A BRITISH RENEGADE.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 October 1915, Page 10

A BRITISH RENEGADE.

HONORED IN GERMANY. (Age Correspondent). Ixmdon, August 13.

For a spy it is possible to have some respect, because he not only serves 'his country, but risks We life in doing it. But the renegade who vilifies 'his native country without incurring any risks stands on a much lower plana than the spy. For hini it is impossible for any honest person to feel respect. But in Germany the greatest renegade that the w has produced is not only listened to eagerly, but has even been honored by the Kaiser. Herr Houston Chamberlain, an English musician, who was born at England, and has lived many years in Germany, lias been awarded the Iron Cross for the anti-British pamphlets and i newspaper articles which ihe has written since the outbreak of war. In order to extend his usefulness the German military authorities conceived the idea of sending him to the prison camps to deliver addresses to the British prisoners oil the perfidy of Great Britain in declaring war on Germany; but they found, to their astonishment, that British soldiers would not listen to the renegade, but chased him away. In a series of articles which Herr Houston Chamberlain (who married ft daughter of RJdhard Wagner, the great German composer), contributed to the Berlin newspaper "Taglicho Rundschau," he explains why he is confident that Germany will defeat all her enemies. In hits opinion, Germany's superior morality and the justice of Germany's cause make defeat impossible. "When England declared w*r on Germany," he states "a ory of indignant surprise resounded through the whole Empire, such as is uttered by a peaceful traveller who i* suddenly attacked in the night, and while striking out bravely discovers that his neighbours have suddenly been transformed into assassins. And they were no ordinary assassins, for they did not try merely to get) Germany by the throat, but to get at her soul. "A wellprepared campaign of organised lies *encirded with tlio speed of lightning the entire globe," lie continued. '"Outside the frontiers of Germany every true word waa henceforth contraband, and only lies might circulate." This diabolical plan of traducing Germany abroad was England's work, and England carried it out successfully, through the influence of her press and 'her control of the overseas cables. In tlida dnbolical way, England murdered the reputation of on army that was "the most worthy of respect that the world ever seen mid the good name of tho moat highly' edu-' tated, the most discreet and the best disciplined of all nations."

It appears, according to Hew Houston Chamberlain, thy I before the war the Germans had a few faults, having euccumbed to "wicked, traitorous influences," but all this haa been changed by the war, for "whether he will or not, the German, has been stamped u God's warrior." He asserts that a country to which God has given Luther, Goethe, Bach, Wagner, Moltke, Biemarclc and Wilhelm L must have a great future before it, and he declares that Germanism has become an indispensable and irreplaceable instrument of God both within and without the boundaries of the German Empire, He also assert® that "the cause of Christianity is attached to the Gorman flag." England, he remarks, is, or has been since the Stuarts, the mother country of religious hypocrisy, and anyone who doubts this assertion is recommended to read Byron, Goethe, Schopenhauer, and Carlyle. In "Die Zuversicht," Herr Houston Chamberiain returns to the idea that the German is God's warrior. "Governments which have let loose sepoys and Gurkhas, Senegal negroes, and Arabs from the desert against the most civilised and most humane army that the world has ever beheld have forfeited every claim to be known as Christian Governments," he writes. "What haa taken place meanwhile in the German armies? A great revivifying of Christian sentiment, such as fires the hope of eventual and glorious triumph. Indeed, after our magnificent artillery and the equally magnificent scientific attainments which have rendered that artillery and all the rest of our wondrous weapons possible, the greatest asset which Germany can have is the deeply religious feelings of her officers, her soldiers and sailors.

It is this which will act as tile lever to raise the might of Germany far over the heads of her enemies—the armies of anti-Christ. They are not inspired by Christ. Henco the world lias noit been struck with overpowering imagination at their deeds, as it has been at those of t'he German 'heroes in blxe trenches, behind the guns, on the icy night marches, defying the winds in fragile airships, meeting death in the black depths of ; t'he seas. This sacred inspiration will give the finatl and crowning impetus to the German arms against which no hordes of the anti-Chfist can staad, but only then, however, when, as one man the whole German nation at home gives 1 itself to Christ as our noble army has done." '

Tile value of the discovery that the Gorman army has given itself to Christ is lessened for all people outside Germany by the fact that it haa been left to a renegade to make it. The appailmg atrocities committed by German troops m Belgium and France would indicate that the German army had sold itself t(. the devil, not given itself to Christ. It has been proved to the satisfaction of neutral countries that German soldiers defiled churches, bayoneted children, outraged women, shot down aged and infirm men and women, and murdered wounded soldiers.

In Horr Houston Ohamberkin's panegyrics on tlie German amy there ia no mention of the Austrians, and therefore it is not surprising that the Austrian public do not look on this renegade with German enthusiasm. The Vienna newspaper Xeues Wiener Journal, in an article entitled ''False Friends," suggests that Herr Houston Chamberlain ought to be told that silence would l)e more becoming the vilification of hU native country. It 1i0k1.3 up to ridicule siich assertions by Herr Chamberlain as that the average Englishman finds difficulty in pronouncing words 0/ more than two svijables; that science is held in suoli , disdain in England that the British Assemtion for tlie Advancement of .Vience is always referred to as tlie Bntish ass," and that until quite recently tho present King of England luul never heard tlio name of Goethe. "In times such as the present," says tlie XTeucs Wiener Journal, "we do no,i need such a 'friend' as Herr Chamberlain "