Germany and the Germans Part 21

German financiers affirm that she can stand alone financially, while others a.s.sert that one sixth of her capital, I have heard it placed at one third, is borrowed from France and England. It is certain at least that the American panic of 1907, and the recent war in the Near East, have seriously embarra.s.sed Germany financially.

As Germany can only feed, even in good harvest years, forty-eight or forty-nine millions of her people, a large proportion of her profits from industry must necessarily go to the purchase of food for the other sixteen or seventeen millions. The consumption of meat has increased among all cla.s.ses in Germany, and both the demands of the individual and of the state have increased with the increased wealth of the country. In Prussia alone the number of those subject to income tax has increased from 2,400,000 in 1892 to 6,200,000 in 1912; but the taxes have increased as well, or from $800,000,000 to $1,675,000,000.

In the endeavor to increase the manufacturing output and to find new markets German credit has been stretched to a dangerous tenuity. While the war feeling was at its height the Kolnische Zeitung, a conservative and able journal, wrote: "In case of war both France and Germany will be obliged to borrow; but it is certain that the credit of Germany cannot as yet be compared with the credit of France: this is a strong guarantee of peace."

Wermuth, said by impartial judges to be the ablest secretary of the treasury the German Empire has had in a quarter of a century, resigned in 1912, on the general ground that he would not be responsible for the finances of the empire, if it was proposed to continue the constant increase of national expenditure, by a constant increase of borrowing, and an ever-increasing amount of interest-bearing liabilities. He must have smiled to himself when an Imperial issue at four per cent. put out in February, 1913, was not only not over-subscribed but not even all taken.

Unlike the French, who invest their savings small and large in national loans, the Germans neglect even their own national loans, preferring the higher returns for their investments from the innumerable industries launched in modern Germany; so p.r.o.nounced is this form of investment, that a director of the Deutsche Bank has warned his countrymen, that every month's profits are no sooner gained than they are put out again in new enterprises, either by the individuals themselves, or by the banks in which they are deposited. As a result, the liquid capital at the disposal of Germany is dangerously out of proportion to her borrowings and her working capital. It shows a fine confidence in the future, and it proves what needs no proof: the immense industrial and commercial progress, and the immense sea-carrying trade of Germany. Germany is like a man with $1,000 in the bank to check upon, but doing business with $100,000 of borrowed capital, upon which he must pay interest, and out of which he must take his running expenses. Such a one has no provision for a bad year, and must depend upon more credit in case of trouble; and in the case of Germany, it may be added, his personal and family expenses have largely increased. The German imperial debt had increased during the first twenty-two years of the present Emperor's reign, or from 1888 to 1910, by $1,040,000,000, and of that sum some $650,000,000 were added in the ten years from 1900 to 1910, when Germany was building her fleet.

Between the years 1905 and 1910 the total export trade of Germany increased by $408,225,000, but the whole of the increase was due to the heavier forms of manufactures: machinery, iron ware, coal-tar dyes, iron wire, steel rails, and raw iron. The increasing compet.i.tion is shown by the fact that during those same years her exports of the finer manufactures, such as cotton and woollen goods, clothing, gold and silver ware, porcelain, maps, prints, and the like, actually decreased by $66,975,000!

I am not maintaining for a moment that these problems are peculiar to Germany, but merely that, owing to the rapid progress, they are aggravated, and that to point out Germany as a model of successful achievement, along these and other lines, in order to bolster up political cure-alls at home, is a betrayal of cra.s.s ignorance of the general internal situation of the country, and once such prejudiced pleaders are found out, the rebound will go too far the other way.

That were a pity, too, for we have much to learn from Germany.

The $30,000,000 in gold in the Julius Tower at Spandau, called the war-chest, and the income from railroads, forests, and mines, are to be put down on the other side of the ledger, but as a year's war, it is calculated, would cost France, England, or Germany some $2,300,000,000 each, these sums are of negligible importance.

The Prussian railways cost $2,250,000,000, and are now valued at twice that sum, and pay an average of seven per cent. on the invested capital. Maintenance costs are included in the total annual expenses, and there is no, so it is claimed, actual depreciation. Of the net revenue of $157,330,417 in 1909, about $55,000,000 are transferred to the state revenue, out of which all charges of the state, including interest on bonds, are paid.

The rest is used for new construction, sinking funds, reserve funds, and so on.

