THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 1910. METEORIC FALL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10072, 18 June 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 1910. METEORIC FALL.

The squeezing out of Herr Dernburg, the retired German Colonial Minisster, promises to rank among those meteoric falls, to which German statesmen seem specially liable. Bismarck is the prime example of this tendency, but only recently Prince von Bulow, passed off the political scene after the failure of the great scheme of "financial reform" devised to meet Germany's requirements for new taxes on a big scale;; and it is not so long; since Count CaprwiV Bismarck's successor in the Chancellorship, was overthrown by the Agrarian party, whkhi has now been so prominent in bringing Herr Dernburg down. The ex-Colonial Minister represented, as The limes cocres-

pondent is reported as saying, the moat remarkable experiment in modern German history. He was not a politician, but a successful business man who was chosen by the Kaiser to conduct the cherished policy of Empire-making on lines which were expected to be apart from those tnat would be followed by a mere political administrator. The experiment was a success. Herr Durnburg justified the hopes that avowedly backed him by doing so as nearly as possible in German circumstances what fl3r Chamberlain did for England. Especially he developed German West Africa up to a condition which made it ths closest approximation to a British colony that the Fatherland has ever possessed. The political struggle over this phase of German policy before the last elections threatened to seriously divide parties, but seemed to have been ended at the polls or afterwards. Now it turns out that political resentment against the intruder from the ranks of commerce was only slumbering. It has awakened again, and expressed by a combination between the Conservatives (Agrarians) and the Centre (the Catholic party), compelled Herr Durnburg to retire. That is a reverse 1 for the Kaiier, owing to the circumstances of the Minister's appointment already mentioned. It is even more significant on account of the triumph of the Agrarians which it represents. This latter partj hunted Count Caprivi out of office because the commercial treaties which he had concluded did not suit its fiscal desires, and its objection to the proposed inheritance tax had a good deal to dc with the retirement of Prince von Bulow. Its latest act of aggression upon a Minister accentuates its distinction in policy from the industrial population, with which it must now prepare for another fight. The Agrarians have always been pro-tection-hungry, and for a long time en joyed the profits of predominance in tariff adjustment. In these they subsequently made the town industrials participators, but the recent contest over the new taxes convsaccd the "industrials" that the Agvamas were determined to put on any other shoulder than their own the burden of those imposts.