GERMANY 
 AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
GERMANY 
 AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 BY 
 
 ALAN LETHBRiDGE 
 
 LONDON 
 
 EYELEIGH NASH COMPANY 
 
 LIMITED 
 

 first published in ig2r. 
 
 
TO 
 xMY TRIED AND VALUED FRIEND 
 
 BETTY 
 
 47590 
 
PREFACE 
 
 A friend of mine, Governor of a Crown 
 Colony, a man of great experience and erudi- 
 tion, recently wrote to me as follows, " I shall 
 look forward to your book on Germany, but 
 can one speak freely? If you say anything 
 for the Germans, you are labelled a pro-German 
 at once. If you say anything against them, 
 you are accused of making more bad blood 
 between them and us. What is wanted is a 
 cold, impartial statement of fact." 
 
 This I have attempted to supply in the 
 following pages. It has not been an easy 
 matter. Avoidance of prejudice over ques- 
 tions affecting victors and vanquished is almost 
 impossible. The bitterness of memories which 
 speak of all the innumerable horrors and 
 tragedies of a great war, or rather series of 
 wars, must inevitably to some extent vitiate 
 balanced judgment. And how many of the 
 general public of to-day have the time or 
 inclination to study the German problem as 
 
 it is? Very few. And so the old parrot cry 
 
 vii 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 continues, " Never forgive the Huns," and so 
 on and so on ad nauseam. Civil crimes are 
 pardoned and condoned, reprieves are asked 
 for brutal murderers on the grounds of youth, 
 passion and the like. Then is it not well, 
 even from the most material point of view, to 
 study the case of the international criminal, 
 in order to discover whether retribution would 
 not possibly best be served by reasonable 
 punishment rather than by extinction ? 
 
 In the hope that this book may find its way 
 into the hands of the ordinary reader, who is 
 not interested in columns of statistics, but 
 wants merely facts, I have as far as possible 
 avoided figures. I have related my impres- 
 sions during two months in Germany when I 
 travelled north, south, east and west. I might 
 add that five years spent in Germany at the 
 most impressionable period of my life, partly 
 as a schoolboy and later as a student, naturally 
 afforded me a foundation upon which to work 
 which probably many who write on the topic 
 may not possess. 
 
 In dealing with the work of the Quakers, 
 to whom I owe such tremendous gratitude, lest 
 I be accused of exaggeration, let me state that 
 I am a Roman Catholic by religion, and hence 
 have not been led away by denominational 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 enthusiasm. But undoubtedly their work in 
 Germany will some day be understood and 
 appreciated, for they saw with clearness of 
 vision what would happen with a broken 
 German nation in existence a generation 
 ahead, while our politicians and propagandist 
 pamphleteers were occupied solely with the 
 present. 
 
 Wherever I went, I met always with the 
 greatest courtesy and assistance from British 
 Missions, Consuls or Commercial Travellers. 
 Of the latter I saw very few, truth compels 
 me to say. I would like to mention, however^ 
 the kindness of Mr. Charlton, our Consul- 
 General in Berlin, as also that of Colonel 
 Lyddon, Chief of the Mission at Breslau. For 
 the rest I need only tender my lasting thanks 
 to my secretary, who accompanied me every- 
 where and solved for me many difficult prob- 
 lems. As the Polish Consul-General in Berlin 
 remarked to me rather grimly, " People do not 
 travel to-day in Mittel Europe for pleasure.' 1 
 Undoubtedly that is true, and, as can be quite 
 understood, an Englishman alone, even though 
 acquainted with the language, is apt to receive 
 a hostile reception from the lower classes in 
 Germany, even as a German in similar circum- 
 stances might expect rough handling in many 
 
x PREFACE 
 
 of the lower quarters of our great commercial 
 centres. My secretary, being a German and 
 knowing exactly what I wanted to do, helped 
 me repeatedly over the road in this direction, 
 besides enabling me to go and see things which 
 otherwise I could not have seen. I have a 
 feeling that many journalists who rush through 
 Germany only examine the binding of the 
 volume presented, and never peruse the pages. 
 Hence, thoroughly to probe, the foreigner 
 must have a guide-interpreter; you may talk 
 German like a native, but once you are con- 
 victed of being an Englishman you will get 
 
 little satisfaction. 
 
 Alan Lethbridge. 
 
 June 21, 1921. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The world moves fast to-day. Wireless 
 
 telegraphy, multiplied editions of morning or 
 
 evening papers, condensed news served up, so 
 
 to speak, en casserole, have robbed most of the 
 
 world, and more especially Great Britain, of 
 
 the calm consideration of anything from a 
 
 murder to a football match. There is no time 
 
 for anything : as soon as one statement is 
 
 made it holds the boards till the next edition 
 
 comes along, when the former is promptly 
 
 forgotten. International politics are the sport 
 
 of the very few, and the poor pawns in the 
 
 game, being provided with brass bands, flags 
 
 and oratory, are expected to believe everything 
 
 the latest subsidised newspaper tells them. 
 
 Thus is history manufactured. The wildest 
 
 rumours are circulated and receive credence. 
 
 I remember the dismay, I might almost write 
 
 disgust, when, having returned from Archangel 
 
 at the end of 1914, I was obliged to give the 
 
 lie direct to those mythical Russian battalions 
 
 who had been seen at Aberdeen, Avonmouth 
 
 xi 
 
xii GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 and Victoria Station, all within twelve hours ! 
 Similarly poor propaganda was it which insisted 
 that the Germans were making margarine out 
 of their soldiers killed in action. Any one 
 with an iota of knowledge of German family 
 life would know that such an action would 
 have brought on the bloodiest revolution on 
 record. These two instances I mention merely 
 to emphasise the fact that the German problem 
 is one to be handled with care coupled with 
 that long-headed commonsense for which Britain 
 is supposedly renowned. In other words, do 
 not believe all that is written concerning the 
 German attitude, and do attempt to visualise 
 the facts. Here is a great nation, a people 
 pre-eminent in science and advanced com- 
 mercialism, a people numbering some sixty- 
 five millions, who suddenly find their dreams 
 sent to Limbo, their whole future jeopardised, 
 their families— those of the workers, that is — 
 starving, their social surroundings shattered, 
 the very basis of their foundation undermined 
 and a Damocleian sword held for ever over 
 their heads — the peril from the East, the peril 
 of Bolshevism and Communism at its worst. 
 In such extremity the leaders must indeed 
 be giants of self-control. 
 
 It would not be so difficult to scuttle the 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 ship and say to the waiting Allies, "Now, then, 
 come in and see what you can do. Perhaps 
 you can control the country, but if the United 
 States find Mexico a tougher nut to crack 
 than they wish to try, if the Philippines and 
 Guam are worrying the U.S. Treasury officials 
 out of their mind over the enormous cost of 
 their administration, then what will you have 
 to face? Sixty-five millions represent a figure 
 beyond the power of any set of nations per- 
 manently to subdue, and moreover we shall 
 cease to care as to whether the Bolsheviki 
 or the Chinese or both— not such an unlikely 
 combination — come in to our assistance or 
 for their own satisfaction. What then? ' 
 
 The other aspect of the case may be outlined 
 as follows. The average German is ready to 
 allow that the War was a mistake, that Luden- 
 dorff wrongly advised the Kaiser and brought 
 things to a head with the faultiest piece of diplo- 
 macy the world has ever seen. He accepts the 
 responsibility for the devastation his armies 
 caused, for the suffering his airships wrought 
 and for the havoc in the world's mercantile 
 marine which was the outcome of the submarine 
 campaign. He is quite willing to hang von 
 Tirpitz, banish Ludendorff, condignly punish 
 the senior officials of the General Staff, and, 
 
xiv GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 given opportunity, to make financial reparation 
 as far as lies in his power. He does not wholly 
 accept the responsibility for the War. He 
 believes it was bound to have come, and he 
 maintains that, given the chance, France would 
 have done to Belgium just the same as Ger- 
 many did. Opportunity is a dangerous tool 
 with which to play and opinions can be 
 reserved. But one thing stands out like a 
 beacon in a dark night. 
 
 The present situation cannot long endure. 
 The moment has arrived when the British 
 merchant, and his brother, the British work- 
 man, has no alternative but to arrive at a 
 settled conclusion as to whether he is prepared 
 to play the part of allied altruist and helping 
 others to ruin himself. Or he can decide 
 that, Germany being willing to do her best to 
 pay her bills like a sensible creditor, he will 
 allow her to rebuild for that purpose, rather 
 than back one creditor in particular who is 
 known to have an unrelievable animus against 
 the defaulter. That at least is the way in 
 which I read the situation. 
 
 The general lie of the land is not so per- 
 plexing as it appears, once the cardinal point 
 is grasped that France is the source of the 
 general unrest and tension throughout the 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 whole of Central Europe, though the Allies 
 have acted with doubtful wisdom in creating 
 the numerous small States which have sprung 
 into existence since the Treaty of Versailles. 
 Consider the facts. There is no doubt what- 
 ever that France has cause to hate Germany. 
 Alsace and Lorraine formed a sore in the side 
 of that country which even the medicine of 
 international doctors has failed to cure. For 
 although once again the lost provinces are 
 restored, the hate remains. Further, think of 
 the devastated homes, the battered towns, the 
 ruin everywhere, and she may be forgiven 
 much. And those who know aught of the 
 Gallic temperament know well enough the 
 tenacity of its passions. Now that Germany 
 is down and out, France means to keep her 
 so, for fear that, with a resurrected Germany, 
 the old rivalry would revive and France would 
 once again be faced with an ever-present 
 menace. All of which is quite understandable. 
 Her desire is to hem Germany in on all sides 
 with States who owe something of gratitude 
 to her for favours received, such as Poland, to 
 bleed her as dry as a bone, to bring her to the 
 status of a sixth-rate Power and to hold her 
 there. It is not possible, even were it desir- 
 able, which it is not. A strong Germany is as 
 
 I 
 
xvi GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 necessary to the safety of Western Europe as 
 the sun is to the earth, and that I shall hope 
 to prove. Of all the Allies France is the only 
 one which is actively provocative, and it is 
 this active provocation which is stirring up a 
 dangerous feeling in Germany, which to some 
 extent is causing active discontent amongst 
 the working classes who formed the rank and 
 file of what was the army, and encourages the 
 flame of resistance, passive or otherwise, to the 
 Allies' demands. That I shall also demonstrate 
 at some length later. 
 
