CORRESPONDENCE.

_GERMAN EXPECTATIONS AND ASPIRATIONS.

[To THE EDITOR Or THE "SPECTATOR."]

Sin,—In my previous letter on Germany and Britain in the Spectator of December 20th, 1902, I endeaioured to set forth Germany's present economic and political position, and in particular her sentiments towards this country. The "Fleet- Literature," or propaganda for a great increase of the

German Fleet between now and 1920, was my chief source of information. In the present letter I propose to examine, not

the present, but the future,—German expectations of what the twentieth century will bring forth, and German aspirations.

Without ignoring the Fleet-Literature, my chief source will be the copious economic and political literature which has grown up round the German Tariff. Most of Germany's commercial treaties expire at the end of 1903, and 1904 will see, for good or evil, a new departure. Many of the chief economic authorities in Germany, from Schmoller downwards, have taken occasion to expound their views of the prospects of loss and profit which the new century holds out to Germany. A flood of light is thus let in upon German fears and German hopes. The former are chiefly associated with Russia and the United States ; the latter with the notion of a Central

European Customs ITnion,wand with Holland. As before, I begin with a list of my chief authorities, so as to be able to

refer to their works hereafter by their names only :—

Ernst von Halle.—" Yolks and Seewirtschaft," 2 vols., 1902. Pohle.—"Deutschland am Scheidewege," 1902.

Wolff.—"Das deutsche Reich and das Weltmarkt," 1901. Bley.—"Weltstellung des Deutschtums," 1897 ; "Die alldeutsche Bewegung and die Niederlande," 1897.

Marcks.—" Deutschland and England," 1900.

Arndt.—"Handelsbeziehungen Deutschlands zu England and den englischen Kolonien," 1899.

Calwer.—" Die Meistbegunstigung der Vereinigten Staaten der Nordamerika," 1902.

"Grossdeutschland and Mitteleuropa um 1950," -von einem Alldeutschen, 1895.

Rathgen.—"Kundigung des englischen Handelsvertrags," 1897. Ratzel.—" Das Meer die Quelle der Volkergrosse," 1900. Rohrbach.—" Wirtschaftliche Bedeutung Westasiens," 1902. Dehn.—"Kommende Weltwirtschaftspolitik," 1898. Hanziker.—" Schweiz," 1898.

Vetter.—" Schweiz eine deutsche Provinz,' " 1902.

"Beitriige zur neuesten Handelspolitik Deutschlands."—Essays by a number of well-knowa economists, published in 3 vols. by the•Verein.fiir Socialpolitik in 1901.

Punke.—" Deutsche Siedlung fiber See---Rjo Grande do Sul," 1902.

Schmoller and others in "Mandela and Machtpolitik," 2 vols., 1900.

"Nauticus."—Year-book of German maritime interests.

In the German view the twentieth century will, in the first place, be one of sea-wars rather than land-wars. " The battles of the future will be by sea" (" Nauticus"). Nine hundred to twelve hundred millions of the European race, in Europe and outside it, will dictate to the world, and their connection with that world will be by sea. That will be the "most considerable political, economic, and `cultural' fact of the twentieth century" (Schmoller). The modern tendency is for all Great Powers to be sea-Powers as well as land-Powers. The present great naval superiority of England is a relict from the past, surviving into the present; The old sharp contrast between sea-Powers and land- Powers is gone. The nineteenth-century wars, which were 'decided exclusively by land, will soon be looked back upon with wonder (Rattel).

Most German economists, including even Schmoller, anticipate what they call "trade wars" from the exclusive policy of Russia, the United • States, and Great Britain (sic.) They conceive of trade as a bone which two dogs fight over, and which only one dog can have, and the great majority of them speak of an increase of imports as if it were a thing to be lamented. Exports alone are, in this view, the index of national prosperity. It is refresh- ing to come across a Free-trader like Arndt, who refuses to believe in this bogey, and who call,: upon Germany and England to "speed onward to the goal together" ; but he is as one. crying in

the wilderness. .

