can do to hold her vast Empire together. "Thus the peace of the world will rest on a more solid basis than ever—France holding Algiers, Tunis, Morocco and French Congo; Russia Manchuria; and the United States ruling the North American Continent as far south as Panama and with or without Canada as part of her dominions."