 As regards the formation of these mushroom 
 States, consider ! Before the War, eastward of 
 Austria lay the Balkan States, always regarded 
 as the European storm centre. Why ? Because 
 here were Roumania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece 
 and Turkey, five small countries, hard bitten 
 by territorial jealousies, by religious factions 
 and by national hatred of centuries' growth. 
 There was never any real peace. If there was 
 not war, there was constant intrigue which 
 provided work and to spare for all the Chan- 
 celleries of Europe. And it was in that locale 
 that the match was put to the gunpowder which 
 set the whole world aflame. 
 
 To-day, with a legitimate desire to please 
 every one, and especially to please France, 
 
INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 though it may not be so admitted, a whole regi- 
 ment of little principalities have been erected, 
 mostly in the neighbourhood of Vienna. Mark 
 that point. Whereas before these petulant 
 and quarrelsome little peoples could squabble 
 at a distance, now they are at the front door 
 and notice must be taken of them. Czecho- 
 slovakia, Yugo Slavia, German Austria, for 
 whom every one must feel desperately sorry, 
 Poland with her wonderful dreams (when did 
 Poland not dream and when did she ever 
 act?), and Hungary — there they are, a per- 
 petual threat to the promised era of peace 
 which Mr. Lloyd George so surely prophesied. 
 Who was the diplomat who said, " II n'est 
 pas une question de Macedoine, c'est une 
 Macedoine des questions ' ' ? Well, here it is 
 in all truth, and how any one who has travelled 
 through Middle Europe can return favourably 
 impressed with the political outlook passes 
 my comprehension. 
 
 With the Polish question I deal at some 
 length in the chapter on Upper Silesia; here 
 I will content myself by stating my belief 
 that Korfanty is the sole man who will ever 
 pull that country into a sound economic 
 condition, even though he be an adventurer, 
 as some assert, and which I know personally 
 
xviii GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 to be untrue. All the others are in a state of 
 confusion bordering on chaos. They have no 
 money and are trying to build their houses 
 with empty pockets. As we all know, that is 
 a somewhat delicate operation. A business 
 man, an American, said to me in Berlin, 
 "I'll tell you what it is. Why didn't the 
 Allies take over all these twopenny-ha'penny | 
 little peoples and run them as a going business 
 concern, with a group of real hard-headed 
 business men as directors ? All they want is I 
 money to spend at the theatre and upon their 
 girls, and they'd have more chance of getting 
 it that way than with all these dud republics 
 mixing up the whole commercial situation.", 
 Not such a bad idea either, only what would) 
 the unemployed diplomats do ? 
 
 To give an actual example of the straitened 
 means of these embryonic Empires, as they 
 imagine themselves to be, let me supply one 
 illustration. I wanted to go to a little town 
 just across the Czecho-Slovakian frontier — to bei 
 precise, half an hour's journey by train. I was> 
 told that I must have a vise, and when I asked, 
 the cost, was astounded to hear it was 700, 
 marks. For a German it was about thirty, and 
 so I am forced to suppose that the Slovakian 
 passport authorities considered that Americans | t 
 
 
INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 and Englishmen could afford to pay, and decided 
 that here was a simple manner whereby their 
 exchequer might be increased. Of course it 
 kills business, but then that does not matter. 
 The argument probably is, if a commercial 
 traveller wants to come here he wants to 
 come badly, and he will pay even more if 
 asked. As for the ordinary traveller, or the 
 wanderer in search of fresh fields of enterprise, 
 n'importe, let him stay at home or go elsewhere. 
 Which brings me to the vexed subject of pass- 
 ports as a whole. 
 
 During the War they were admittedly neces- 
 i sary and played some part — not a large part — 
 in stopping espionage. To-day they are quite 
 1 unnecessary, and are really not alone ridiculous, 
 but vexatious. To travel from Berlin to 
 I: Breslau, thence to Posen and Konigsberg, 
 'returning via the Polish corridor to Berlin, 
 •required three vises. The unfortunate person 
 who desires to go to Berlin or any other place 
 in Germany from Konigsberg must first get a 
 vise, costing, I think, in the neighbourhood of 
 ten marks to cross the aforesaid corridor. 
 Imagine the traveller from Paddington to 
 Taunton being compelled to pay what is 
 virtually a tax merely because between Read- 
 ling and Newbury the line belonged to some 
 
xx GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 other company ! The passport system is out- 
 worn and wants thorough renovating. I am 
 aware that a Commission sat upon the matter 
 in question in Paris, but I have never heard 
 of any practical results. And the unpleasant 
 feature of the case is that Britain is the greatest 
 sinner. The Belgian authorities in Cologne 
 told me with a shrug of their shoulders, " Let > 
 the Great Powers lead the way and do away 
 with passports altogether or abolish the fees. 
 You can't expect little countries like Belgium 
 to inaugurate a new era; suggest to your own 
 people that they lead the way." To calculate 
 the amount of time which I have wasted in 
 Consular offices of various Powers trying to 
 get my passport in order is beyond my non- 
 mathematical brain, but I do remember a 
 couple of hours in a Polish passport bureau 
 in an atmosphere which would have been an 
 active encouragement to every known form of 
 disease. Clearly something will have to be 
 done to rid free Europe of the inconveniences 
 and terrors of the passport system, as it is 
 to-day at least. An identity card is something 
 very different, though those who imagine that 
 identity cards or passports will prevent the 
 undesirable from entering the country of his 
 choice are sadly mistaken. 
 
 
INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 Travelling in Germany to-day is distinctly 
 unpleasant. Obviously the German people 
 have no reason in particular to welcome with 
 warmth any foreigner, unless he be a Dutch- 
 man. The latter, as I saw time after time, is 
 peculiarly virulent in his dislike of the British, 
 and on occasion 1 have been compelled to 
 leave an hotel lounge rather than hear my 
 mother-country slandered or held up to ridicule. 
 Perhaps it is the backwash of the Boer war. 
 For the French, the Germans have unconcealed 
 hatred, and as I shall show they have cause. 
 For the Americans a certain friendly tolerance. 
 In only certain circles of enthusiasts do they 
 believe that America will come to their assist- 
 ance in any other way than the practical one 
 of relief— milch-cows, child-feeding and the 
 like. Curiously enough, I found no great love 
 for the German-American, but as a diplomatic 
 move — I am not. suggesting that it was ever 
 meant so to be — the aid the United States has 
 given to the children in Germany will never 
 be forgotten, and no matter how far American 
 participation in any further Allied demands 
 may influence the issue, a good word will 
 J always be found for America. As for the 
 British, except in certain States, I honestly 
 think we are liked and almost popular. Only 
 
xxii GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 on three occasions did I run any risk, and on 
 one of those it was my own fault, as when 
 feeling was running high over the trial of the 
 American Secret Service men at Mosbach on 
 the Neckar, together with the representative 
 of The Chicago Tribune I shook hands with 
 one of the accused ! Once a man made a 
 slash at me with a whip, and my secretary 
 promptly gave him over to the police, while 
 after the return of Dr. Simons from London 
 I was the subject of a somewhat hostile recep- 
 tion. However, I daresay that a German 
 wandering around England would not escape 
 so easily. My impression is that Germany 
 wants to be friends. She is eulogistic over the 
 treatment her prisoners received in England, 
 and I saw several letters mailed to waiters 
 and others from their former British guards 
 asking them, when they returned to England, 
 to look them up. All classes, with the excep- 
 tion of an irresponsible minority, appear to 
 realise that British justice, if not perfect, is 
 at any rate the next best thing to it, and 
 that England has no desire to see Germany 
 out of the ring for good. 
 
 Time and again have I questioned them 
 over the surrender of their fleet. Marvellous 
 to relate they do not seem to recognise the 
 
 I 
 
INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 magnitude of their loss in this connection, any 
 more than they pine over their lost colonies. 
 Knowing the German temperament and nature 
 pretty well from the years I lived with them, 
 I am inclined to think that both were the 
 hobbies of the ex-Kaiser and his cronies rather 
 than the desire of the people. Germany is so 
 large a country that she can conveniently 
 and successfully exploit her commercial under- 
 takings without colonies, which, all being said 
 and done, never paid well, with the exception 
 of Togoland. The loss of the navy is laid at 
 the door of the Bolsheviki, whose propaganda 
 is the best in the world and the most insidious, 
 as propaganda should be. I could never dis- 
 cover any desire to attempt the reconstruction 
 of another war fleet on a large scale, though 
 the mercantile marine is a different matter. 
 There is a strong element which is insistent 
 that, before aught else, the skeleton framework 
 of the old marine should be resuscitated, but 
 along different lines. One can trace nearly all 
 the abnormalities in every sphere of life to 
 the influence of the ex-Kaiser. It was he 
 who wanted the biggest merchant liner in the 
 world, and he got it. It was he who encouraged 
 enormous memorials to the '71 war. It was he 
 who made the Sieges Allee in Berlin, surely 
 
xxiv GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 the most horrible thing to contemplate in 
 Europe. It was he who wanted tremendous 
 operatic performances, life-like menageries and 
 gigantic circuses. It was a species of megalo- 
 mania with him, and his people watched in a 
 dazed fashion and stolidly waited, doing what 
 they were told till the dawn of the new era 
 arrived. And so it is that now the eminently 
 practical side of the populace is coming to 
 the front. They desire nothing grandiose, 
 but something stable whereon to repair their 
 shattered fortunes. No Imperator for the ship- 
 ping German of the new school. No, give 
 him a moderate 12,000-ton liner and he is 
 satisfied. He knows quite well that the great 
 steamers are expensive advertisements, whilst 
 the smaller boats may be little gold-mines in 
 the future. 
 
