The Daily News. FRIDAY, AUGUST 20, 1915. A GREAT GAMBLE.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 August 1915, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, AUGUST 20, 1915. A GREAT GAMBLE.

A recent article in t)io Times on German financing is of great interest. Its meaning, practically reduced, is this that every man, woman and child is living on 1.0.U.'s issued the (»ou irnment, that these 1.0.U.'s will be redeemed out of the coders of the Allies if flermany wins, and that if Germany does not win the whole nation and every individual thereof will become bankrupt. If Germany loses, there will be an economic smash in thot country such a? no nation ever experienced hefore. .Some look on this as an admirable. stroke of high finance, but to many men it will seem to be the most colossal gamble 011 record. Germany has staked her nil 011 the war; she lias got every citizen to stake his all 011 the war. If she loses, she is ruined utterly, and she drags down every one of her citizens into the same pit of bankruptcy and despair. iShe has thrown all capital, all savings, everything she can beg, borrow or steal into the lottery of the war, If she loses, she will certainly be the most pitiable (outilry ever yet seen. But this policy of flermany in finance is quite consistent with her war policy in all its aspects, remarks a Melbourne journal. flermany is a gambler, and she is the greatest gambler the world has known. The unity of the nation ami the docility of the people have given her the power of drawing every one of her citizens into the one huge gamble. If she wins, they win, and it is all right; if she loses, they lose everything and utterly, and the whole nation is ruined. A national gamble for victory or ruin, a gamble ill which (he people are involved as much as the Government— that has been her policy throughout the war. The invasion of lle'gium, the flouting of the "scrap of paper," the orgy of Deutschland's lust and rightfulness, were all part of a great gamble. If the German wins, he war-lord by virtue of terror, of every small Stale in Europe—or in the world, for that matter—and superior to all obligations; the people victorious over aH, because they are without lioror and w®out shame. But if they lose, they sg sL'o same time lose reputation

and honor, and bcfjmc the one people hated and loathed and shunned by all small States throughout ihc world. Then the act of drawing Britain into the war was a huge gamble. If Germany wins, she wins the British Empire; but if she loses, cshe loses all that she has toiled for during the last thirty years—the whole modern Prussian effort towards a world-empire and a world-poli-tic vanishes like a dream of the night. One asks in ivonder: Did any nation in any modern war ever stake so much? In ordinary warfare—in modern times, at least—a nation is defeated, hut she generally survives, and .sometimes arises from her defeat stronger than before. But there can he no future for Germany if she is heaten; she is mined as utterly as any nation can be. If she loses, she can he kept from starvation and anarchy only by the charity of Europe. If she loses, the whole world wjll have to raise vast benevolent funds to pour out among her people to keep them from dying like flies and from destroying each other. Another stake in the huge gamble has been Turkey. Turkey, 110 doubt, deserves all she will get, but one cannot but feel surprised, and even sorry, that her punishment should come through her being drawn into such childish folly. 'Germany threw Turkey into her piled-up stakes. If she wins, of course, it is all rightGermany will dominate not only Eur-' ope, but Europe and Asia; her fiat will run from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf. But if she loses, she loses all her toil and money and effort in {lie Near East; her dream of suzerainty over Asia Minor must vanish for ever. Ant', if she loses, then Turkey—well, Turkey goes out, that is all. Germany's conduct towards America has been another stake 111 the game. She tried to win the United States over to her side. When she could not succeed she became reckless and threw all possibilities of compromise to the winds. Even America, where Germany has a natural internal hold of considerable power, becomes her enemy, and will not raise a finger to avert her ruin—or, rathe", will even rejoice in that ruin. Yet it would have been so easy not to throw away altogether the sympathy and help, of America, And the destruction ,of the Lusitania lias been part of the same hazard. It embittered all the nations and steeled all the nations against Germany. If she wins, of course, she does not care —she can lord it over mankind. But if she loses, she has c-ut away from her side every possible friend or helper; she has made herself solitary amid the human race. The most extraordinary hazard of all in the great gamble is the way Germany has deluded and befooled and betrayed her own people. If she wins, then there is 110 treachery and delusion; if she loses, there will be anarchy and revolution as certainly as anything future can be certain. Ann the Government know this. The Kaiser and his nobility must know that they are fighting for victory or ruin—for their own fortunes and positions as well as for their country. But all this gambling, this burning of boats, this putting of all things into one huge hazard, is surely a blunder as well as n novelty. The highest generalship leaves a carefully protected line of retreat; the highest diplomacy lias always a secondbest, a compromise, 011 which it can fall back in case it does not attain all it desires; the highest statesmanship does not embitter the opposition and make them desperate and vindictive. The highest skill in the art of life never plays for all or nothing, success or ruin. Sr.ch extreme measures are not skill; they arc mere desperate gambling. And they produce the gambler's temperament. The cruelty, callousness, the immorality, the dishonesty of modem Germany, the lack of all honor and of nil shame 011 the part both of rulers and people/ are just the consequence of the gambling mania in its extreme form, A gambler will starve his wife and children, rob his friend, dishonor his name, and a'l for the sake of the hazard. So with Germany. She will not win—thnt is certain. There will be 110 stalemate; qhe has made that impossible. But her ruin and her loss when it comes, her chaos and anarchy, her misery and suffering, will be beyond anything we can imagine.