All the great industrial States will, in Pohle's view, be com- peting for a trade which is doomed to diminution and decay. The typical export trade of to-day is the trade of a manufacturing country with one producing food or raw materials ;• and it is doomed, because countries of the latter type will by degrees come

more and more to want their own raw materials and their own food. Then the industrial countries will have to revive their agriculture, and it will be no easy business. There is probably much exaggeration in all this. Not to mention Canada, which all these Germans ignore, an immense extension—four hundred and sixty thousand square kilometres (Wolff)—of the Argentine wheat-field is possible. The best wheat in the world is now grown in the Hauran, and the supply could be greatly increased with better government. The same applies to Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (Rohrbach). With higher prices, India also could bring some fifty million new aeres into the market (Wolff). Still, one of the best of my authorities, Ernst von Halle, confidently predicts a future of dear bread between 1920 and 1950, and something like that is the predominant German view.

A general hardening of the conditions of life, a general sharpen- ing of the economic struggle, is, then, what most Germans (possibly, quite wrongly) expect of the twentieth century. In particular, they are haunted by the ever-increasing competition which they expect from the United States. How are these dangers to be met ? In the first place, by a Central European Zollverein ; in the second place, by a commercial, and even political, league between Germany and the "German outlands"—under which elastic term are included Holland, the German-speaking parts of Switzerland, and Scandinavia! The Central European Zollverein will include Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Roumania, and as much of the Balkan Peninsula as can be had. The object of the Zollverein is purely commercial—to enlarge the European trade area in such a way that it can meet the great Protectionist

States like Russia and the United States on fairly equal terms—

and to attain it is described by Hasse (" Deutsche Weltpolitik") as the "great task of the present generation." All this, however,

is in the air. Nearer to reality is the proposed amalgamation of the German " outlands " (Schurtz)—Holland in particular—with the German Empire.

I need not linger over Scandinavia. To call Denmark a "German outland" is a good joke or a bad one according to the

point of view. As for Sweden, Germany can no doubt have her alliance if she is prepared to guarantee her independence and the integrity of her territory against Russia,—not otherwise. Then there is Switzerland, as regards which it is worth noting by the way that the considerable increase in the Swiss export trade of recent years has been to England and her Colonies. The trade with England has grown from 109,000,000 fr. to 147,000,000 fr., while that with France has fallen from 147,000,000 fr. to 108,000,000 fr. (Franke in " Verein fur Socialpolitik "). The upshot of Hunziker's close-packed essay is that the French language-frontier is ad- vancing, the German receding. The German element in owitzer- land is nearly two-thirds of the whole ; but still the other third —an increasing third—will have its say, and every possible tie of loyalty and honour binds the two—not to' say three—races together. Then the Vetter case last year clearly showed that even German Switzerland was wholly opposed to any idea of political amalgamation with Germany, and did not even relish being called "a German province" in the purely scientific and intellectual sense. These " outlands " may, in fact, be put aside. All this Pan-Germanic talk is, as wise Germans like Delbrack have not been slow to point out, either very silly or very dangerous. There remains Holland, and here the case is perhaps more serious.

It should be fully and frankly admitted that it is hard upon Germany that the mouths of her chief river should be in alien

hands. The total course of the Rhine from the Swiss frontier to Rotterdam is five hundred and fifteen miles, of which four hundred and thirty-five are in Germany (Halle). Germany is Holland's chief customer by far, and Holland also profits by a

great transit trade through its territory to Germany from the United States, Russia, and elsewhere. German opinion seems to

be corning round to the view that Holland gains too much from this German neighbourhood to remain an alien. Germany wants the enlargement of her trade-area which Holland and, still more,

the Dutch Colonies would give her. But what inducement has

Holland? One German answer to that question is to point to the Transvaal War, and to suggest that the whole position and issue would have been very different if Holland had been in a Customs and Fleet Union with Germany (Halle). Another is to drop hints of future English or American aggression upon Java (Bley). Lest that be not enough, Holland is reminded that Germany can damage her trade by giving preferential railway rates to the German North Sea ports, and by building a canal between Antwerp and the Rhine (Franke). The fact that Holland is Free-trade, while Germany is Protectionist, is allowed to be a serious difficulty, but not an insuperable one (Halle and Franke). The union proposed is one of Customs and the Fleet. Holland must build more ships, but need have no army, and as regards trade she will be the chief gainer of the two. But this subject is so important, and there is so much still to be said, that I propose to return to it in a separate letter.