 In other words, the core of the nation is 
 sound and the pre-war monarchists are only a 
 noisy minority. A sound constitutional govern- 
 ment, founded something after the model of 
 our own, would, in all likelihood, be popular, 
 but the middle and labouring classes, the masses, 
 in fact, have quite lost any taste they ever 
 had for war lords and militarism. The ques- 
 tion is, whether they ever had any ; I am in- 
 clined to think not. Germany of 1914 was 
 
 
INTRODUCTION xxv 
 
 not virtually so very unlike Russia of the 
 same date, only the late Czar was not nearly 
 so extreme in the use of his powers as the 
 ex-Kaiser. And if it was hard for the out- 
 sider to delve into the mind of the simple, 
 unaffected moujik, then how much harder to 
 get behind the curtain of an educated man, 
 as the German always is, and discover what 
 his real opinions might be, more especially 
 when he was aware that if they were unpopular 
 with, or prejudicial to the ruling caste he stood 
 an uncommonly good chance of a fine, if not 
 imprisonment. When popular passions are 
 aroused it is unreasonable to expect clarity of 
 vision, but I incline to the belief that before 
 so many years have passed we shall under- 
 stand the German very much better than 
 hitherto, and discover that many of his faults 
 were in reality those of his masters. 
 
 It may not be malapropos here to write 
 something about the cost of living in Germany. 
 I I must admit that before I took my departure 
 j I had wonderful visions of what I could do on 
 very little money with the exchange wobbling 
 about in the neighbourhood of 240 marks to 
 a pound. I was not long in discovering my 
 error. In the first place, the German is no 
 fool, and quite well realises that here is an 
 
xxvi GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 opportunity to spoil the Philistine. This he 
 starts to do with a vengeance. There are at 
 most hotels two tariffs, one for the native and 
 the other for the foreigner, or, I should write, 
 the Englishman or American. The tariff for 
 the latter compares unfavourably with Petro- 
 grad in its prime of extravagance. You may 
 lunch for 200 marks, and then, to your dismay, 
 you find that in addition you must pay a town 
 tax sometimes, or a war tax; this, I think, is 
 general, and then 10 per cent, for the waiters. 
 The latter is not really a bad system. All the 
 staff pool in together over the 10 per cent., 
 and the guest is spared those horrible minutes 
 before departure when from every nook and 
 cranny domestics suddenly appear, all on the 
 look out for their tip. On board a liner I 
 once heard them called the vultures. But with 
 the German system all this is avoided, and the 
 hall porter and the chambermaid and the valet 
 and the boots all conscientiously do their best 
 for one's comfort with no hope of direct 
 reward. It also operates in the direction of 
 making the servants polite and attentive, for 
 full well they know that, should one of them 
 be reported, he or she will suffer severely at 
 the hands of the others. Hence tips are no 
 worry. Otherwise, however, with the prices. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxvii 
 
 They are appalling, and until I had my German 
 secretary with me I was often forced to pay 
 fabulous sums for very poor food and uncom- 
 fortable lodging. The wise will do as I did, 
 send the secretary in advance to secure the 
 rooms and then enter oneself, when the 
 manager's face will be a study ! 
 
 This must also be said in regard to the high 
 cost of living. The numerous Commissions 
 now flooding Germany, of course, travel and 
 live at the cost of the German Government. 
 Hence, human nature being what it is, few 
 bother about what they pay, with the result 
 that the prices for outsiders automatically 
 increase. In other words, what the German 
 hotel or restaurant proprietor loses on the 
 swings he intends to get back on the round- 
 abouts. Do you blame him ? Furthermore, 
 the Commissions have a cheerful habit of 
 commandeering all the best hotels in a town, 
 rendering it almost impossible to find a room, 
 pay what you will. 
 
 There is a tremendous house and hotel 
 famine throughout the whole of Germany, 
 and on more than one occasion I have 
 been only too glad to avail myself of a 
 railway bench when I have arrived late at 
 night and tired out, having unsuccessfully 
 
xxviii GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 tried half a dozen hotels. It is also quite a 
 delusion to imagine that the second or third 
 class hotel will be any cheaper than the first. 
 Experience has taught me the reverse : the 
 first-class house has some species of conscience, 
 and with the lower grades this decreases till 
 nothing is left but an account of 150 marks 
 for a room in which it is purgatory to sleep 
 and of which you are not the sole occupant. 
 Supply and demand ! Finally, since the revo- 
 lution there has been a notable tendency to 
 look after the ailing, the sick and the needy 
 by the elected municipal councillors. This is 
 done without any regard to the convenience 
 of the bourgeoisie, and, though in some cases 
 rather extreme, on the whole it works well. 
 Thus, in a medium-sized town like Heidelberg, 
 the famous Schloss Hotel has been taken over 
 as a sanatorium for consumptives from Heidel- 
 berg itself, Mannheim and Mosbach. The 
 municipality is equally rigid in taking any 
 hotels it may want for municipal purposes, 
 and so in Heidelberg, again, they have taken 
 over the Prinz Carl and the Metropole, the 
 one for the police, the other for the Bureau 
 of Taxes. Therefore there is very little hotel 
 accommodation left for the visitor, and profiteer- 
 ing results. This is the explanation. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxix 
 
 As for rooms, they are nearly unprocurable. 
 I have an acquaintance, the head of a large 
 cement factory, and all he could find was 
 one room for himself and his child, and then 
 the price was exorbitant. Of course, were one 
 to stay a considerable time in Germany, or 
 had one friends there, things might be rather 
 different, but to any one without a long purse 
 I would say keep away from Germany for the 
 nonce. 
 
 What applies to hotels applies equally to 
 shops. From my pocket-book I extract the 
 following : I paid 20 marks for a small bunch 
 of violets ; my secretary, 1 mark 50. A whisky - 
 and-soda in Berlin cost me 50 marks; my 
 secretary got me one for 12. A cigarette- 
 holder cost 150 marks and was supposed to 
 be amber; I sent it back, and the secretary 
 brought it to me for 15. And so the list 
 might be continued. It is a silly policy, 
 because now that the War is over visitors are 
 beginning to trickle back to German health 
 resorts, and if the prices are raised in this 
 fashion the goose that lays the golden egg 
 will have been killed. 
 
 Another thing which hits the pocket of the 
 traveller in Germany is the enormous amount 
 of spurious paper money in circulation. Be 
 
xxx GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 it understood that silver is never seen, and the 
 humble shilling is regarded with respectful 
 veneration. But the ever-increasing multipli- 
 cation of notes of various denominations, issued 
 by all sorts of banks and public bodies, has 
 given the counterfeiter his chance, and he has 
 not been slow to take it. In this business 
 naturally America participates, and a literal 
 cargo of bad fifty-mark notes was recently 
 seized in New York. For the foreigner it is 
 out of the question to tell good from bad. 
 The natives themselves suffer, for do I not 
 remember a woman cashier in an hotel showing 
 me a bad thousand-mark bill which she had 
 accepted in payment of an account, and which 
 she would have to replace out of her own 
 pocket ? Though nominally that would mean 
 fifty pounds pre-war, to us it represents, at 
 present rate of exchange, approximately four. 
 But to the German it still represents something 
 in the neighbourhood of twenty-five pounds. 
 So no wonder the girl was crying. I was 
 heavily victimised myself at Frankfort at a 
 changer's ; I had bad notes of all denominations 
 to a considerable sum given to me, and my 
 secretary at odd moments would pass one on 
 to some one else. But they are not easy to 
 place, and banks and post offices are merciless. 
 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxi 
 
 They have experts, and a bad note is taken, 
 mutilated in your presence, and you are invited 
 to give your name and address, together with 
 showing your passport. Also the note is not 
 returned, so you are robbed of it even as a 
 curiosity. 
 
 After the revolution, when enthusiasm was 
 running high, nearly every town and village 
 throughout the entire country started to make 
 its own paper money, adding still further to 
 the confusion. Needless to say, there was no 
 sort of clearing-house which could deal with 
 such complexity, and so this town money 
 became legal tender only within the walls of 
 the town or village. I mention village pur- 
 posely, as some of the best specimens I have 
 seen came from remote hamlets which deter- 
 mined to show their artistic proclivities. I 
 brought a collection back with me, numbering 
 over a hundred specimens, ranging from five 
 marks to a pfennig. I was puzzled as to what 
 could be bought with the latter sum, and was 
 told " one sweet for one schoolgirl." I imagine 
 it will be many a long year before the German 
 Exchange will be able to right itself. 
 