The report of the Interstate Commerce Commission of 1909-1910 states that there are nearly $19,000,000,000 of railway capital outstanding in America. There are 240,438 miles of single track in the United States; 59,000 locomotives, 35,000 for freight, and a total of 2,290,000 cars of all kinds; and the railways carried in one year 971,683,000 pa.s.sengers and 1,850,000,000 tons of freight. In 1910, 386 persons were killed, but, what is often forgotten, more than one half the total accidents were due to stealing rides and trespa.s.sing on the tracks. The railways in the United States are our largest purchasers by far, and for every dollar they earn 42 cents is spent in wages, 26 cents for material, raw or manufactured, before anything is given out for interest on loans or dividends.

A first-cla.s.s ticket in Germany is taxed 16 per cent. on the price of the ticket; a second-cla.s.s ticket, 8 per cent.; a third-cla.s.s ticket, 4 per cent.; the fourth-cla.s.s ticket, nothing. Crowded and uncomfortable travelling in Germany is cheap; comfortable travelling in Germany is very dear indeed. The herding of people in the fourth- cla.s.s carriages in Germany resembles our cattle-cars rather than transportation for human beings. Such conditions would not be tolerated in America, but against these state-owned railways there is no redress. No luggage, except hand luggage, is carried free. Not once, but many times in Germany, my first-cla.s.s ticket found me no accommodation, and often in changing from the main line to a branch line not even a first-cla.s.s compartment. Shippers in the coal and iron districts, when I was there, complained bitterly that there were not enough freight-cars, that their complaints were smothered in bureaucratic portfolios, and that private enterprise in the shape of proposals to build new lines was disregarded. The tyranny of Prussia extends even into the railway field. The Oderberg-Wien line was built to avoid using the Saxon state railway lines, was a spite railway in fact. Here again there was no redress, no one to appeal to against the autocrat.

In a debate in the Reichstag, in January, 1913, there was much complaint that the Prussian government was conducting the railways with the least possible outlay, thus saving money for the state, but hampering the industrial interests of the country. It was stated that there were not enough engines or freight-cars, there was an inadequate staff, and that as a consequence, the loss to the coal industry had been $11,500,000 and to the coal-miners $3,375,000.

On the state-owned railways of the west of France the break-down is ludicrously complete, and the people are staggered by the official estimates that it will require at least $100,000,000 to put them in decent running order.

In twenty years the American railways have practically been rebuilt, with heavier rails, better bridges, more permanent stations, and so on; while twenty years ago it cost a pa.s.senger 2.165 cents to travel a mile, to-day it costs him 1.916 cents. We need a lot of bustling about abroad before we realize how much we have to be grateful for at home!

Probably the most costly and the most troublesome of Germany's problems is her conquered provinces: Hanover, Schleswig-Holstein, Alsace-Lorraine, and Poland. Hanover, which was taken by Prussia and her king deposed, is nowadays a minor matter of the relations between courts, individuals, and families, which may be said to be settled by the arranged marriage between the Kaiser's charming daughter and the heir to the Duke of c.u.mberland, whose ancestors were kings of Hanover.

The Danes, on the other hand, in the northern part of these provinces, still resist Prussianization. They keep to themselves and their language, send their children to school in Denmark, and resist all attempts at social and racial incorporation. They are troublesome, as an independent and surly daughter-in-law might be troublesome.

Alsace-Lorraine and Posen, on the contrary, are outspoken and potentially dangerous foes in Germany's own household.

In 1872 Bismarck said: "Alsace-Lorraine will be placed on an equality with the other German states, ? so that the people may be induced to forget, in a comparatively short time, the trouble and distress of the war and of annexation." In 1912, a loyal Alsatian German writes: "Das Elsa.s.s, dies jungstgeborene Kind der deutschen Volkerfamilie, braucht etwas mehr Liebe." Forty years of Prussian rule have not fulfilled the promise of Bismarck. This same Alsatian writer continues: "In short, we are approaching ever nearer to the condition of the citizens of all the other German States, as Baden, Saxony, Bavaria, where they are also not always of one mind with the higher ruling powers."

It is difficult for the American, who, no matter what particular State he lives in, is first of all a citizen of the United States, to understand this jealousy and, in some quarters, bitter dislike of Prussia. If the State of New York had sixty million of our ninety million population, and if the governor of New York were also perpetual President of the United States, commanded the army and navy, controlled the foreign policy, and appointed the cabinet ministers, who were responsible to him alone, we could get an approximate idea of how the people of Virginia, Ma.s.sachusetts, Illinois, and California would feel toward New York. This is a rough-drawn comparison with the situation in Germany. If, in addition, we had the Philippine Islands where Maine is, and Cuba where Texas is, it is easy to recognize the consequent complications.

