THE GERMAN MENACE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 196, 17 February 1914, Page 8

THE GERMAN MENACE.

HELD TO BE A Js IGHTMARE. A CONSUL'S VIEWS. Auckland, February 15. Dr. R. Kiliani, Consnl-Cleneral in Australasia for the German Empire, who is at present on a visit to Auckland, had some interesting observations to make to a reporter on the economic aspect of Germany's relationship with Australasia. Discussing the apparent feeling of hostility which exists in these Briti ish dependencies towards Germany, a feeling which he remarked was just as dufinite in New Zealand as in Australia itself, he pointed out that so far from being a hostile factor in the development of Britfeh industries, Germany was more and more crery year becoming the complemsnt of the economic structure of tlie British Empire. Dr. Kiliani went on to remark that Germany herself was an immigration field for large numbers of the Slavonic people of Eastern Europe. The influx into Eastern Germany last year reached 250.000. Tho significance of these figures could be better realised when it was mentioned that during the same peiiod Australia gained 80,000 by immigration. "So y«u can see," he said, "how unfounded is your fear of a German invasion of settlers here." Upon an interviewer suggesting that an invasion of German settlers might be rather Welcomed than otherwise in Aus- | tralasia. the Consul-General pointed out that the economic aim of Germany was to encourage her people to remain in the Fatherland. As for the political aspect, he pointed to the closer bonds of understanding between Great B-itain and Germany. One of the results if the Balkan War, he said, was the growing recognition in Great Britain that it is not her policy to hem in Germany in the near Eajt. "The real interests of Great Britain and Gcriiiauv in that field are practically identical," he remarked. Reverting to the economic situation, Dr. Kiliani added that this taking of raw products from the British possessions was not the only feature in the new economic development which spoke. for her as the natural complement of the British economic structure. Since Germany had grown so wealthy, she had also become the largest purchaser of British-manufactured articles. Up to last year the United States of America held this place as the chief buvcr fro • Great Britain, but last year Germany supplanted the American Republic as a buyer. It was foolish, therefore, to *=- siime that the wealth of a great neighbor meant necessarily harm to the British Empire. As ft matter of fact, the economic inter-dependence of the two countries had been overlooked "y those who were always .pre-supposing h'ostilitv of interests between the two nations The interests of Great Brit-iin and her dependencies were as much bound up in the economic, progress of Germany as were those of Germany in the ability of the British dependencies to stmpl her increasing wants in raw material.