 There is one further matter which may be 
 suitably mentioned in this introduction. Surely 
 the most obvious things are often the most 
 
xxxii GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 overlooked. It is customary in England to 
 speak of the Germans as we speak of the 
 Americans or the French. It is an all-embrac- 
 ing term which tends to confuse issues. Ger- 
 many is a Confederation of States, all of whom, 
 speaking the same language, are as wide apart 
 in their points of view as the poles. Germany 
 is not a melting-pot like America, nor has it 
 any more unity of thought than a Central 
 American Republic. The working-man from 
 Upper Silesia will have a great difficulty in 
 understanding his brother from Westphalia, 
 while the Badener speaks with a brogue not 
 unlike the Irish. They possess different attri- 
 butes, think differently and, in fact, are no 
 more actually allied than are the English and 
 the Irish. Baden in large part is Lutheran, 
 Bavaria preponderantly Catholic, as also the 
 Rhine Provinces. And so instances might be 
 multiplied. They are a confederation of totally 
 different peoples bound together for mutual 
 advantage and happening to possess the same 
 language. It by no means follows that what 
 Berlin thinks and does to-day, Munich is going 
 to do to-morrow. It is usually the reverse, 
 but it is realised that, like the bundle of sticks, 
 united they have a very strong chance of 
 again being heard in the councils of the world, 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxiii 
 
 whilst divided they would drift into anarchy 
 most profound. But it must be insisted that 
 the name " German " covers a multitude of 
 distinct nationalities as profoundly different 
 as could well be imagined. And it is to the 
 interest of the world in general, and to Great 
 Britain in particular, that this confederation 
 should be supported to such an extent that 
 despair, Bolshevik gold, or any other outside 
 influence should not cause it to split asunder 
 and throw back civilisation hundreds of years 
 by the inrush of the Red armies of Russia 
 which would undoubtedly follow. 
 
 c 
 

CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 PREFACE ..... 
 INTRODUCTION .... 
 I. COLOGNE UNDER BRITISH CONTROL 
 II. THE FRENCH IN GERMANY . 
 
 III. MUNICH, LEIPZIG, DRESDEN . 
 
 IV. THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 V. THE UPPER SILESIAN QUESTION AND 
 KORFANTY 
 
 VI. FRANKFORT .... 
 
 VII. BERLIN ..... 
 
 VIII. POST-WAR GERMANY . 
 
 IX. THE YOUNGER GENERATION 
 
 PAGE 
 
 vii 
 xi 
 87 
 
 60 
 83 
 
 108 
 
 133 
 159 
 180 
 
 218 
 243 
 
 X. THE SECRET SERVICE AND ITS OPERATIONS . 272 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 . 295 
 
 XXXV 
 
GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 COLOGNE UNDER BRITISH CONTROL 
 
 Were I asked which town I found the 
 cheeriest during my wanderings in Germany, 
 without hesitation I should answer, Cologne. 
 It is an undeniable fact that the British 
 Tommy is the most adaptable creature on 
 earth. In common with all the rest of humanity 
 he has his faults, but emphatically he is a 
 gentleman, and even his quondam enemies 
 have grown to appreciate that fact. 
 
 The train rumbles slowly into the vast 
 railway station which, with the Cathedral, 
 dominates Cologne, and as one alights one is 
 struck to find, not, as one expected, soldiers 
 everywhere, armed to the teeth and glancing 
 ; suspiciously at arriving passengers, but the 
 ordinary hustle and rush of a station, with not 
 a glimpse of khaki in sight. At the ticket 
 control barrier one comes for the first time upon 
 
 37 
 
38 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 a couple of British Military Police, who are 
 genially chatting with a German ticket collector. 
 They are treated very much like the " Bobby " 
 in a London street. Every one asks them 
 questions, German and foreigner alike : the 
 way to somewhere, what time is the next train 
 to Frankfort, is there a good hotel near the 
 Cathedral? — questions are simply volleyed at 
 them, and though they may be ignorant of the 
 language, somehow or other they manage to 
 make themselves understood and good-naturedly 
 see the people on their way. If this is control, 
 it is friendly enough, one muses. 
 
 Outside in the Dom Platz, the centre of the 
 town life, one sees more Tommies, mostly on 
 business bent, for it is not yet noon. The 
 Excelsior Hotel is British Headquarters, and 
 at its entrance stand two armed sentries — 
 except the Military Police, who carry revolvers, 
 the only armed soldiers I encountered during 
 my visit. The Dom Hotel is likewise occupied 
 by officers, who overlap into the Continental, 
 making the discovery of a lodging for the 
 civilian a matter of some difficulty. " When 
 in doubt ask the military police," might be 
 taken as the Cologne motto and, on inquiry, 
 I am directed to a billeting office, my require- 
 ments are noted down, books are referred to 
 
COLOGNE UNDER BRITISH CONTROL 39 
 
 and, hey presto ! I find myself installed in a 
 very comfortable little lodging tucked away 
 in a small back street hard by the station. 
 Everything in Cologne seems to be either 
 near the Cathedral or the station, which is 
 convenient. 
 
 As the day wears on Tommy begins to 
 be more en evidence. He has finished his 
 morning drills, or whatever duties he may have 
 had, and he is out to enjoy himself. Very 
 wisely the military authorities have done 
 everything in their power to encourage the 
 British soldier on the Rhine to " carry on " 
 exactly as though he were in his own country. 
 There are the same games, only rather more 
 of them if anything. There are innumerable 
 societies, from dramatic to debating, libraries 
 and reading-rooms, Y.M.C.A. canteens and 
 concerts, run on lines likely to appeal to the 
 Tommy, with as much religion left out as is 
 practicable; in fact he is infinitely better 
 looked after than he would be at Aldershot or 
 Wellington Barracks. In addition, he has 
 the run of a fine old town, full of interest and 
 historical association. If a Catholic, he attends 
 Mass at the Cathedral, and can hear the wonder- 
 ful music for which it is famed. 
 
 Though he is a unit of an army of occupation, 
 
40 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 he scarcely realises it. The German here has 
 quickly realised that though his guest may not 
 strictly be welcome in the true sense of the 
 word, yet when it has come to the point, and he 
 has received him into his house as a boarder, 
 he is loth to lose him. If a job has to be done — 
 a tap leaking in the kitchen to be repaired, 
 a castor off a chair to be replaced, a curtain- 
 pole to be taken down — Tommy comes to the 
 rescue and acts as the handy man. In return 
 the mother of the family sews on his buttons 
 and mends his socks, and little by little they 
 drift into mutual understanding, and Tommy 
 finds himself talking about his mother and his 
 home and his best girl, if he has one. If he 
 has not, then he quickly finds one in Cologne ! 
 The commonest sight in the streets is Tommy 
 with a German girl. How they carry on a 
 conversation is something of a mystery. I 
 must admit that curiosity has prompted me 
 to try and overhear, and it appeared that both 
 spoke their own tongue, yet understood perfectly 
 each other. And of course this intermingling 
 in many cases ultimately leads to affection, 
 and affection to matrimony. Many of the 
 British Army of Occupation have married 
 German girls, and from all accounts the mar- 
 riages have been extraordinarily successful. 
 
COLOGNE UNDER BRITISH CONTROL 41 
 
 In the beginning there was some difficulty. 
 Women of an undesirable class inveigled the 
 simple soldier into their clutches and some 
 notorious bad characters became British sub- 
 jects, but that has all been stopped. In this 
 direction the German police have been of great 
 assistance. Before a Tommy can be married 
 to a German girl now, the police inquire into 
 her record. If there is nothing against her, 
 the marriage is proceeded with, a British officer 
 being always present at the ceremony. I have 
 no figures as to the number of these marriages, 
 but I was told it was " very considerable." 
 This state of affairs must eventually produce 
 a distinct influence upon Anglo-German rela- 
 tions. When the heat of the late conflict has 
 died down to some degree and the question 
 of the future can be debated without loss of 
 temper, it will be allowed that the German has 
 more in common with the Britisher than with 
 any other nation. Place the case another 
 way. Supposing there were an army of occu- 
 pation in Paris, a British army, how many 
 of the rank and file would marry French 
 girls ? 1 fancy not many, for temperamentally 
 they are too far apart. 
 
 Above all is the German girl an excellent 
 haas frau, an expression difficult of trans- 
 
42 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 lation and not in the least signifying an 
 unattractive female in an apron who spends 
 her days in dusting the chairs and fiddling 
 about with pots and pans. Rather does it 
 mean a " manager." The German girl from 
 childhood is taught what might be termed 
 domestic economy. Instinctively she knows 
 how to run a house. She knows how to cook, 
 and if her taste in that direction is not English 
 she is quite adaptable enough to alter it, as 
 Tommy has quickly discovered. She is 
 methodical and tidy almost to a fault. Even 
 in poor little flats such as I have visited in the 
 Nord district of Berlin, the slums of that great 
 city, there is always cleanliness, even though 
 the furniture may be conspicuous by its 
 absence. And it is this quality which, I 
 imagine, has appealed to the soldier from 
 England, whether he be country- or town-bred. 
 Too often are English homes untidy and 
 uncomfortable. Too often slackness creeps in, 
 especially in the homes of the industrial 
 centres, and, in addition, the womenfolk of 
 the family seldom desire to stay at home and 
 make the home, whatever it be, a Home. 
 Hence the designation haus frau need not 
 in any way be deemed derogatory; rather is 
 it in the nature of a compliment. Home life 
 
COLOGNE UNDER BRITISH CONTROL 43 
 
 could have no better foundation, of that I am 
 perfectly assured. 
 
 There are many features of British occupa- 
 tion worthy of notice. For instance, the British 
 Post Office. Nominally intended for the use 
 of the troops, any British visitor always finds 
 himself welcome, and can send home quickly 
 and safely registered letters or bottles of eau 
 de Cologne — I wonder how many bottles have 
 been sent during the last twelve months — 
 or chocolates : there is one very well-known 
 sweetmeat-maker in the town. The organisa- 
 tion of this department is perfect and reflects 
 the greatest credit on its organisers. 
 