We should remember this picture in dealing with this German problem, which, at any rate, from the point of view of kindly feeling and successful adoption of these foreign peoples into the German family, has been a dire failure. The miserable failure of the Germans in Southwest Africa, their inconclusive war with the Herreros, and the absolute break-down of Prussian methods with the natives, is scarcely more typical than the failure in Alsace-Lorraine and Poland. The Prussian belief in sand-paper as an emollient must be by now rudely shaken.

At last a const.i.tution has been given the two conquered provinces. The governor is to be advised by a parliament, but the government is not responsible to the parliament, which is composed of two houses. The upper house has thirty-six members, eighteen of whom are nominees of the Emperor and eighteen from the churches, universities, and princ.i.p.al cities. The lower house is to be elected by popular franchise. Three years' residence in the same place ent.i.tles a man to a vote, but every voter over thirty-five years of age has two votes, and every voter over forty-five has three votes.

This, as an American can appreciate, has not been received with enthusiasm, and their conduct has been so provoking that the Emperor, during a recent visit, scolded the people, in an interview with the mayor of a certain town, and, what caused great amus.e.m.e.nt among the enemies of Prussia, threatened to incorporate them into Prussia, as had been done with Hanover, if they were not better behaved. This, of course, was seized upon as an admission that to be taken into the Prussian family was of all the hardships the most dreadful. The socialist journal Vorwarts spoke of Prussia as "that brutal country which thus openly confesses its dishonor to all the world." Herr Scheidemann asked in the Reichstag, if Prussia then acknowledged herself to be a sort of house of correction, and "has Prussia, then, become the German Siberia?" In 1911 the Reichstag gave the provinces three votes in the Federal Council.

Metz, it is said, is more French than ever, and thousands troop across the boundaries on the anniversary of the French national holiday, to celebrate it on French soil. The conquered provinces are kept in order, but the French language, French customs, French culture, are still to the fore, and so far as loyalty, affection, or a change of mind and heart is concerned the conversion is still incomplete. The inhabitants have been baptized Germans, but very few of them have taken voluntarily, their first communion of nationalization.

"On changerait plutot le coeur de place, Que de changer la vieille Alsace."

The German, Karl Lamprecht, in his valuable history of contemporary Germany, is more hopeful of the situation than are other writers and observers. Professor Werner Wittich maintains that the best of the intellectual side of life in Alsace is impregnated with French culture and traditions; and even German officers long stationed in the two conquered provinces admit the stubborn allegiance of the people to French customs, habits, beliefs, and traditions. But however that may be, and it is admittedly a question that different prejudices and hopes will answer differently, there is no denial on the part of any one, high or low, that the Prussian bureaucratic mandarins have made no progress in winning the affection or the voluntary loyalty of the people. The Prussian has had recourse to the advice given by Prince Billow, "if you cannot be loved, then you must be feared." A friend who is only a friend, an ally who is only an ally, a servant who only serves you because he is afraid of you, is not only an uncomfortable but a dangerous factor in any establishment, whether domestic or national. Corporalism, begun by Frederick the Great and fastened upon Germany by Bismarck, has had its successes. I recognized them, indeed, on returning to Germany after twenty-five years, as astounding successes, but they have their weak side too. A barracks can never be the ideal of a home, nor a corporal the ideal of a guide, philosopher, and friend. Their own philosopher Nietzsche writes: "the state is the coldest of all cold monsters."

Joseph de Maistre, writing of the Slav temperament, says: "Si on enterrait un desir Slave sous une forteresse, il la ferait sauter."

Germany has some reason to believe that this is true.

In the northeast of Germany live some 3,000,000 Poles under Prussian supervision and laws, and ruled by a Prussian governor. There are some 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 Poles divided between Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Prussia, and behind these are 165,000,000 Russians. The boundary between this ma.s.s and Germany is one of sand; and the railway journey from Posen to Berlin, is a matter of only four hours. If we were in Germany's shoes, we should probably take some pains to be well guarded in that quarter. We should, however, do it in quite another fashion.

