GERMANY'S LEADER.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 January 1919, Page 6

GERMANY'S LEADER.

EBERT AND HIS PARTY,. SOCIALISTS' DILEMMA.

Fricdrich Ebert, the new German Chancellor, is important not as a personality, but as the representative oi a force, writes the Berlin correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph; That foj;ce is German Socialism. It is true that German Socialism lias. ,had great personalities in its service—Bebel and the elder Lieblcnccht, for example—and still ha 3 loaders of strongly developed individuality, but Ebert certainly does not belong to the former, and hardly to the latter, category, He is a typical example of how a man can rise to the top of a political party by solid commonplace gifts of head and character, ccunled with indefatigable industry and keen interest in his work. It is through these qualities that at the beginning of 1916 he became president of the Social Democrfl "c party. —after Haase, who had previously held that office, had seceded with the nucleus of the Independents—■ and it is because he was president of the party that he has now .become Chancellor. Hi 3 past career is interesting only for its obscurity. In no essential particular does it differ from that of a score of hia colleagues. He was born in IS7I, as the son of a Heidelberg tailor, went through a saddler's apprenticeship, but early drifted into journalism and trade union officialdom. He was made editor of tho Bremen Socialist paper, the Burgerzeitung, in 1892 and became secretary of an artisan organisation in 1900. The authority he acquired in these capacities gave him a seat in tho Central Executive Committee of the patry at the end of T905; that is to say, live years before, he was elected to the Reichstag by Elberfield-Barmen. Down to the war he was, for the most part, one of the silent majority of the Parliamentary faction, and since that time he appears to have distinguished himself mainly as the consistent champion of orthodoxy—in the sense of fidelity, not to the doctrines of Marx, but to the views of the majority of his colleagues. As tho more solid and dependable of the two, he would probably have been given preference over Schcidemann, who was associated with him in the party presidency by the Socialist Congress at Wurzburg in October, 1917, even if he had not had the superior claim in virtue of seniority.

ATTITUDE TO WAR

But if Ebert is personally uninteresting, the same cannot be said of the political force- as tho representative of which be alone has any significance in the Chancellor's chair. The attitude of German Socialists has to many people been one of'tho great puzzles of the war, and what they are doing now may for the moment deepen tho mystery. They were described as the obsequious henchmen of Wilhelm 11, and Ibehold, they have flung him down and put themselves in his place. How are we to account for this apparent contradiction? Naturally, until tho Socialists themselves are a little more candid about their war policy than they have been so far, it will be impossible to give a very definite ar.swer to this question; but precisely the latest developments in Germany suggest that they may, after all, only have been playing their own particular game, with a good deal of subtlety and shrewdness.

WAR AS A. SPECIFIC. The outbreak of the war placed German Socialists in a diilicult; dilemma. Throughout tlieir career as a party they had denounced much moro vigorously than anyone else both-militarism and ail the other hateful things they hare been engaged in fighting for during th last four years. They had consistently voted in the Keichstag against all estimates for the army, the navy, and the colonics. They weie opposed to monarchy in general, and to their own Emperor in particular* As soon au the crisis became acute in July, 1914, their central committee published a manifesto condemning the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia in tho strongest possible language, and protested against a, single German being sacrificed to tho policy embodied in that document. Moreover, they know quite well that the xmx was, in a special consc, being directed ajjaiuot themselves, that it was a deliberate attempt to sap their influence before it rcully became dangerous to the classes which really ruled Germany. Of that there can be no doubt. In tho eyes of tho dominant clique ot Junker and officers, successful wars were the great specific for political diseases They regarded Socialism a3 the jtio-.t carious of these ailments, an<J there was no doubt that Germany, where the most virulent form of it originated, had £ot it very fcdly. At the general elections 01" 1912 the Socialists polled 4.2o!),000 votes, or 313 per cent of tho total coat. Tlicy had risen steadily to that level for some decades at the 'cost of rvei-y other party in- the couhtry. In important areas the Socialists were already in a large majority. Thus, with a total poll of 307,000; they took 75.48 per cent of tho.-votco given in Boriin. In tho metropolitan area their candidates received altogether 550.000 votes,, which was equivalent to a population of rcme two and a half million. There were individual candidates, wlia obtained polls which are nntiiinkablo in this country- j'n the south division of .Berlin Ledeobr.r, who has ro frequently bc-tn mentioned nc an Independent leader, was the choice of 142,000 electors. Another Independent. Znbeil, received in tho Berlin suburban constituency of ToltovBcwkow no iev.'e:' than 162,770 votes, or 53,000 mon t'lMj in the pytviaw election of ISO 7 In the other big bdnjtrial cwitrcj, especially in the Protestant area;;, a very ;::-mil;:r state oi altj'.irs wos found. At iTrmbiirj-Atiosa, r.ci'.rly 1 (>5,000 yg : ;&, y;.::e gives; sli Leipzig 08,003, :Or:vi«.u 51,200, !Muiiich C7.CO!)

TE" T-JLVALZiZL 01- JP7O- - was quits evident to all careful observers- thai % this kind of tiling wtnt on— it vs'.i'; bound t;i do so 8,-s the progressive indts/irialisatioa of" ihs country conthced—it must ]cs:d before mx:y dcendes had pr-sscd to {ojiothiiijj in, the nature of p. revolution and the transfer o£ polKieaJ power fcoai tho Prcsawv?. ls,ad cisgHates, ia whose hands it \,t« tte-j-concentrated, to the artisan «la«w- J , 'fiicr!esce kid tftown, however, thai; &«.•» van ono oiYeciive ch«sk to tin? «>vw rt o? Cocialtan. That »?ss -,i rocccswrJ ;v?.r. In 1870 Btfbcl iiad opJ»icd i!:« w.>r with all the force oi' his Vigorous personality and his brilliant, friwienco, hiit tha result had boon that ( the band of iolloircrs which had gathered round him with so much labor had

aeitid (.way, and he had had to oegln practically all over agaiu, Would not similar circumstances produce a similar That was the calcuHition of tho Pan-Germana and the Jv.nkor, and i::icraesiicnaaiy ti.i.; .ci.oaiGf» was or.? of t!.o nam :caso;.s \r':;y v drew th# tvord ci iM-i.