UNDERMINING GERMANY.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 September 1921, Page 4

UNDERMINING GERMANY.

The assassination of Herr Erzberger affords a striking illustration of the slenderness of the thread winch holds the German people together as a nation. The pent-up forces of militarism and Junkerisnj are just as great a menace as, if not greater than, are the disruptive and readily inflamed forces of Communism and Socialism, the only difference being that the former rely on subterraneous methods of intrigue and secret machinations, while the latter are openly seething with the desire to turn the country into a veritable pandemonium. Were it not that between these conflicting elements of danger to the State there is a solid mass of people actuated with the patriotic feeling that if the Fatherland is to be rehabilitated there must be a common effort to maintain law, order and good government, Germany would not only be speedily undermined, but would be rent in pieces by the internecine strife. By resorting to assassination the plotters against the people have taken the surest means of drawing the Socialists together. It is not so much the struggle between the Right and Left political parties, as a recrudescence of class warfare that is to be most feared. Erzberger’s murder is proclaimed as a portent of the coming storm, the first sign of the seething unrest beneath the surface, and the forerunner of a new 1 evolution. The outrage appears to have synchronised with an open manifestation of activity by the Royalists and militarists and to have provoked artisan hostility. There is nothing new in this method of engineering trouble; it is the old stock machinery that has been put in motion with characteristic recklessness and callousness. Class hatred in Germany appear to have gained in strength. It is evident that the wealthier class will go the extreme limit of their evil resources in the endeavor to strike terror into the hearts of the The? have made u martyr of (

Erzberger and thereby over-reached the mark. Germany’s future depends on the workers, amt if these are bitterly antagonised there must inevitably come a day of reckoning that may shake the foundations of the country. Already they have taken action in a small but significant way, and the situation will need expert handling if a terrible disaster is to be averted. The Republic is considered to be in danger and in need of salvation. What that means history has given many illustrations. Why Erzberger was selected to be the victim of political malevolence is not clear. To put forward as an acceptable reason, that the Extreme Right Party bitterly hated and blamed the ex-Minister for the taxation schemes, of the Wirth Government is altogether too absurd a motive for such a dastardly crime, though it is about on a level with the tactics evinced in engineering the outbreak of war from the starting point of the murder of an Archduke of little or no importance. To endeavor to discern the real meaning of this latest German political crime would be absolute waste of time and energy, nor is it possible to forecast its effect. Apparently the existing Government is honestly endeavoring to do its best for the country ami to carry out the Peace Treaty. That course evidently does not suit those who are impregnated with the over-bearing and tyrannous methods of the pre-war regime, though it is the only way in which Germany can be rehabilitated. The only hope is that the desire to save the Republic will prevail against the Royalist and military plotters, as well as against the rich industrialists who are striving to dominate the country.