We should, if possible, turn over the inhabitants to their own governing, as England has done in South Africa, as we have tried to do in Cuba, and as we would do gladly in the Philippines, if every intelligent man who knows the situation there, were not a.s.sured that robbery, murder, and license would follow on the heels of our departure; and that instead of doing a magnanimous thing we should be shirking our responsibilities in the most cowardly fashion. It is bad enough to know, that we have such cynical political sophists in Congress, that they would even suffer that catastrophe to innocent people in the Philippines, if they thought it would make them votes at home.

Prussia does not recognize such methods of ruling. Corporalism is their only way, and, where the people are fit to govern themselves, a very bad and humiliating way, for the Eden of the bureaucrat is the h.e.l.l of the governed. If the Germans approve it for themselves, it is not our business to comment; but where these methods are applied to foreign peoples, we both antic.i.p.ate and applaud their failure.

The insurrections in Russian and Austrian Poland, had their echoes in Posen, and since 1849 Prussia has tried in every way to subst.i.tute Germans for Poles, in the country, and to make the German language predominant in the churches, schools, and in the administration. The Poles have resisted, emphasizing their resistance in 1867, when they were included in the North German Federation, and again in 1871, when they were included in the new German Empire.

The Emperor William I, in 1886, said: "The increasing predominance of the Polish over the German element in certain provinces of the east makes it a duty of the government to guarantee the existence and the development of the German population." Since 1871 the Poles have increased so much faster than the Germans that there is danger of complete extermination of the German population. In 1902 the grandson of William I, the present Emperor, said at Marienburg: "Polish arrogance is unbearable, and I am obliged to appeal to my people to defend themselves against it, for the preservation of their national well-being. It is a question of the defence of the civilization and the culture of Germany. To-day and to-morrow, as in the past, we must fight against the common enemy." This speech of the Emperor was made at Marienburg, a fine old town, once very prosperous, and in the days of the Wars of the Roses playing a conspicuous part with the other Hanseatic towns. This town was also the head and seat of the Teutonic Order, and it was this Teutonic Order which, in 1230, began the work of converting the then heathen Prussians, along lines not unlike those of the Prussian Ansiedlungskommission of to-day.

Prussia has attempted to solve this question by establishing a government in the province, pledged to the introduction of the German language, and so far as possible of German manners and customs. This has been met with fierce opposition, and never have I heard in the colonies of other countries, except in Korea, under the present j.a.panese administration, such fanatical hatred, expressed in words, as I have heard in Posen. If you dislike Prussia, do not attempt to revile her yourself; rather go to Posen and hear it done in a far more satisfying way.

The religious question enters largely into the matter, and the ignorant Poles are even taught that the Virgin Mary, or the "Polish Queen," will not understand their intercessions if they are not made in the Polish language. In 1870 there was one Polish newspaper in Germany, to-day there are 138.

From 1886 to 1910 the Ansiedlungskommission or committee of colonization, have spent $170,896,325, and have received $51,863,175, leaving a net expenditure of $119,033,150. This large expenditure has resulted in the settlement upon the land of 18,507 families, or about 111,000 persons. The total number settled is now 131,000 persons. Each male adult German settler has cost the state something over $32,000!

This is probably the most extravagant colonization scheme ever attempted in the world.

But even this expenditure has not brought success, and for a very interesting reason. Again the Germans have been remarkably successful in their dealings with the inanimate, but the Arcana imperii are still hidden from them. They have redeemed the land, taught the Poles, as well as the German settlers, how to farm successfully; largely increased the output of grain, fruit, pigs, calves, chickens, geese, and eggs, for which Germany spends several hundred millions a year abroad; and seen to it that the breed of cows, pigs, horses, chickens, and geese is kept at a high standard. But now the Poles will sell no more land. They have profited, not been ruined, by what has come out of the belly of the Trojan horse! The commission is at a standstill, and it is now proposed to enforce the Prussian law of 1908 for the expropriation of Polish estates. This law was overwhelmingly defeated in the Reichstag in February, 1913, but the Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg declared that it was an affair of Prussia, with which the Reichstag has nothing to do, and the sand-paper of the Prussian bureaucracy will probably be rubbed upon the Polish wound anew.

