GERMAN WAR LORDS AND THE MASSES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 79, 22 August 1914, Page 5

GERMAN WAR LORDS AND THE MASSES.

THE GRIXDESTt WEIGHT OF PAN.- ,' GERMANISM. SHADOW OF A " COMMUNE/' , ■ • 1 A Wellington resident' who toured ,](\) Germany during July of last year has ;Ay no. hesitation in saying that he does ~vfi not believe for one moment that the i.-i surface trouble between Austria and Servia had anything to do with the v unsheathing of the sword by Germany (says the Dominion). It may have been the means to an encl —a peg to hang » ' - war on—(but lie holds that the upheaval , has been hastened on by an arrogant war party to prevent an internal revolution, a revolution against a Government or a series of Governments, who to build up a mighty army and a great navy have ground the people down and down until their hard, unremitting labor in (field and factory produce just so much as will keep body and soul together. The peasantry of Germany were ' ! a clear, sober, hard-working people, who worked on their little farms and vine- I 1 yards from dawn to dark without ever getting any further forward, and vague- .\i ly wondering why life was made such a a burden when it could be so sweet & s thing. In the cities where they arc m , i closer touch with what is going on, ■/, where the aristocracy of the army lead a gay, reckless life, without a thought lor the under-dog, whom they treat as ; so much dirt, the mentality of the work- ■' ing classes lias been sharpened into a realisation of what the Pan-Germanic movement means, and resenting the soulless means that have for years been j resorted to to bring about the end, tliev : have turned in their despair and din- ts< gust to Socialism, and for years had a gifted mouthpiece in the late Herr Bobel, »■,{;, \ Socialism is rampant in Germany—it ;< honeycombs both the army and the nai'v, ,j for the very reason that the craze for power and extended frontiers is for .i., ever grinding down the parents, and the . brothers and sisters of the men who serve in the ranks of these two arms of the service.. "I very much doubt," concluded our informant, "if there will be any Kaiser 1 ov Imperial Government when the final washing-up takes place after the war..,: ! If Germany wins, tho Kaiser vjill pr.y baibly be the most powerful monarch the world has ever beheld—more p'owr-r-. ful than Napoleon the Great-fcut should she tail, he will "be dealt with not only - by the nations Who have beaten him,, ' ' but, metaphorically, torn limb from > limb by his own people. The next fe* y I'days witt pro/BaWy b« the most mojneatous that Jiave, ever been in thq' mi toVv of Western Europe." _