SOUTH JUTLAND AND THE PRUSSIAN.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 February 1919, Page 7

SOUTH JUTLAND AND THE PRUSSIAN.

light on a bismarckian steal. GJ£BMANI§ING SCHEME THAT FAILED (By Lieutenant K. N. Colville.) The liberation of Alsace-Lorraine from the Prussian yoke has naturally given hope to the Sclileswigers of a similar restoration of their natural rights, and a good deal is now being written on the subject. But it would not be fair to suppose that because the question has not heen kept prominent during the war it has not been a very burning one in the countries immediately concerned, Schleswig itself and Denmark, though Denmark has lain too mueh at Germany's mercy to say much, and in Schleswig the hand of the Prussian has been more repressive than is usual even with that iron-gauntleted race. The historic justice of Denmark's claim to Schleswig, or, to put it more in accordance with the spirit of the j times, of Schleswig to union with Denmark, is pretty generally known and admitted. The famous Article 5 of the Treaty of Prague, which promised i 1 plebiscite to North Schleswig, admitted it as plainly as any German utterance j could. The subsequent "revision" of' that treaty in IS7S, which, by agreement between Germany and Austria, without any reference to the other interested parties, declared Article 5 null and void, was protested against even ill Germany. Only one thing had given Germany any better claim to the province than Prussia had had in 1860. But that one thing \va* in German eyes all sufficing. Germany had defeated France, chained Austria, and blinded England. In other words, her might on the continent was supreme What Bismarck hesitated to do in 1868 he did in 187 S. But he would not have appeared ready to forego his prey at the earliest had he not trusted to being able to secure it by more fox-like methods. The same system of Prussiffcation which had already been tried without much success, in Poland, and was being tried only yesterday in the Baltic provinces, filched from Russia at Brest-Litovsk, was ruthlessly applied. By it Bismarck hoped to drive the Danish population out, and'so in due course obtain a German, or, at any rate, a German-voting majority, by whom the plebiscite might safely be exercised. Twelve years, however, found Schleswig as Danish as ever, and Bismarck could wait no longer. Had Germany waited till this day she would not have found the position any- more favorable. Schleswig has never ceased to maintain her Danish quality and to protest, with the support of all Scandinavia, against the Prussian tyranny. One of the cleverest and pithiest utterances of Schleswig's complaint is to be found in a pamphlet, originally published in 1014, and republished with additions in 1917, entitled "South Jutland Under Prussian Rule," by J. Andersen. Schleswig, Mr Andersen, with perfect justice, points out, Was never German, nor even claimed by Germany, until the annexation by Prussia; for domestic disputes between Denmark and Schleswig, between Gluekand Augustenburgs, have nothing to do with the matter. Previous to ISO 4, he writes, "the country was thoroughly Danish; there was not one per cent Germans, and if there were an occasional immigrant his descendants would soon be Danish. . . . There was some tendency to use German in the towns, there being families who found that genteel, but the mass of the population stuck to their Danish language, and almost the whole population in the country as far south as Flensborg is Danish to this day, with the exception, of course, of those who have immigrated since 1864." Since that date the Germans, in spite of solemn proclamations to the contrary, have prescribed the Danish language in Schleswig, and have largely stamped it out in the southern districts, south, as Mr. Anderson says, of Flensborg, but the language, he claims is no just indication of sympathies. For not to "Germanise" is to be a marked man. German is the official language; it alone is used in the courts and in the schools. Even the churches are coerced into using German. I Children may not be sent to school in ' Denmark, and no one, even a parent, is allowed to teach the yoimg who is not certified as "morally competent," which no one who dares not recognise the beauty of German kultur is. Fifty thousand young men left Schleswig after the annexation, meaning to return when the promised plebiscite should have rid their land of the Prussian intruder. They were, for the most part, never allowed to return, and anyone who was suspected of being still Danish at heart and a person of any influence, however law-abiding, was expelled from the country. Besides this public money, provided by good Danish Schlcswigers, was used to found colonies of Germans in the outraged province. For many years, records Mr. Andersen, meetings were prohibited by the simple expedient of forbidding innkeepers to allow rooms to be used for the purpose. Meeting-houses were then built, and other methods had to be used, such as this: "'Youthful persons,' a descripr lion that purposely i 3 kept very vague, and for which they will not substitute any definite limit of age, may thus not partcke in the meetings, not even in gymnastic exercises; even religious meetings, which according to law arc allowed without having to be reported, are forbidden as being political." And all intercourse, even social, between the two sides of the Danish border is made as ditticuU ms possible. As for the press, Mr. Andersen records that "there is scarcely any Danish editor in South Jutland who has not been sentenced either to a simple prison or to imprisonment in a fortress." But all these attempts at forcible conversion have had but one effect. They prove how sincere and passionately strong is the Danish quality in the Schleswiger.