 And then there is the daily paper, The Cologne 
 Post. Who its responsible editor is, I am 
 unaware. But it is an excellent publication, 
 replete with the latest cables from London, 
 plenty of sporting news dear to the heart of 
 all Tommies, and notes as to what is happening 
 in the City. There are editorials and special 
 articles contributed from outside, and all are 
 written with the most complete absence of 
 prejudice. I especially noticed the reports 
 of cases tried by the Military Tribunal of those 
 who had offended against the British regula- 
 tions. There was a noticeable desire, so 
 seemed to me, to spare the feelings of the 
 
44 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 German population, and in all the cases I read 
 it appeared to me as though the President of 
 the Court had done his best for the accused. 
 Lately there have been some crimes of violence, 
 more than previously, but in nearly every case 
 the offender has come from somewhere outside 
 the British zone, and so it cannot be taken as 
 proving anything definite as regards the irk- 
 someness or otherwise of our control. For the 
 rest, the cases are generally very minor offences, 
 such as supplying a Tommy with a drink out 
 of hours, or letting him have a little more than 
 he could conveniently absorb. One case 
 amused me greatly. A married Tommy was 
 in a tram with his German wife when a German 
 workman said something disparaging regarding 
 the British Army. Tommy did not under- 
 stand, but his wife did, and it was she who 
 handed over the culprit to the Military Police 
 and had the satisfaction, after giving her 
 evidence, of seeing him fined a hundred marks. 
 
 I must not forget the English Theatre, or 
 Music Hall if you will. Here sometimes 
 regular music hall comedians appear, or Tommy, 
 taking things into his own hands, produces his 
 own show. I heard of a most successful 
 " Hamlet," though I did not see him myself. 
 
 But I did witness a performance written 
 
COLOGNE UNDER BRITISH CONTROL 45 
 
 and acted by Tommies which so convulsed 
 my German secretary that I feared the con- 
 sequences. Of the plot all that I could gather 
 was that a young man had discovered a chemical 
 which, inhaled by an animal, kept it alive, but 
 froze all movement. Applied to cattle coming 
 from South America it had proved its value ! 
 Now there was a friend of his, endowed with 
 a wife who nagged and kept him busy cleaning 
 the floors all day to the tune of " Why aren't 
 you quicker, darling? " Said friend naturally 
 borrows the chemical and applies it with the 
 best of results to his wife — so he imagines. 
 But the wife, having spotted trouble, has been 
 careful to empty away the original chemical 
 and substitute water, feigning to be frozen in 
 order to discover what her husband really 
 thinks about her. She hears both orally and 
 physically ! Here comes the opportunity for 
 unlimited horse-play, and the " wife," a stalwart 
 youngster belonging to the Black Watch, so 
 upset the house that for some time it was im- 
 possible to proceed. There were many German 
 girls present, and they simply rocked with 
 laughter : it was one of the j oiliest evenings I 
 recall. But what struck the outsider most 
 was the end, when the band struck up the 
 Br it is) i National Anthem. Every German in 
 
46 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 the theatre was on his or her feet with a bound 
 and waited with respect till it was finished. 
 For the moment all national animosity, if 
 any existed, had vanished, and the guests, 
 the vanquished, felt thoroughly at home with 
 the hosts, the victors. Thus is cemented 
 daily a better understanding with Germany, 
 and it is proverbial that no better foundation 
 for understanding can be constructed than 
 laughter. 
 
 And so the days pass in Cologne as far as 
 Tommy is concerned, healthy, happy days which 
 will long linger in his memory. Journalism 
 is a great profession, and I could not but smile 
 at a picture in an illustrated paper, published 
 in London, which showed a party of Tommies 
 on their way back to Cologne after furlough, 
 and into their mouths were put the words, 
 " Make the bl eaters pay." I asked a very 
 intelligent private soldier whether he thought 
 they could, and he answered with a laugh, 
 " Bless you, Sir, that's only newspaper talk, 
 that is ; it's my belief they haven't the money." 
 And that incidentally is my own belief. 
 
 I am tempted to give one illustration of how 
 Tommy regards the German which came under 
 my personal notice when I was acting as an 
 interpreter at a Prisoners of War camp in 
 
COLOGNE UNDER BRITISH CONTROL 47 
 
 England. Its situation was literally horrible, 
 
 and the weather helped to make matters more 
 
 miserable by raining steadily and continuously 
 
 all day and every day. The staff outside the 
 
 wire experienced a trying time, since we were 
 
 under canvas and the bottom boards of the 
 
 tents had been mislaid. We were miles from 
 
 i anywhere, with nothing to do after our official 
 
 ! duties were finished, and needless to say the 
 
 I grumbling was universal, from the Commandant 
 
 himself to the men of the Royal Defence Corps 
 
 1 who formed the escort. For the prisoners 
 
 1 things were worse naturally, for they were 
 
 behind the wire and did not possess the dry 
 
 kit we at least had. So they were in a state 
 
 of abject misery. There was one treasured 
 
 possession in the sergeants' mess — a piano. 
 
 'It was a wonderful instrument, which must 
 
 'have had a long and, I hope, distinguished 
 
 ■career. At any rate it served its purpose, and 
 
 |we in the officers' mess were not too proud to 
 
 borrow it on occasion and have a so-called 
 
 j sing-song. Making a noise like smashing china 
 
 is a genuine relief to pent-up feelings. Then 
 
 ;one morning the Provost-Sergeant came to me 
 
 | and said, " Beg pardon, Sir, but this weather 
 
 lis awful. Them poor devils behind the wire, 
 
 they haven't nothing in the way of music. 
 
48 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 With the Commandant's permission, Sir, the 
 sergeants' mess would like to send them in 
 their piano : it'll be better than nothing for 
 them." Needless to say it went, and I doubt 
 not a benediction on those sergeants was 
 uttered by many a German prisoner. That is 
 the spirit of the British Army of Occupation 
 as it appeared to me : pity, rather than aught 
 else, and it gives promise of a better future for 
 all of us. 
 
 Another episode connected with Cologne I 
 must relate, as, though it would not shame a 
 cinema film, it has the merit of being absolutely 
 true, and was related to me by one of the staff 
 of Thomas Cook & Sons. Not so long ago, 
 a very smart Staff Major, with a couple of rows 
 of ribbons ornamenting his tunic, strolled into 
 Cook's office, and, presenting his card, asked 
 them to cash a cheque for fifty pounds. This 
 was at once arranged, and after a few remarks 
 about the weather and the crops he departed. 
 Finding apparently that he had not quite 
 enough money, he went to Cox's Bank and 
 repeated the dose, and even then, being in 
 doubt, went to Lloyd's to make certainty 
 secure. At G.H.Q. he was received as an 
 honoured guest, as it was understood that ho 
 was on a very important mission for the British 
 
 
 i 
 
COLOGNE UNDER BRITISH CONTROL 49 
 
 Government, and in addition to the ordinary 
 civilities a small dance was arranged for him 
 and he had a beautiful time. He then left 
 for Berlin, the thoughtful railway authorities 
 giving him a reserved compartment. Arrived 
 in Berlin he visited Cox's and Lloyd's again. 
 He then reported at the Hotel Bellevue, the 
 i Headquarters of the British Mission in Berlin, 
 I and during his stay was most hospitably 
 j entertained by every one. But his mission was 
 I to take him to Vienna and even beyond, he 
 1 averred, and so he departed with a literal 
 | avalanche of good wishes. Vienna received 
 him with open arms, and the Hotel Bristol, 
 in the Ring Strasse, gave him of its best during 
 the few days he could remain in what was the 
 gayest city in Europe, to-day one of the saddest. 
 Buda Pesth and Bucharest followed, and it was 
 now recognised that he had important diplo- 
 matic affairs to attend to in Constantinople. 
 !;Every facility was placed in his way, his 
 {cheques were naturally cashed with pleasure 
 ilat the very idea of doing so distinguished a 
 jpersonage so slight a favour. At Constanti- 
 nople he at once reported himself to the 
 Admiral, made a trip up the Bosphorus in the 
 Uationnaire, and then requested that he 
 night be sent to Malta by the quickest method 
 
 ! 
 
50 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 available, as he had received urgent cables 
 directing him to repair thither at once. Com- 
 munications being very uncertain and unsatis- 
 factory, the Admiral decided to send him along 
 in a battleship by way of solving the difficulty, 
 and accordingly he embarked in one of the 
 finest units of the British Navy. Malta wit- 
 nessed the end of a wonderful holiday. By 
 hook or by crook he had secured the cheque- 
 book of the Staff Major he represented himself 
 to be, and had gone gaily through Europe j 
 having a truly gorgeous time, all the while 
 sailing under false colours. I do not imagine 
 for a moment that he grudged the months that 
 he received as a penance, regarding them more. 
 
 or less as a welcome rest cure. But that man 
 
 I 
 
 could really have gone a long way in life, if 
 
 only he could have translated his endeavours 
 into some legal or lawful direction. So much 
 for the military side of British occupation of 
 German territory. 
 
 But there is another aspect of the case, 
 namely, what is being done in this territory for 
 the Germans themselves. It must be plainly 
 stated as a fact that the suffering caused by 
 the blockade, and for that matter by the War 
 itself, was simply terrific, especially amongst the 
 women and children. So it was elsewhere, I 
 
 t 
 
 h 
 lb 
 
COLOGNE UNDER BRITISH CONTROL 51 
 
 shall be told, to which my answer is, " Go and 
 see," go and say frankly whether in France, 
 England, Italy or any other warring country 
 except Russia can be found the ghastly little 
 ghosts, little caricatures of childish humanity, 
 who crowd the streets of any German town. 
 
