THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1908. BRITAIN AND GERMANY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3055, 27 November 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1908. BRITAIN AND GERMANY.

I The prevailing idea that England and Germany are ready to spring at each other's throats has been scouted over and over again by leading politicians ot all parties, but as long as both countries continue piling up their naval Budgets the feeling of uneasiness will remain. Recently Mr Lloyd-George returned from Germany quite empty-handed so far as any assurances on war expenditure were concerned. Mr Balfour later assured a private inquirer that he honestly believed no British politician ever contemplated an attacK on Germany, and that Germany could have nothing to gain by attacking

England. Now the Socialist parties in the two countries have added their testimony and their determination to work for peace. The British Labour Congress passed a resolution on the subject, and the German view has been expressed by Herr Bebel, the Socialist leader, in a letter to Mr Ramsay Mac Donald. He says: —Our attitude in Parliament, in the papers representative of our party, and in the meetings in which the foreign policy of Germany was discussed, v/as based on the friendliest spirit of goodwill towards England, the English people, and the working class. We have taken up the standpoint that there exist no grounds on which a war between the two highly-civilised peoples, Englishmen and Germans, could be justified. We shall continue to act from this standpoint, and should our rulers exhibit any tendency to provoke war we shall leave nothing undone that may be in our power to prevent such a war. In spite of the war clamours of certain elements in Germany and England, I admit that the opposition between the ruling classes of the two countries has reached so tense a point as to foreshadow an early outbreak of war. That such a war may break out in the course of time, I hold to be quite possible. Preparations for war are carried on with much vehemence, and they claim such an immense part of the resources of the nations that this state of things cannot last very long. It is provoking the catastrophe which it is meant to prevent. ' I think, therefore, that we should calmly and carefully follow the development of things, enlightening the people, and especially the working classes, upon the possible consequences.