GERMAN SULKS
FATALISM ANT) DON'T CARE. Germany, defeated and at present utterly broken, hag three courses open: (!1) She can foid her hands and go under; (2) She can cherish hatred and the hope of revenge; (3) She can learn—and unlearn—from her colossal failure. At present sections of her population are pursuing all three, but those who follow the third, and perhaps most thorny, path are few. The obvious path is that of sulks, the "shan't play" of childhood. The destruction of sliips and airships is an illustration of this attitude; individually it represents tile suicide of the mined gambler, collectively it is the fatalism of the East to which (but this lesson is still to learn) the Germans are partly morally related.
I Too many Germans, both woi-.imen | and the middle classes, won't work bej cause they have"ceased to care about the country. "I pictured it differently. our substitute Germany," said the oic! woman of Weimar when Ebert' was made President. Most "pictured it differently," and because it does not correspond to their picture they throw up their hands and seek to smuggle themselves and their remaining fortunes across the frontier. And if they cangot got out they will just go under. UEVENGE UPON EVERYBODY. Path. No.. 2—Uphill by the zig-zags to revenge upon everybody, the exenemy and the (supposed) traitors. There are plenty to follow leaders by this track. Professors, schoolmasters, preachers, trained for 40 years on Hohenzollern lines, find this way, \isy. So the Pan-German League has had a noisy and, frankly, enthusiastic support for its Sedan Day meeting in Berlin. It has been a florid admixture of the revanche motive and Antisemitism. There is, despite all denials, some danger that j the prophecy of pogroms this winter j may be fulfilled.
The Socialist Piepnblie has produced no Utopia. Conditions are worse than under the semi-serfdom of the Hohenzollern regime. Berlin's night life (encouraged of yore as "relaxation," and to prevent week-end emigration) Is to be rigidly restricted this winter, but the Socialist Republic offers no substitute. Neither at home nor in the cafes are there light and heat. Colonel Reinhardt, in all but name the military master of Berlin, accused (by the Vorwarts) of monarchists tendencies, tells Berliners, in a letter to Vorwarts and Ereiheit, what faces tncm. "The question immediately at issue m our land will not be one of monarchy or republic but of work and order. In your article I can recognise only an attempt speedily to make yourselves friends with the radical parties in view of coming disturbances." , There is the third way—to learn and unlearn. But, you cannot unteach this generation; it is a matter of decades, and in Germany there is a demand for a crop that shall ripen overnJght.»=Bai'y Mail.
Tire' Wellington correspondent of the Lyttelton Times states that the high cost of building has caused the Wellington Technical School Board to commence its technical school, to cost £30,000, by day labor instead of contract. The board will appoint a supervisor working under its architect's direction. The Justice Department will assist the scheme by providing prison labor for excavation on the.site. Another illustration of the handicap in the building trade owing to uncertain prices and shortage of labor came before the Welington City Council recently, three tenders being received for the erection of additions to the electric light station. As all of these were far too high —in one case the tender waa three times the estimate—the council has decided to do the work by day labor.
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Taranaki Daily News, 6 December 1919, Page 11
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588GERMAN SULKS Taranaki Daily News, 6 December 1919, Page 11
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