PEACEFUL PENETRATION.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 August 1916, Page 9

PEACEFUL PENETRATION.

GERMANY'S POLICY. A GLORIFIED SPY SYSTEM. (By R. B. Slithers in the Clarion). The long series of acts of "frightfulness" committed by the Germans during the course of the war lias amazed and shocked the civilised world. The barbarous deeds themselves have indeed been damnable enough to evoke .the disgust and horror of the lowest savages 011 earth, but what has been almost equally as shocking is the knowledge that these atrocities have been not the isolated crimes of a few unbalanced creatures of lower intelligence than the mass, but the inspired deeds of a philosophy taught by the highest intellects in Germany. At first we simply could not believe that these unspeakable villainies could he anything but "accidents." Now, we know. "Frightf illness" is not a mere incident. It is a policy, the acknowledged German policy in warfare. Even a pacifist is unable to denv the evidence that this monstrous theory has been systematically taught to the' German people for a generation. Now, just as the Germans are outHlO »ale of civilisation in their methods of conducting war, so are they outside the pale of civilisation In their methods of conducting peace. For them there is no peace until the world is a German ■world.

The pacifist cannot understand this. Yet there is as much evidence of a German policy in this respect as there is of the German policy of "friehtfulness" in war.

The pacifist looks upon peace as a state of things during which principles of brotherhood and co-operation will have time and opportunity to germinate and grow. He looks to trade aa the great instrument- for forwarding the growth of these principles amongst the various nations. He thinks trade is bound to promote and strengthen peace. THE PACIFIST IS WRONG. The Germans do not look upon Peace in this way. The Germans look upon Peace as a time for the "peaceful penetration" of nations which they have marked down for destruction. What is "Peaceful Penetration"?

Peaceful penetration is everything the Pacifists likes and more. Only, its end is different. Its end is not Peace, but war—and annexation.

Peaceful' penetration is trade, of course. The Germans believe in trade as heartily as the Pacifist. The more trade the better, they think. In fact, they want all the trade of the world. But there are, as yet, obstacles to the attainment of this ambition.

But, in Peace, these obstacles may be undermined, if not removed. Germans are clever traders. There is no need to enlarge on our shortcomings. Germans have won trade by sheer ability in fair competition. But that is not enough. Germany must win trade, honestly, if that is the best policy, but somehow. When honesty fails, Germany uses other methods.

By trade money is made, a useful item in preparing for war. But money is not the only thing to be got out of trade. Trade means setting up relations with foreigners. It means mutual intercourse. Many things, picked up in that intercourse, may be useful in the war-time to come. The German makes a note of them. The German tradpr is a spy. • Trade, too, leads to the export of capital, mat more natural than the investment of German money in the countries she trades with? What more natural than the settlement of German capitalists and uerman workmen and German clerks and travellers, and bankers and landowners where their capital is invested?

All these things are to the Pacifist evidences of the progress of brotherhood between the nations. To him they are bulwarks against the irruption of the spirit of war.

But to the German they are evidences of their progress towards "The Day"—the day when they will be able to use their army of spies, the traders and capitalists and landowners and workers who have planted themselves in the country of their "adoption," not for brotherhood, but for conquest. In Russia and France and Be'lgium they understand these things. There the German methods are not unfamiliar, but this war has exposed the whole machinery of the policy of peaceful penetration as it has never been exposed before.

Germany aims at world domination, and Germany organises and works for that end just as busily in peace as in war time. Our pacifists have not begun to understand this. They say, "Let us see that peace is peace," when it comes. But the French, the Belgians and the Russians realise now that there is no peace where the German is, and they are preparing to shut the German out of their countries altogether. NO GERMANS ALLOWED. No French or Belgian or Russian citizen will be permitted to trade with any person of German birth. Our pacifists cannot believe that the German? are so wicked as to use commercial and social and diplomatic intercourse with friendly foreigners as an organised means of spying and preparation for military aggression. The French had experience of the organised spy system of the Germans in 1870. But they did not learn the lesson properly. They forgot, if they did not forgive.

■ Between 1866 and 1869, M. Paul Lanoir tells us, Stieber, the Chief German Spy, honeycombed with spies fourteen Departments of Northern France. In these Departments he had planted at fixed points 1850 spies. All these spies were organised in inspectorates and sub-inspectorates, and all reported regularly to their superior officers. These spies were of the usual military character, but Stieber soon learned from his reports that to accomplish his task it would be necessary to send into these fourteen French Departments (1) four or five thousand farmers, market gardeners, agricultural laborers and vine-growers. For these employment was to be found by the fixed-point spies. (2) Seven to nine thousand female domestics, for employment in the cafes, restaurants, beerhalls and hotels. (3) Six or seven hundred retired non-commissioned officers capable of acting as clerks, etc. (4) Two hundred domestics to be placed in middle-class families.