 I read recently in a German paper an article 
 in which it was stated that an English writer — 
 I forbear to give his name, though, truth to 
 tell, I have never heard of him before as an 
 authority — stated that he hoped that the 
 under-fed German children in Germany would 
 grow into stunted, dwarfed and deformed 
 manhood and womanhood, bringing into the 
 world stunted, dwarfed and deformed children, 
 so that future generations of Germans would 
 | cease to be of any account in the world's 
 history. If the gentleman in question really 
 wrote such rubbish — bad rubbish at that — 
 then I think, as Father Vaughan once remarked 
 in answer to a ridiculous question, he should 
 consult his family physician. No one wishes 
 for one moment to query the fact that charity 
 
 I should begin at home. Of course it should, 
 but that is no reason why we should be asked 
 to out-Herod Herod. 
 
 Take the subject from the purely material- 
 istic view-point : one does not expect inter- 
 
52 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 national altruism from present-day politicians 
 and place-seekers. But let their pockets be 
 touched, or possibly be touched, and things 
 assume a very different aspect. Supposing, 
 as this benevolent writer suggests, by with- 
 holding any help whatsoever from suffering 
 human beings in Germany, the race becomes 
 deteriorated in the manner he foresees and 
 hopes — what then? Will it suit Britain to 
 have as a neighbour a great country peopled 
 by a race so enfeebled as to be unable to help 
 themselves? It would be an invitation to 
 other nations to encroach, and though the sun 
 shines to-day on our relations with France, 
 surely we have not forgotten such episodes 
 as Waterloo and Trafalgar. International 
 friendships are no whit different from social 
 friendships. Tradition may sway slightly 
 political considerations, but the greatest 
 admirer of France cannot speak of her as a 
 traditional friend. 
 
 On the other side of Germany stands the 
 unassessed peril of Bolshevism. Newspaper 
 reports, emanating usually from Helsingfors, 
 and obviously the merest hearsay, perpetually 
 announce anti-Bolshevik risings, the flight of 
 Lenin, the assassination of Trotsky — all the 
 stories of which the wish is father to the belief. 
 
COLOGNE UNDER BRITISH CONTROL 53 
 
 Yet nothing happens, and to date the various 
 counter-revolutions have been like small wave- 
 lets breaking against an immense granite cliff. 
 Occasionally the Bolshevik Government invites 
 carefully chosen people to go upon a carefully 
 selected tour, and those who accept return 
 with the vaguest of conceptions as to what is 
 really at the base of the structure. In the first 
 place, some knowledge of the Russian language 
 is necessary and some knowledge at first hand 
 of the country. How many of those who have 
 passed the Russian frontier during the last 
 twenty months possess those qualifications ? 
 A lady, who pluckily goes and makes a model 
 of Lenin and his colleagues, may be in a position 
 to write an interesting book of personal 
 impressions concerning those folk brought 
 ! directly within her ken, but she can scarcely 
 1 be considered an authority upon Bolshevism 
 ; as a whole. It was Bolshevik gold which 
 ; caused the recent disturbances in Hamburg 
 : and Halle ; it was Bolshevik propaganda which 
 i caused the strikes throughout the whole of 
 the industrial region of Saxony; and it is 
 Bolshevik influence which for ever is keeping 
 I the working classes in the Berlin suburbs on 
 the alert for trouble, at any cost, against the 
 bourgeois. Given a weak Germany — not alone 
 
54 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 a humiliated, shaken, disunited, desperate 
 Germany, but a nation enfeebled, weakened, 
 lacking bodily and thereby mental virility — 
 and the Europe of a thousand years hence will 
 be in the most horrible melting-pot of revolution 
 that history has ever witnessed. Trade there 
 will be none. The Communists who exist in 
 England to-day will see their chance; joining 
 hands with a victorious Russia is their dream, 
 the trampling underfoot of our age-long 
 liberties their aim. I wonder whether that 
 aspect of the case has ever occurred to the 
 gentleman whom I have quoted. Humanity 
 might almost be considered bankrupt stock 
 did one believe half that one reads, but happily 
 there is some left on the market, and unostenta- 
 tiously it is putting in its oar to good effect in 
 Germany amongst the women, the children and, 
 to me most interesting of all, the students. 
 
 Of the latter I have written at full length 
 in Chapter IV; I will content myself here by 
 stating that that particular branch is purely 
 British and, though organised by the Quakers, 
 derives its funds from many quarters. Of the 
 American system of Quaker feeding for children, 
 which operates over all Germany except 
 Cologne, I write in the chapter on Berlin. 
 Here I am only concerned with what the 
 
COLOGNE UNDER BRITISH CONTROL 55 
 
 British Quakers, with the cordial co-operation 
 of the British authorities, are doing in Cologne 
 and the various districts under our occupation. 
 It may be said incidentally that, on the whole, 
 the children in the Rhine provinces have not 
 suffered to the extent that those in industrial 
 centres in North Germany have, though even 
 here the amount of phthisis, rickets and other 
 complaints due to starvation or semi-starvation 
 is appalling. 
 
 In December 1920 the start was made, and 
 3,000 children received one meal a day. This 
 is served at ten o'clock in the morning, as it 
 is intended to form an additional meal to that 
 which the child receives at home. The meal 
 is served at school, and is intended primarily 
 for schoolchildren who, lacking sufficient 
 nourishment, have been found to fall back in 
 their studies. (For fuller details and figures 
 vide Berlin Chapter.) It also ensures the 
 child receiving the food, as in some cases, with 
 bad parents, the food has been taken from the 
 child and consumed by them. Nursing mothers 
 and very small infants, however, also are 
 given subsistence as far as funds will allow. 
 
 The following are typical meals in the British 
 section. (1) Rice boiled with lard and vege- 
 tables and white bread. I saw it stated the 
 
56 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 other day in a weekly paper by a correspondent 
 that any one could obtain white bread in Berlin 
 if he paid for it. I stayed at the Esplanade, 
 one of the most expensive hotels in Berlin, 
 and commented to Jacques, the director, 
 formerly of the Carlton Hotel in London, 
 on the fact that the bread was the worst I 
 had seen anywhere. He assured me it was the 
 best he could get ! So much for the accuracy 
 of that correspondent's statement. Naturally 
 the children in Cologne find in the white bread 
 a great treat. (2) Cocoa and bread made with 
 lard and sugar— in other words, a sort of cake. 
 
 (3) Rice boiled with milk and bread and sugar. 
 
 (4) Beans cooked with lard and sugar. I tried 
 this and found it most appetising. Minus the 
 sugar it is the staple food of the Portuguese 
 emigrant to South America. The steamers 
 used always to supply the steerage with this 
 soup, on account of its nutritive and sustaining 
 qualities. (5) Milk soup and white bread. 
 
 The German Government provides the sugar 
 and flour and the cooking personnel, together 
 with the cartage, thus halving approximately 
 the cost involved and permitting a larger 
 operation as occasion arises. Every three 
 months the children are medically examined, 
 they are weighed and measured and the most 
 
COLOGNE UNDER BRITISH CONTROL 57 
 
 careful statistics are kept regarding every 
 individual case. Most of the Cologne children 
 have shown a gain of from three to thirteen 
 pounds after a period of three months' feeding. 
 As I wrote above, in December 1920 there was 
 a start with 3,000 children, which number had 
 increased to 12,000 in January 1921. It is 
 estimated that the total of those who should 
 receive nourishment is 30,000, and arrange- 
 ments are being pushed on to meet this number. 
 For the moment Cologne town has 13,000 daily 
 feeders ; Solingen and Opladen (small towns) 
 '5,900; Cologne Land Kreis (district) 1,000; 
 Bergheim Land Kreis 450 ; Wermelskirchen, 
 Gladbach and Bensberg together 362. I have 
 given the names of the places and the figures 
 in detail, because all are naturally within the 
 ; British zone, and all have military stationed 
 I near by. It may chance that this book will 
 1 fall into the hands of some one with relatives 
 
 t 
 
 I serving in one or other of these places, in which 
 case the latter might like to watch the children 
 
 | being fed. It is well worth seeing. I was told 
 
 i by one of the superintending doctors that the 
 greatest difficulty encountered at the start 
 
 | was the fact that the digestive organs of the 
 children had almost atrophied. A diet of 
 boiled potato peelings for a child of three or 
 
58 GERMANY AS IT IS TO DAY 
 
 four or even younger must work ruin. Many of 
 them, after their first meal, vomited violently, 
 whilst others became so distended that drastic 
 measures had to be employed to assist them. 
 Happily that stage has passed and the children 
 now look forward to and enjoy their meals. 
 
