THROUGH GERMAN EYES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9547, 20 July 1909, Page 4

THROUGH GERMAN EYES.

"We can now understand the force of the race, and the reason of its domination of the world." Thus Dr Riecke, Buergermeister of Berlin, to a pressman, in summing up his impressions of England and particularly of London., Dr Reicke is thejchief of the body of Berlin aldermen who have just concluded a visit to England. Dr. Keicke has been struck more than anything else by the Englishman's natural dignity and restraint. Even a little cobbler he met by the radside at Windsor implied him with .his quiet assurance and self-respect; and the Buergermeister goes on to say:—"lt is the fundamental quality of the British race, this supreme self-respect, this innate consciousness of his own superiority. He never doubts but wliat the English race is the salt of the earth. This feeling is England's" strength—and at the sam<j time England's danger. It is this indifference to other nations which made Rome and which destroyed it." Then he makes contrast with his own people: "We in Berlin are eager to convince every newcomer of our progress. We like to assure everybody how great we are, because, w.«j are not so dead certain about it ourselves. You in London have the instinct of race preservation every strongly expressed. On sees it in your massive horses, in your massive policemen — both the result of centuries of clover.