HERR BALLIN'S MISGIVINGS.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 April 1918, Page 6

HERR BALLIN'S MISGIVINGS.

GERMANY'S DARK OUTLOOK. FEAR OF ANGLO-SAXONS. The following letter is published by the London Daily Chronicle a,s an "intercepted letter":— To Her Privy Councillor, Dr. ath.-' enau, Berlin. Hamburg, Dec. 4, ]!)17. My Dear Herr Geheimrat, —You honot me in asking mo to express an opinion regarding the probable course of our economic policy after the war. But I cannot do this in any satisfactory or sullieient way within the brief compass of a letter. All I can do is to jot down a few thoughts that strike me'as being applicable to the present serious siti afion. 1 must say at once that neither in this city nor in any part of the country do I find a definite or well-con-ceived plan of action for the re-estab-lishment of after-war economic, relations, nothing advocated wliicli can be adopted without grave misgivings as to its feasibility. Most of what we read in (lie newspapers as to our prepare*, ne.s-i fer embarking on orisk trade as soon as peace is concluded is, I fear, written with the manifest intention of heartening our people, who are notoriously ignorant of our actual economic conditions and all that threatens them.

Take, for example, that branch of commerce with which I am supposed to he familiar—shipping. What sorry lies have been dished up to our people on this subject! One reads of riveters as they work at the creation of new leviatiiians for our overseas commerce. Hamburg, Bremerhaveii, Danzig. Stettin, are supposed to be buzzing with shipbuilding. Not long ago one journal asserted that nearly 400.000 tons were almost ready for launching! And there is hardly a vestige of truth in any of these statements. Our yards are only working for the navy, and as for other ships we have not the material or accommodation, and, above all, we have not t-lift necessary labor, skilled and unskilled. Believe me when I say that our mercantile marine is in a perilous condition. The Bill is to re-establish and strengthen it which is now before the Reichstag, even if passed in its entirety, will show no results for at least five years, nnd it is in these five years that our fate will be most adversely influenced. What will not our great .maritime competitors make of these five years—Great Britain, the States, Japan? What will not neutrals make of them—neutrals Who have enormously r.cfded to their reserve capital—Norway, Denmark, Holland? I almost despair when I. think hovv different it might- have been. You and T, dear Herr Privy Councillor, were never advocates of this fatal policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. You will remember how I went to Berlin to seek to stay the hand of the authorities. I begged them to reflect, and they tokV me the country insisted on it. This was not true. I pointed out how it would inevitably draw the United States into the conflict. They pooh-poohed me, smiled at the States and scorned her thrwt. Do they smile now? Let me tell you that in my opinion the entry of the United States into this struggle may spell disaster for us.

Our people have little or no knowledge of the American character. You and I have made a most careful study of it. Wh;;t stuff our publicists and journalists write about their Mammon worship, their .creed, their envy of other nations, their lack of discipline—oh, that blessed word discipline! You and I know that the Americans are preferably the most idealistic nation on the earth's surface. We know that they would not have entered the lists of our foes had they had any doubt as to the justice of' their cause. Tt is nonsense to say thcV have been influenced by Britain. AVe are mad not to see where we are, and whither we are driving. In antagonising the United States, wc have done a disastrous tiling, a thing which will throw its cold shadow on our economic life for a generation.

But if I am concerned about our relations with the United States, I am still more anxious about our relations with Britain. I realise as never before that all the increase in our wealth, all the success which has attended our enterprises in the years before the war, was owing to our intercourse with the British Empire. ITer home ports, her Dominions, and Colonies, "were freely opened (o our shippers and traders. Sometimes I wondered at this generosity, and even called it folly. Ts it to be imaained for a moment that those old relations will return? I am not to be supposed, dear I-lerr Gelicimrat, as saying one word in favor of Britain's policy in this war. I believe that she .enteral it from base motives. Not for a moment do I believe in her humanitarianism, the alleged desire to liberate or protect small nationalities. Britain is a greedy and unscrupulous 'Power, as all her past history proves, but now I am only dealing with the fact that by our conduct of this war, by the insensate folly of our Pan-German's and our unspeakable press, jve have turned her inborn dislike of "us into a loathing so cold and fierce, and lasting, as sometimes to make mo tremble for the whole future of our economic existence.

Consider what we are risking. We look forward to resuming our sea trade. Wf- build our proudest expectations on this. How are we to resume it in face of an Anglo-Saswirlom which loathes and must loathe our presence among thorn ? Do our fools of Chauvinists realise that wc have hardly a port at which our ships can call and where a frie?id!y welcome will be extended ta thorn! Dover, _ Falmouth, Southampton, 'Gibraltar, Malta, and Alexandria, Aden the Persian Gulf, Bombay, and Colombo, Singapore, and Hong-Kong—what are they? Great British arsenals, naval bases, coaling stations, repairing docks, in which we dare not show our faces if Britain so wills. It is the same around the African continent, the same in the West Indies and in the Pacific. We have not a coaling station of our own, not even a. place where we can effect repairs. Tot in the face of this—a most deadly state of affairs—we go on piling up offence and offence. But we must boat England, you say, no matter what the consequences. I agree. All I say is that whether we beat her or she heats us, the consequences will bo the same—disaster to our overseas trade if Britain so wills it. Wo may, in the event of victory, impose all sorts of conditions securing us most-favcred-nation treatment, securing us free entry into British ports everywhere. No sane man believes that these conditions will help us. And just one point more, and it is perhaps quite as serious. With a hostile British Empire, galled and fretted with our military successes, raging at its losses, hopelessly alienated, how are we to procure the raw material which this

Empire alone can supply? You have studied this question, anil I am sure of your agreement. You do not believe in the silly assertion that after *thc war these British markets for raw material will be open to us. Where are we to procure our supplies of jute if not from India? If we are. driven from Africa, where arc we to seek our full supplies of rubber, palm kernels, and copra? AYhat'a, prospect! Within the British Empire are countless articles on which we have hitherto relied, and which will be Indispensable in the future if we are to swim and not to sink. Wool from South Africa and Australia, spelter, wolfram, nickel, cobalt, and endless more. That great Empire is self-con-taii'.ed, and we are not. And all the military victories,-and all the wild'"will-o'-the-wisps" about "Hamburg to Bagdad" will not help us.—l remain, my dear Geheimrat, etc, ' ALBERT BALLIN.