The Daily News. TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1918. ECONOMIC FOUNDATION OF GERMAN MILITARISM.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 August 1918, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1918. ECONOMIC FOUNDATION OF GERMAN MILITARISM.

""We are, and must be, the disturbers of the peace." These are the words of Dr. Paul Lensch, one of Germany's most brilliant writers, and the mouthpiece of that new Socialism which represents the true attitude of the German working classes towards the war, and the unbounded ambitions and aggressiveness of the German Empire. The world is indebted to this Socialist Deputy for the unfolding of. German methods and designs in his recent work called "Three Years of 'World Revolution," a most candid account of German working-class chauvinism, and the frankest statement in the German language of the real relation between German economic policy and militarism. Although this publication does not throw any new light on Germany's ambitious policy of world power, it explains the full meaning of thai policy, and indicates lioav effectively political economic penetration has been utilised to build up that militarism whereby Teutonic dominance was to be obtained and held. The co-relation of these tv/o potent forces has been evolved in a systematic and scientific manner, and yet the scheme has failed to take into account the only real way in which it can be brought to nought—that way being left to the world's great democracies, by destroying the policy on which Dr. Lenscli and his disciples have built their hopes, by repelling aggression, vindicating public faith, clipping the wings of militarism, defeating the ambition and frustrating the designs of what the Germans call their "weltpolitik." The outstanding feature of this new creed is the remarkable manner in which the whole resources of Germany have been utilised as a means to the end in view. In the courser

of a singularly illuminating supplement to Mr. Balfour's recent remarks on German commercial policy, The London Times's correspondent remarks, anent Dr. Lensch's book: ''The gist of Mr. Balfour's warning ia that German commerce forms iu substantive part of her general policy of world domination, aiul that this characteristic' makes it 'almost as formidable an enemy to the liberties of the world as tlie German Army.' Its aims, he explained, are not merely the acquisition of wealth or the extension of employment. They include 'a political economic penetration,' effected tmder the direction of the State, and designed to control, and practically to enslave, the producing power ot the rest of the world."

According to Dr. Lenscli, the pres-1 eat war is a natural ex-j plosion in which the organised German State is destroying ''Reaction," as repre-{ sented by the old Russia on the one hand and by British worldpower on the other hand. German Socialism is no longer the enemy of the Prussian State, but its enthusiastic supporter, desiring to accomplish Germany's full destiny, and thereby to revolutionise the world. According to Lenscli, while England was struggling to preserve the balance of power and to maintain free trade, Germany created an overwhelming combination of economic and political force, backed by all the resources of the State. The war, for Mm, proceeded inevitably from the German adoption of protection in 1879, aided by the perfect tyranny of the German cartels, and the way in which they completely dominated the market, fixed their own prices, and made gigantic profits, which were used for the conquest of the foreign markets. The process was simple, and, as we know to our cost, effective. Out of these profits the cartel created a special fund for its members working the foreign market, and paid the so-called export premiums, thus enabling the German industrialists to sell their goods more cheaply than in the German market. Protection was intended to break the monopoly of the superior English industry, and to create free competition for German industry. In this design it is not difficult to conjecture the German meaning of the "freedom of the seas." The German duties rose higher and higher, extra profits in the home market towards creating increased power in the world market. Lenscli adds: ' This light for the world market and the money market was conducted more and moro with the resources of the organised power of the State. German diplomacy waa at every moment at the service of German finance, and this help was all the more powerful the more powerful the power of the State which stood behind German diplomacy. A strong navy and a ready army in the background were a precious support in the fight for the world market and for the division of the still 'unowned' remains of the earth's surface."

We can pass over the flouts and fears of this exponent of Germany's new socialism at England's free trade,. liberalism and democracy, for they are now already out of date. According to Lensch, "protection" has made all things possible to Germany. He maintains that the Germans have a tremendous historical mission, adding, "Let them rise to it. Czarism is crushed; the English world-des-potism will soon be overthrown; a weakened France will no longer count; and Austria has lost the necessity of her existence for Europe, though she will still serve as the corner stone of Germany's world position." Lord Milner has very truly said that the German war lords have confirmed the unity of the Allied natioiis by simplifying the issue. They have simplified by their deeds, while Bv. Lensch, with audacious candour, has supplied the theory from which these deeds have sprung. The one fear in the« hearts of the new Socialists is that Britain may adopt "protection" after the war, and thus renew her youth, but there is a greater danger which they have ignored. Lensch has laid bare the intimate connection and interdependence of the commercial, diplomatic and military factors of German militarism, but the associated democracies are determined to extirpate that system from the world. The Allies have an unwavering faith in the worthiness of their ends, and in the certainly that they will lie achieved. That achievement will not be'permanent or complete unless with militarism in the field and in the council chamber they also destroy by a real economic unity the commercial tap-root by which they live, as Dr. Lensch has so convincingly proved.