Part 21 (2/2)
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 fas.h.i.+on.
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 s.h.i.+rking our responsibilities in the most cowardly fas.h.i.+on. 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 establis.h.i.+ng 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+ps to demand reparation for the murder of her amba.s.sador in Peking, she had only two s.h.i.+ps 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 wars.h.i.+ps in the Mediterranean and none in the North Sea.
In 1907 England had 135,000 tons of wars.h.i.+ps in the Mediterranean and 166,000 tons in the North Sea.
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