Next to Holland, the chief preoccupation o the German people is with Russia—which "seems to weigh on our existence like a monstrous peril of the future" (Marcks), and with which "a great war may be possible, even necessary" (" Grossdeutschland ")— and the United States. "The enemy, the superior opponent in the economic rivalry of the nations is—North America" (Wolff). "A fifth to a fourth of the American people is wholly or in part of German origin" (Halle) ; but the German element is not gaining ground, and it is believed that, unless the German immi- grationonce more increases (which the home Germans are deter- mined, if possible, to prevent) "the use of the German language in electoral campaigns will not last over the next two Presidential elections" (ibid.) The high Protection of the United States causes great exasperation in Germany, and the tendency, therefore, is to sacrifice the commercial treaties with neighbouring nations (under which the United States benefit by the "most-favoured-nation" clause in the Treaty of 1828), in order to have the power of putting heavy duties on American goods (Calwer). The same temper is shown in another way. "If there has been talk in the States of a tariff war with Germany, that is mainly due to the provocative fashion in which Germany sought to damage American trade indirectly, while ostensibly maintaining the most-favoured-nation' treat- ment" (Calwer, who goes on to make the interesting admission con- cerning the exclusion of American meat on alleged sanitary grounds, that the motive really at work in Germany was the jealousy of a trade rival). "The concessions made by England in the (first) Venezuelan affair rendered England for the first time popular in the States"; and on the other hand, " the unfriendliness of German public opinion about Cuba was an undoubted political blunder " (Halle) In this connection I thankfully note the invaluable admission that " the approximation of the two Anglo-Saxon States since the Cuban War has greatly strengthened both " (" Nauticus," L, 410). Much more might be said of the relations of Germany to the United States, and I hope to return to the subject in a future letter ; but before concluding I must add a few facts and quotations throwing light on German expectations and aspirations with re- gard to South America. " In more than one respect South America is the land of the future ; there is more to be got in South America than there is in Africa" (Schmoller). " We must at all costs desire that in Southern Brazil a land of twenty to thirty million Germans may come into being,—no matter whether it remains part of Brazil, or forms an independent State, or comes into closer relations with our Empire" (ibid.) The excellent Professor does not see that the last alternative is barred by the Monroe doctrine and the United States ; and indeed the German misapprehensions of the Monroe doctrine are almost worth a letter to themselves. The total German population in Brazil's southernmost and healthiest province, the Rio Grande do Sul, is 150,000 (Franke). The province is about the size of Prussia, and there is unlimited room for more German colonists (ibid.) The Germans keep their language, customs, and religion, intermarry but little with Brazilians, and have large families of the best Teutonic type, boys and girls both hardened by the constant riding and life in the open air (ibid.) It is the one German settlement where a considerable population has remained German, and German opinion is unanimous for its maintenance and development.

I conclude, by way of keynote, with three typical quota- tions What is the sense of this seizure of hundreds of islands and thousands of territories in all quarters of the globe ? There is no land or sea Power capable of maintaining for ever such a system of occupation. A good shove, and the ill-joined mosaic falls into ruins. To such a catastrophe the provocative policy of England is leading."—(Dehn.) " Englishmen must be struck with blindness not to see that, next to Russia, there is no worse enemy to England than Germany."—(Bley.) " German colonies are not now of much account, but we must remember that in 1600 the world was divided between Spaniards and Portuguese till the Netherlands, France, and, above all, England, divided it anew. What has happened once may happen again (Was einst geschah kann mister geschehen)."—(Rathgen.)

P.S.—I was very glad to see Mrs. D'Arcy Collyer's letter in defence of Bute against the Times charges in your issue for January 31st. She takes me to task, but my only offence was in assuming as self-evident that the Times would not print a statement impugning not merely Bute's, but the nation's, honour without absolute certainty of its correctness. I have been convinced by her letter, still more by the German essay to which she refers (Ruville, " William Pitt and Graf Bute," 1895), that in his attempt to ruin Bute, Frederick, not otherwise a scrupulous person, stuck at nothing, and that none of his charges against the English Minister should be accepted without the strongest possible external evidence.—

VIGILANS BED .E■41JUS.