BRITAIN AND FREEDOM.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 November 1915, Page 5

BRITAIN AND FREEDOM.

REPLY TO GERMAN PROFESSOR A STINGING REBUKE. Mr. Poulteney Bigelow, the wefl> known American writer, thus replied in the New York Times to a German at' tack on Great Britain: — On the two occasions 011 which I ha« the honor of addressing Princeton Lni* versity 1 carried away admiration Sot the intellectual elasticity of that audience, and was inclined to give the credit to the excellent men composing its Faculty.

It is for this reason that I marvel at the long letter in to-day's Times, contributed by Ernst Johann Spaeth, of that Faculty. For in that letter this learned Ph.D. of Leipsic takes as a compliment to German Kultur President) Wilson's masterly sarcasm when refer-* ring to the massacre of the Lusitania having -been perpetrated by a Govern-* ment hitherto "humane and enlight* ened."

It is not my purpose to argue a poinii of humor with Princeton's Professor English • Letters; but to point out an error in the field of history—a depart* ment where exactness is of more import* ance than even elegance of diction. Drj Spaeth describes England as the f Jpo9t( gigantic conspiracy in restraint of tiqultt ever organised"—and as truth ia deal* to the American reader, who may bflj impressed by the academic titles of mj) Leipsic friend, permit me in a few wordl|to examine gently this strange state* ment. J Not many years ago I sat on th«J club verandah at Singapore and counted twenty-five funnels of a single German steamer line. From Singapore I wentj to North Borneo; there was but.onej line, a German, and that line carried! the Britiali mail. Later I went to Slam' from Singapore. It was on a steamer of this same German line, carrying Britiali mail; there was no other. Thence, 1 went to Hong Kong by the same ejiceW lent German line. Later 1 went tof Australia—it was toy one of thiß line. To Java and the Eastern Arehi* pelago, to Penang—it was always thut vast German company, doing not only) all the German hut the British mail service as well. The German traders, with whom I mixed freely, marvelled the infantile generosity with which 1 Great Britain opened all her ports to German enterprise, although long-headed! people shook their heads at the thought of German skippers having a better ae«: quaintance with British waters thanj their own people. Nowhere in the British colonial world have I found the slightest evidence of commercial monopoly, and certainly no favoring of Englishmen at the expense of Germans.

Even in India the German commercial 1 traveller lias roamed at will, and driven Englishmen out of business under tha very nose of the Calcutta Council. Germans have assured me on what they deemed the best authority that in the event of war India would immediately rise as one man and chase every Engt lishman into the sea. Yet when I wa» there the whole British garrison numbered a mere 75,000 white men over a native population of nearly three hundred million.

Officers close to the Berlin Court have welcomed this war to me on the ground that all South Africa would rise and fight for Germany, It was idle for me to tell them that my experience led mo to a different conclusion; the" knew better. They were all Doctors of PUilon aopliy—and besides: YVir Deutsche wissen das Alles bessei*. . ! In my studies in the economic fleU studies that hare carried me to most ot the British no les3 than German colonies, I have searched in vain for that '"restraint of trade" which Dr. Spaeth attributes to John Bull. On the contrary, where I have found a "most gigantic conspiracy in restraint 'of trade" has been in the Imperial German colonies, where competing English traders have been treated to a systematic course of petty offiAl restriction so vexatious that finally they have given up the attempt to do business under German conditions. When I was in German New Guinea this official persecution went so far that a British trading steamer was even forbidden to get water, in order to force it to abandon trade with the natives of that neighborhood.

Why is it, lieber Herr Doktor, that British colonics are crowded with Germans? Why is it that 110 German is willing to, colonise 011 German soil? Does Dr. Spaeth know that nearly every one of Germany's colonies was virtually a gift from England, at a time when Bismarck was anxious to amuse hi# people by foreign toys, and when Txird Salisbury held all tropical colonies a* of doubtful value? He gave away th« western section of South Africa, which lias been ever claimed as part of Cape Colony. He gave away an empire to the north of Australia, which the people of that Commonwealth have bitterly resented. Wherever the Blaek Eagle has shown itseil' 011 colonial soil, Wiat soil has suddenly pined as with, blight. Prussian rule alone has nourished: the natives have been reduced to slavery or escaped to the jungle; German, colonists have been conspicuous by their absence. For the benefit of Dr. Spaeth, whose colonial experience has been gained in the Aula of Leipsie, let me state that to-day the British ilag in every ore of her varied colonial possessions represents to Germans, 110 less than to the lyitives, more of justice and liberty than either of them have ever tasted before. Germany to-day is cordially detested in every German colony—or was at the time of my last inquiry. On the contrary, England could raise volunteer regiments in Basutoland or Rhodesia; iNorth Borneo or Hong Kong; Jamaica or Barbados; and as to India, her Sikhs, Gurkhas Pathans have given but foretaste of what is yet coming from the Indus and Ganges to vindicate Britain's honest rule in the Far But. In a short letter I cannot enter into details, or I would develop the distinction between India and all other British possessions. I also anticipate my German friend, who remarks that British colonies do discriminate in favor of the Mother Country; but we also know that colonies who do that are beyond the Mother Country's control, like Canada. But in so-called Crown like Hong Kong, the Geriuan totdtf hM the same advantages as every other—or did have these advantages until God smote his rulers with megalomania, md called forth war on a scale of magnitude and misery undreamed of in the best days of the wars for ralkfeft at *«. smitftu*