WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 June 1916, Page 7

WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES.

THE RISE AND FALL OF A BRUTE NATION—THE MASTER DEVIL. Thc v e are moments in a nation's history when t'.e hand of fate touches the dial-plate of disaster. Then comes the end. It is the recorded verdict of history that such moments are usually heralded by glowing triumphs, vast achievements, dav/.l'ng successes. A nation is seldom so supremely powerful as in the hour that immediately precedes its downfall. It is (he law of nature as well as the law of rations. All fruit ripens till it rots. Then at its best it falls from the bough to mingle with the soil from which it sprang Grain comes to perfection; then even the whisper of a storm will shako it from its husk; green and unfinished drain will cling to its husk in the midst of a storm and uprear itself in the morrow's sunlight, to go on until its allotted task is completed. It it that way with empires. It is history's unimpeachable verdict. It is that way with Germany now. The course is nearly run. Soon she will heai the clock strike, and the midnight of her existence will be reached. Her dazzling destiny will be fulfilled, her greatness will be as last year's leaves, her power as a withered bough. She has reached ihe zenith of her destiny, and her star, that might have bejen a beacon for the world, will sink in abysmal blackness. THE GERMANIC RISE. To the student of history half a dozen generations are but as hours to a schoolboy, and it seems but yesterday that Germany stood an unconsidered trifle in the lan of the world; a race of white barbarians degrading the civilisation of Europe. Powerful in physique, brutal in features, foul feeders, depp drinkers, dull of brain, heavy of hand, coarse, common and cruel; yoking their women to the plough in the field with oxen compelling them to drag their heavy springless carts throm;h towns and villages, harl.essed side by side- with dogs. They had no manufactures worth speaking about outside of Saxony. No commerce, no trade. They were the most primitive people on the map of Europe, living mainly by crude tillage of the soil, a brutish wiie had no souls, no ideals no culture, no chivalry. Crude force, sledge hammer force, was their ideal of power. To throttle with great strong hairy, dirty hands all who opposed them was the bed root of German idealism. ■ They were a hreed of clansmen who lived like beasts and diod like brutes. GFUMAXY FINDS HER SOUL.

A race of noble poets sprang up, a school of fine painters, a cult of sublime thinkers, and the German brute was lifted out of his wallow and fashioned into something in the shape of a man, but below the surface the white savage still slumbered. A woman was never really the "angle in the house" in Germany. She was never more than something handy to have about the house; and a nation that does not idealise its women is half savage at heart, for woman is mor» than the mother of a race — she is its saviour if it is to last. Gernriny under the new impulse began to stir like a giant child in the womb of time Slip began to grow great, but the bristle* never left the wild beast's back, the tusks of the forest ravager were always there. Poets, artists, thinkers, writers, orators, all failed to do -more Uian veneer the hide. A brute beast the German was born, and his brutishuess will damn him.

fflE MASTER DEVIL. Germany was escaping from the toils of he. - destiny when Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, was born. William of the Red Hand calls Bismarck the saviour of Germany. Ho was the devil's outrider, and Germany's curse. Had this man never been born, the German race might have fulfilled the laws of evolution, and become really' great. The natural force, if trained and led aright, might have made the whole world gladsome. Bisi\>arek was a throwback to the stone age, a man with a colossal brain and no conscience, an iron will and no soul. Before his birth he had been balanced in hell and made perfect for evil. There, is nothing surer than this, that unseen forces guide men as men guide horses. What, there was of humanity in Bismarck's nature was bound up in two things—love of Germany and hate of Britain. In danger he wasv brave as n

lion, yet he was a liar to the roots of his soul. His brain was big enough to conceive plans for the dominance of Europe, yet he was a forger, a trickster and a cheat. In all his dealings with chancellors of Europe he played with marked cn'-ds. He was the blight of Germany; he scoffed at the poets and artists, sneered at religion, strangled nobility of sentiment, and made a mock of puiily.

TAME EUROPE AND CRUSH ENGLAND.

This was his waking thought and midr.iglft dream. Then came William, the half-witted, a creature diseased in body and brain- half an athlete, half a cripple, half a genuis, half a homicidal maniac. A diseased sepulchre for a soul, a mon. ater spewed from the dark ages to curse the twentieth century, a blight upon the garden of the world, and Bismarck, the master fiend, trained and tutors! him. For a time he did not show his hand after lie came to the throne. Bismarck told lies. William was living a lie. He professed peace and prepared for war on a world that had done him no wrong. He was al' evil, but he made Germany great. She had no navy. Ho built one mighty in every detail. Germany had no.'mercantile murine of any moment. He subsid'. p ,ed ship-building, until her flag was on every highway of the waters of the world. Germany had no overseas commeice. He sent special emissaries the world over and captured a gigantic volume of trade. Germany had no docks or canals of importance. He built some of the best on earth. Germany's flag had carried no weight outside of Europe. He made it respected and feared to the uttermost parts of the earth. Germany had only a small gold reserve. He filled the banks i,»lil they were bursting. He trained, armed and equipped a vaßt army of wishers, murderers and plunderers and called them soldiers. He built factories where no factories had ever existed in the Fatherland, hand in hand with commerce and manufacture. He was a boaster, a liar and a false friend. He played with loaded dice. —even when a tmest, in. friendly countries. He did not know the meaning of loyalty to bread-and salt. The guest-chamber was to him a place of espionage; his kiss .was the ki-s of Judas; he would go to \ royal k ; nsman's death chamber and steai from dying lips the secrets of the great But lie and Germany together mounted to the ulpine heights of power and prosperity. Ge: many became the colossus of the world, and might have been its master ere the sands ran out had honesty and righteousness been the national watchwords instead of trickery and brute force. The whole Germanic life has been a hideous lie for two generation?.. They were within an ace of world mastery by virtue of their industry, organisation, and will power and brain force They have thrown it all to the dogs. The Gods have cursed them. They will fall when the clock strikes. They are absolutely rotten with unrighteousness; yes, rotten! . But the hour is near, thank God!— E W. UIBCS.