KAISER'S SUBTLETY.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 March 1918, Page 2

KAISER'S SUBTLETY.

MR. GERARD'S REVELATIONS. THE REAL POWER IN GERMANY. London, Feb. 2-t. The London Times has published the first instalment of a new book on Germany by Mr. J. \V. Gerard, former American Ambassador to Germany. In this Mr. Gerard gives his impressions of the Kaiser and the workings of absolute monarchical rule, To illustrate the Kaiser's.craft Mr. Gerard reveals an incident at a New Year's reception in 1914, when the Kaiser excited the curiosity of other diplomats by conversing the longest with Mr. Gerard and the Turkish Ambassador. . "What the Kaiser said to me," Mr. Gerard remarks, "shows his subtlety." The subject the Kaiser talked to me at length about was -what he called Japan's designs on the United States. He warned me that Mexico was full of Japanese spies and an army of Japanese colonels. He also spoke about France, saying that he had made every effort to make up with France, but that the French refused, to meet'■ his overtures, and he would not try again to heal the breach petween France and. Germany. "Little did I know then the purpo at the back of that conversation, but ,it is clear now that the Emperor wished to have the Government of the United States persuaded, through me, that lie was really trying to keep Europe at peace, and that the, responsibility for what was going 1.0 happen would be on France. But the reference to Japan and the alleged hostility against the United States on the part of the fasMful 'hordes of Japanese in Mexico made me wonder at the time. There were many evidences, subsequent to that New Year's Day reception, of an attempt to alienate the United States from Japan. "As the climax, clarifying what the Emperor had in his mind, came the famous Zimmerman Note- Plotting and intriguing for power and mastery —such is the business of absolute rulers, which in to-day the thing, as Mr. Wilson calls it, wh it'll brought the American people face to face with Kaiseriam." Mr. Gerard declares that the ultimate power in Germany rests with the General Staff, which more or less controls the actions of the Kaiser, and even claims the right of making final decisions on questions of foreign policy. Hence Mr- Gerard concludes that it was General Ludendorff who decided the rupture with America.