 I have no doubt that I shall be accused of 
 emotionalism and a great many more unpleasant 
 things because I have taken up the cudgels 
 on behalf of suffering German childhood. But 
 it is one thing coolly to criticise from afar, and 
 another personally to be brought into contact 
 with the actualities of a situation. Mr. 
 Scotland Liddell, the well-known war corre- 
 spondent, described in The Graphic some time 
 ago just what he saw in Berlin and elsewhere. 
 I envy him his pen, for I defy any one to read 
 his article and not be profoundly moved. I 
 have merely dealt with bald facts as they are, 
 though in Berlin I did have more time and 
 opportunity in which thoroughly to study the 
 system, and hence I have dealt with the matter 
 more fully in that chapter. But the work in 
 Cologne, if my Quaker friends will forgive my 
 saying so, for they hate to think of it in that 
 light, is of great political importance. The 
 Quakers do not advertise in the understood 
 acceptance of the word, and if the American 
 
COLOGNE UNDER BRITISH CONTROL 59 
 
 Quakers step in and do their share, the British 
 are sincerely delighted. On the other hand, 
 the Germans are very prone to think that all 
 this charitable endeavour is American in origin, 
 and time and again Germans have said to me, 
 " Look what the Americans are doing. They 
 were our enemies like you were, but they won't 
 let our children starve. You in England, 
 what do you care ? You hate us, and that is 
 all there is to it." When I have pointed out 
 that we were doing a very great deal in the 
 Cologne Kreis and assisting the students, they 
 have been amazed : at first unable and a little 
 unwilling to believe, and later rather pleased 
 and relieved. " We don't really dislike the 
 English," they say, " we wish we could be 
 friends again. Who knows ? c Never ' is a 
 long day, and in fifteen years we shall perhaps 
 understand one another.' 1 That is something 
 of the spirit I have found. 
 
 Cologne is not a long journey from England. 
 There is no need for a German vise, only a 
 British permit. Let me suggest a short holiday 
 there. It will be interesting beyond expecta- 
 tion for those who have framed their opinions 
 upon the written word and, if I mistake not, 
 ocular demonstration will convince the majority 
 of the truth of what I have written. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE FRENCH IN GERMANY 
 
 The more that one writes about existing 
 conditions in Germany the more does one 
 realise the difficulty of telling the truth without 
 fear or favour. And I could wish that this 
 chapter might have been avoided. But that 
 is impossible, since the French occupation of 
 German territory is bound to be fraught with 
 the gravest of consequences for Europe in the 
 future. 
 
 The psychology of hate is not the pleasantest 
 
 of studies, but he who would wish to learn 
 
 something thereof need only take the next 
 
 train to Wiesbaden or Ludwigshafen — a town 
 
 directly opposite to Mannheim — and there he 
 
 will find ample material over which to ponder. 
 
 In my introduction I allowed that France was 
 
 justly labouring under the stress of a great 
 
 and natural emotion. And on that score 
 
 much may be forgiven her. But, on the other 
 
 hand, she is very feminine in temperament, 
 
 and, like a woman, never forgets, and, like a 
 
 60 
 
THE FRENCH IN GERMANY 61 
 
 woman scorned, never forgives, but daily broods 
 over her wrongs, using all the fertility of her 
 imagination to discover fresh methods whereby 
 she may humiliate the object of her vengeance. 
 This may appear an extreme statement, but 
 i those who have seen and who appreciate the 
 subtleties of a situation will bear me out. 
 j Upon this subject very little ever appears in 
 I the newspapers. All that the general public 
 ijknow is, that ever and anon a statement is 
 I made that the French are preparing a new 
 I advance into the Ruhr district or elsewhere, 
 'and that it is estimated that the zone of 
 occupation will necessitate at least 200,000 
 French troops. Marshal Foch will direct 
 operations, and then, tucked away in a corner, 
 lis the added announcement that in order to 
 jshow the solidarity of the Allies, English troops 
 I are to be asked to co-operate. Now the man 
 in the street may be neither a diplomatist 
 jnor a historian, nor even able to grasp the 
 I essentials of an international situation. But I 
 | find he is beginning to wonder whether the 
 time has not arrived when his own interests 
 land the interests of his country may not be 
 j regarded as of paramount importance by those 
 |he has called upon to represent him. Some- 
 times both diplomats and politicians seem to 
 
62 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 forget that they are not voicing their own 
 opinions, but are supposed to be acting in 
 accordance with the wishes of the unfortunate 
 tax-payer in England. The point at issue, 
 then, is whether we are wise in supporting 
 France in every move she makes, taking into 
 due consideration her policy in German occu- 
 pied territory. Are we to be involved in a 
 legacy of hate with which we have nothing to 
 do and of which, could they but speak, our 
 armed forces on the spot heartily disapprove ? 
 The War has been brought to a successful 
 conclusion. France has regained her lost 
 provinces and is in a fair way to recover 
 financially a good moiety of her war losses. 
 Britain has handed over to her the best 
 ex-German colony in West Africa, Togoland, 
 the firstfruit of British success, incidentally 
 much to the disgust of the natives. For that 
 I can vouch, since I was in that colony when 
 the fiat of impending change went forth. 
 France has also received the major portion 
 of the Cameroons — in fact she has not done 
 so very badly. Why, then, should she adopt 
 towards her beaten enemy an attitude of 
 acute provocation ? Unless it be that she hopes 
 thereby to exasperate the Germans to the 
 point of rebellion, thus affording her another 
 excuse for further advance. Does she not 
 
THE FRENCH IN GERMANY 63 
 
 realise that there still exists in the world a 
 spirit of fair play and that she is beginning 
 slightly to disappoint her friends ? Go to 
 Coblenz, the American headquarters, and hear 
 what the officers there have to say. They will 
 tell you that they arrived from the States 
 brimming over with enthusiasm for the French 
 cause, and they will also tell you that that 
 enthusiasm has long since evaporated. Go to 
 Wiesbaden, that favourite rendezvous for 
 American officers when they can get leave, 
 and spend a half -hour in the American bar 
 of the Hotel Nassauer Hof. No wonder Ber- 
 lin, which has wonderfully long ears, imagines 
 that America is her friend and appeals to 
 President Harding as umpire and counsel for 
 the defence combined. And since every 
 American officer and man can use a pen, it 
 is small wonder that a strong anti- French 
 propaganda is growing up, for of all nations 
 the Americans are the most sensitive over the 
 colour question, and here, under their very 
 noses, they see their most inborn convictions 
 outraged, and by a so-called friend. Success 
 i appears to have destroyed, momentarily only, 
 let us hope, the finesse of French diplomacy. 
 Truly the situation is fraught with great 
 danger. 
 
 Well do I remember Wiesbaden in the old 
 
64 GERMANY AS IT IS TO DAY 
 
 days. There was always excellent music; in 
 fact, the Kurhaus orchestra was of European 
 fame. There was the Opera House, a beautiful 
 building wherein were produced many new 
 compositions. There were excellent tennis- 
 courts, a golf links, literally miles of gardens, 
 and wonderful walks in every direction. If 
 one were worried or felt at war with the 
 world, Wiesbaden was a tonic in every way as 
 good, and maybe even better, than anything 
 a doctor could prescribe. It was the focal 
 point of a cheery cosmopolitan crowd of 
 pleasure-seekers, who in their turn infected 
 the townspeople with something of their gaiety. 
 Greyness of life and Wiesbaden were as the 
 poles apart. 
 
 The other day I motored from Frankfurt 
 thither, and the parting words the hall porter 
 of the hotel said to me were, " I expect you'll 
 notice a great alteration. French occupied 
 territory, you know." Having just left 
 Cologne, where everything was not only normal, 
 but rather more lively than the old Cathedral 
 town used to be, I was curious to see what 
 was meant. And as I passed Wiesbaden 
 railway station, instinctively I felt a change. 
 Certainly the buildings were the same. There 
 were the same wide tree-lined avenues. The 
 
THE FRENCH IN GERMANY 65 
 
 cleanliness for which the town was always 
 renowned remained. No, it had nothing to 
 do with material things, it was something 
 intangible. And then it dawned upon me : 
 the inhabitants had altered. True, the 
 streets were thronged with a well-dressed 
 crowd, and since it was a Sunday the ladies 
 had donned their best. Ever and again one 
 saw the French officers in full uniform, their 
 swords clattering on the pavement as they 
 hurried along, with, it must be allowed, 
 not much consideration for those whom they 
 passed in their progress. They must have 
 left their courtesy in Paris, I mused. But it 
 was the Germans who mainly interested me. 
 Gone were the " bummlers," the la-di-das 
 who would spend hours lounging in front of 
 the jewellers' shops or fashionable haber- 
 dashers, or, sipping a glass of Rhine wine 
 outside a cafe, appraise the worth of every 
 ;pretty woman who chanced in the ebb and 
 flow of the human tide. The shops were as 
 iusual, but the pavement seemed peopled only 
 with the ghosts of those happy-go-lucky 
 dawdlers of other days. There was apparent a 
 jeomplete absence of joie de vivre. One had 
 only to glance at the passers-by to see at once 
 ithat something was the matter. A couple of 
 
66 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 French officers would come jostling by, and 
 the women would submissively leave the side- 
 walk. It was not pleasant to watch. Here 
 at last was concrete evidence that, at any rate 
 in this portion of Germany, were Germans 
 who did realise what defeat meant and what 
 the humiliation of being the conquered implied. 
 
 I tried the hotel. Things were no better 
 there. French officers with their soldier 
 servants everywhere. Loud voices not order- 
 ing, but commanding things. It was as though 
 the mantle of the ultra- militarist section of the 
 former Prussian army, who could never speak 
 except in a voice such as was necessary on the 
 parade-ground, had descended upon the French. 
 Not without a touch of savage irony, that. 
 
 At the concert — the Orchestra happily still 
 survives — I offered my programme to two 
 German ladies, and they replied in French, 
 " Thank you, we know what the programme 
 is." A palpable snub, for when I spoke in 
 my mother tongue they at once became friendly 
 and did share my programme. That it is 
 unusual during the performance of good music 
 to make such disturbance that the conductor 
 becomes so flurried that he loses his time 
 mattered not a whit to the inevitable French 
 officers who, accompanied by their lady 
 friends, came in to take their places. 
 