This attempt to build a line of moral and intellectual forts, supplemented by German settlers, on the land between Russia and Prussia, and to stop the inrush of the Slavic population, has ample excuse behind it. It is undoubtedly in case of war a serious danger to Germany to leave herself unguarded there. As to what will come of the social and racial questions, prophecy alone can answer, and I have far too much imagination to venture upon prophecy. The care and thoroughness with which the work is done is beyond all praise, but it is as difficult to make your brother love you by taking thought thereon, as it is to add a cubit to one's stature by the same method.

Professor Ludwig Bernhard, while regretting that this attempt at Germanization has not succeeded, admits that Prussian methods are hopeless in such matters. They have, on the contrary, awakened national feeling, encouraged the forming of agricultural societies, and strengthened the Bank of Posen, which has become the financial citadel of opposition. Professor Bernhard goes so far as to say that he doubts if even the putting into force of the expropriation law of 1908 will bring about any better results. To an American this lack of unity seems to be perhaps of exaggerated importance. Wir brauchen nicht diese Nordlichter (We do not need these northern luminaries), is a phrase of a certain Bavarian official, and in lower or louder tones one hears the phrase all over Germany outside of Prussia, and loudest of all in these conquered provinces.

To legislate men into mechanical relations with one another may keep the peace temporarily, but it is not a final solution of the intricate problem of living together in our huddled civilization. The day has gone by when we could rule men without gaining at least their respect, and if possible their affection. Prussia's stiffness and newness as a governing power; her lack of a high moral or religious tone, for there is a rapidly increasing tendency there to agree with the writer during the French Revolution: la question de dieu man que d'actualite; her hard and inflexible methods, make her a churlish neighbor and an arrogant master. In forty years Prussia has accomplished great things despite these disadvantages of temperament, of tradition, and despite these external dangers and problems. She is learning now that there are not only individuals but whole peoples who say, as William the Conqueror said to the Pope: "Never have I taken an oath of fealty, nor shall I ever do so."

X "FROM ENVY, HATRED, AND MALICE"

It has always been considered sound doctrine among Christians that they should love one another. Vigorous exponents of the doctrine, however, have ever been few in numbers. As the world gets more crowded, and we find it more and more difficult to make room for ourselves, and to get a living, we find antagonisms and defensive tactics, occupying so much of our time and energy that loving one another is almost lost sight of. It has been found necessary even among those of the same nation to legislate for love. We call such laws, with dull contempt for irony, social legislation. In Germany, and now in England, the modern sacrament of loving one another consists in licking stamps; these stamps are then stuck on cards, which bind the brethren together in mutual and adhesive helpfulness.

With nations the problem is not so easily and superficially solved; because no one body of legislators and police has jurisdiction over all the parties concerned. As a result of this just now in Europe, wisdom is not the arbiter; on the contrary, prejudices, pa.s.sions, indiscretions, and follies on the part of all the antagonists preserve a certain dangerous equipoise.

After you have seen something and heard a great deal of these antagonisms between nations; read their newspapers; talked with the protagonists and with their rulers, and with the responsible servants of the State; discussed with professors and legislators these questions; and listened to the warriors on both sides, you are somewhat bewildered. There are so many reasons why this one should distrust that one, so many rather unnatural alliances for protection against one another, so much friendship of the sort expressed by the phrase, "on aime toujours quelqu'un contre quelqu'un," so much suspicious watching the movements of one another, that one is reminded of the jingle of one's youth:

"There's a cat in the garden laying for a rat, There's a boy with a catapult a-laying for the cat, The cat's name is Susan, the boy's name is Jim.

And his father round the corner is a-laying for him."

Even to the youngest of us, and to the most inexperienced, this betokens a strained situation. The first and most natural result is that each nation's "watchmen who sit above in an high tower," whether they be the professionals selected by the people or merely amateur patriots, are forever crying out for greater armaments.

At the time of the Boxer troubles in China, when Germany sent some ships to demand reparation for the murder of her amba.s.sador in Peking, she had only two ships left at home to guard her own sh.o.r.es. When all England was exasperated by the Boer telegram sent by the Kaiser, or, if the truth is to be told, by his advisers, the late Baron Marshal von Bieberstein and Prince Hohenlohe, to President Kruger, official Germany lamented publicly that she lacked a powerful navy. Only a week after the Boers declared war the Kaiser is reported to have said: "Bitter is our need of a strong navy." Germany has noticed, too, not without suspicion, that--

In 1904 England had 202,000 tons of warships in the Mediterranean and none in the North Sea.

In 1907 England had 135,000 tons of warships in the Mediterranean and 166,000 tons in the North Sea.