Imagine the joy of our Pacifists when confronted with this little army of peaceful penetration! All they would see in the irruption of twelve or fifteen thousand Germans in two or three years would be the beneficent operation of the laws of supply and demand! But behind this army was Stieber, and behind Stieber were Bismarch and the blood and Iron. They folVwed later. Before the fateful day in 1870 Stieber had planted 30,000 spies in France.

Moltke is generally supposed to have beaten the French by his superior military strategy. But how much credit ought to bo given to Stieber, the Chief Spy, who went before with his 35,000 spies and prepared everything for the military arm? When the present war broke out the Germans in France were promptly interned. By this Means nearly all the spies were put out of action. According to M. Lanoir there were in the garrison towns alone 15,000 spies at feed posts. It was tiieir duty to collect information about the personnel of the army and navy, to pr.y into everything that might possibly be of the slightest service to Germany in the coming war, to learn all about the defensive services and the host mean? of destroying them! But German spies are not confined to garrison towns; they arc to bo found in every walk of life, in every

suspect a German of being a spy merely because he was a German. The thousands of waiters, clerks, governesses, musicians, traders, manufacturers, bankers who have made their home and their money in Great Britain have never been suspected of anything worse than the crime of doing the best for themselves individually. No one ever dreamed that any of them was collecting information that might be useful to Germany on "The Day." If anyone had been so suspicious 110 would have been laughed at he dared to utter his thoughts. ETERNAL WARFARE. Our people have not known anything about the German doctrine of eternal war, about the inevitable struggle between nation and nation and empire and empire. They have been taught, on the contrary, that universal peace was only a question of measurable time. International trade and commerce, we were told, would prevent wars.

Nor have our people known that the eternal war of the German philosophers and teachers was not confined to military and naval operations. We thought a state of war only existed when war was "declared." The Germans are at war all the time, before war is "declared" as much as when military operations are in progress. When this idea is fully grasped the German methods of peaceful penetration will bp more clearly understood. The German spy system is not concerned only with the collection of useful military and naval information. It embraces every sphere of life. German spies seek not only military and naval secrets, they strive to establish themselves in positions of power and influence in the countries they hope to conquer. They become shopkeepers, landowners, employers, financiers, bankr ers—they enter public life and worm themselves into every department of politics and Government.

"Jt must be postulated, as a condition of employment as a spy at a fixed, post, that each one must be obliged to keep some kind of shop, whose selection may be left to him, provided it is at least to outward appearances thoroughly in keeping with the commercial requirements of the country where he has been sent to take up his abode." This was one of the rules laid down by the German Minister of the Interior many years ago. The spies are not, however, restricted to shopkeeping, as recent events have proved. We have seen in America how the highest diplomatic officials liave been proved to be spies and criminals of the most ruthless character. All over the world, in India, in Egypt, in Persia, in the Balkans, in the United States, in Africa, in Russia, in France, in the Uni-„ ted Kingdom, German emissaries have been busy plotting and spying, fomenting discontent, capturing trade, obtaining wealth an(T power and influence, all in preparation for the day when the mailed fist was to sweep away all obstacles to German world dominion.

Amidst all these diplomatic intrigues Germany hfl.s not neglected to "peacefully penetrate" Russia on a large scale by planting "colonists" in Russian Poland in South and Western Russia. Syndicates buy huge tracts of land and "resell tlieni to German farmers, ahd such has been the influence of the Germans ii official circles that the facts have not been made generally known. A private investigation conducted by a monthly review disclosed the figures some years ago. They created a great sensation at the time, but as usual the real significance was not realised.

"Even now," savs M. de Wijsselit.sky, a Bill to prevent the passage of landed property to Germans "is meeting with great opposition on the part of GermanRussians, Germanophils and Pacifists," who "still believe in the harmlessness of German colonisation."

So there are also in Russia and prehaps in Prance and even in Belgium Pacifists who will say when Peace is made, "Let us see that Peace is Peace." They will ask us to admit Germans to trade with us, to ''colonise our land, to run shops and factories and banks, to occupy Government and municipal offices, to become members of Parliament, and the Privy Council, to be "our friends."

But what will the majority nay? "Never again!"