THE FRENCH IN GERMANY 67 
 
 I have seen comment made upon the increase 
 of prostitution in Germany. Concerning that I 
 have something to say elsewhere, but I am 
 sure that Montmartre must have been ran- 
 sacked to afford the supply of demi-mondaines 
 who literally people Wiesbaden. They are so 
 obvious and, one might hazard, rather unneces- 
 sary. But they also bear themselves proudly, 
 as though to say, " Don't you dare to criticise 
 us. We are here with permission, and any- 
 thing you say or do will be taken down in 
 evidence against you." It has a comic side 
 tending towards the tragic, for there are 
 plenty of decent, refined women and girls of 
 German birth left even in Wiesbaden, and the 
 blatant intrusion of vice directly forced upon 
 their attention is surely unnecessary. In 
 ordinary circumstances it might be passed 
 over as rather amusing, but it is the peculiar 
 environment, the circumstances attendant 
 thereon, that make it, to use a colloquialism, 
 ' uncommonly bad form." 
 
 Which reminds me of an incident not without 
 i soupcon of humour. I happened to be in a 
 Railway carriage marked, " Reserved for Allied 
 pfficers." I always made use of such com- 
 )artments, indeed I had been told so to do 
 >y my own countrymen. En route to Mainz 
 !wo little French officers, accompanied by 
 
68 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 ladies whom I am certain Montmartre would 
 disown, came along the corridor to my com- 
 partment and brusquely ordered me to leave 
 it, as I was not in uniform. I demurred, and 
 they insisted. This awoke whatever obstinacy 
 I have in my composition, and so I told them 
 frankly that if they wanted me to leave the 
 carriage they would have to carry me. They 
 cast an eye over me and passed on. I weigh 
 over fourteen stone ! These are the sort of 
 pin-pricks which, in the aggregate, form a 
 species of mental cruelty when applied to 
 educated and refined Germans such as one 
 expects to meet in a Kurort like Wiesbaden. 
 
 There is more to be learnt, however, further 
 afield. I determined, in company with a 
 friend, to visit Mannheim, which at present 
 is free, and thence to cross the Rhine to 
 Ludwigshafen, which lies opposite, in order to 
 compare notes upon any differences which 
 struck me. On reaching the bridge dividing 
 the two towns, all motors or taxis are obliged 
 to stop, and their occupants must show their 
 passports to the soldiers on guard. Our passes 
 were in perfect order and I had anticipated 
 no delay. A poilu smoking an especially 
 abominable species of cigarette sauntered up 
 and looked at my pass, giving it back to me 
 
THE FRENCH IN GERMANY 69 
 
 with no comment, but smoking casually all the 
 time. Then he examined my friend's and 
 remarked, " German." He thereon puffed the 
 smoke from his cigarette full in her face. This 
 was more than I could stand. I asked him to 
 come to the side of the roadway, took his 
 cigarette from his mouth and threw it into 
 the Rhine. I then added that I was going 
 straight to French Headquarters to report him. 
 His excuse was that he was told he could 
 always smoke on duty. I replied, " Quite 
 possibly, but you were not told to puff your 
 cigarette smoke into the faces of women, even 
 though they may be German." I went to 
 the French G.H.Q. and reported the occur- 
 rence, receiving a half-hearted apology since 
 I was English. Mark the words, since I was 
 'English. Not a word of apology for an insult 
 offered to a German lady. Not a word, and 
 I was forced to compare that attitude with 
 ;the Tommies at Cologne station who insisted 
 on carrying my secretary's bag because there 
 ;were no porters. Those incidents, small in 
 themselves, eat their way into the very heart 
 of a people, and engender a feeling of bitterness 
 that time will find it difficult to remove. 
 
 The policing of Ludwigshafen by Senegalese 
 will ever stand out as one of the most bestial 
 
70 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 acts ever perpetrated by a so-called Christian 
 and civilised Power. It is better to state the 
 fact plainly once and for all. France has no 
 conception of the harm she has done to herself 
 when it is adequately understood in Great 
 Britain and America what this policing 
 represents. 
 
 I know something of West Africa : I spent 
 three years there, and had in a Senegalese 
 soldier the best body-servant I ever wish to 
 meet. I also recall the dictum of the then 
 Commanding Officer of the West African 
 Frontier Force when a number of his men 
 were to be sent home to England to take part 
 in some pageant. His adjutant suggested 
 that if they said anything about white women 
 on their return they should be well flogged. 
 The Commanding Officer remarked, " Don't 
 take any chances in that direction. Give them 
 a good hiding in advance and tell them that 
 they'll get twice that on their return if they 
 ever mention the subject." White woman- 
 hood the world over has always been held 
 sacred by all nations who claim the most 
 elementary tenets of civilisation. Yet France 
 must forsooth send Senegalese battalions to 
 dragoon the population of that portion of the 
 Rhine province under her control. A French- 
 
THE FRENCH IN GERMANY 71 
 
 man assured me that France hated doing such 
 a thing, but she had no white troops that she 
 could spare for the purpose. Yet when it 
 comes to finding 200,000 men for an advance 
 farther into Germany, or, for that matter, half 
 a million of men, she finds them with a celerity 
 which is incomprehensible. No, France must 
 stand at the Bar of Justice as having deliber- 
 ately and with malice prepense, committed 
 the foulest action man could well imagine. 
 Is it surprising if Americans who understand 
 the colour question only too well are nauseated 
 when they see black troops handling or mis- 
 handling white women ? 
 
 In Mannheim I have many acquaintances 
 and some friends. The stories I heard really 
 could not be placed in plain print, but to say 
 that the populace in Ludwigshafen is terrorised 
 is not to overestimate the position. Imagine 
 the business girl homeward bound to Mann- 
 heim from Ludwigshafen after office hours. 
 She is accosted by some of these black men who 
 are out for the evening. They possibly have 
 had a drink or two, and only those who have 
 seen a nigger, and especially a West Coast 
 nigger, in drink know what a devil he then 
 becomes. »She appeals for assistance, and the 
 chances are ten to one that she will receive 
 
72 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 none. I was told of officers — French, of course 
 — who laughed when their assistance was asked. 
 Allowing for exaggeration, allowing for the 
 hatred the French undoubtedly bear their 
 vanquished, I defy any Frenchman to bring 
 forward any argument in support of this 
 monstrous outrage except the plain one of 
 provocation, of the trampling down and 
 humiliating of their enemies in this, the basest 
 fashion. What other reason can be vouch- 
 safed ? What can a Senegalese do at a bridge- 
 head, when he cannot read and does not know 
 even how to look at a passport? One sentry 
 asked for mine, and carefully read it, or rather 
 examined it, for a space of at least four 
 minutes, upside down. Now what can be 
 advanced for such action? It has no plea 
 that I can find, and since I am trying to write 
 without prejudice, I would like to find one. 
 
 The Senegalese in his own country is an 
 excellent man and a brave soldier So is 
 the Haussa, the Tommy of our West 
 African forces. But those who deal with them 
 and control them realise the basic fact that 
 once they get adrift, and are in a strange land, 
 free from the severe discipline to which they 
 are accustomed, you find not a human being, 
 but an animal. In action they are the 
 
THE FRENCH IN GERMANY 78 
 
 bravest of the brave, but the guiding hand of 
 restraint must ever be present. And there 
 they are on the Rhine, in a country they have 
 been taught to despise, literally encouraged 
 to do what they like with the inhabitants. 
 Again what is the matter with the psychology 
 of France's advisers ? Does she not realise 
 that in Africa her administration is more 
 loathed than that of any other European 
 country, including Spain and Portugal ? Does 
 she not realise that there is bound to be a 
 repercussion, and that by teaching the native 
 to disregard the first tenet of all administra- 
 tion, namely, that a white woman is something 
 sacrosanct, in due course she is laying up a 
 store of trouble for herself in her own posses- 
 sions in Africa ? It would hardly be reasonable 
 for any one to expect a native from the regions 
 of equatorial Africa to be able to distinguish 
 between German, French, or, for that matter, 
 British women. They are all the same to 
 him once he has tasted blood, as Americans 
 say. The subject is not a savoury one, but 
 it is as well that the realities of the situation 
 should be brought home, without any trim- 
 mings, to the consciences of all thinking 
 English people. 
 
 I was talking to a girl friend I have in 
 
74 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 Mannheim, the foreign correspondent of a 
 German bank, an athlete, champion swimmer 
 of the city, a tall, lithe, active young woman, 
 who normally is afraid of nothing. And she 
 told me the same story : nothing would induce 
 her to cross the river, even to see friends, on 
 account of the Black peril, and she added that 
 her whole family spent sleepless nights when 
 it was feared that the French might advance 
 and occupy Mannheim itself. But the puzzle 
 to the outsider, to the ordinary traveller, is, 
 why has Britain not made representations to 
 France over this matter ? I have not met a 
 single Englishman in Germany who did not 
 resent the fact that nothing had been done. 
 Is it that the Prime Minister is too occupied 
 with other affairs, or can it be that the existing 
 Government in England, for some obscure 
 reason, is nervous of France ? 
 
 Reverting for the moment to Togoland, it 
 certainly was common report there that a 
 bargain was struck while the War was in full 
 swing to the effect that France should have 
 Togoland, failing which she would fight no 
 further. The story may very probably be 
 untrue, but there must have been something 
 behind Britain's action over the cession, since 
 the English merchants resented it, the natives 
 
THE FRENCH IN GERMANY 75 
 
 petitioned in vain against it, and no one was 
 satisfied. And so with the employment of 
 black troops. What does it mean when 
 England blandly accepts the situation ? Truly 
 the days of secret diplomacy are not yet 
 passed, but the public is becoming every day 
 more insistent in its demand for information 
 on all points concerning its own interests, and 
 this employment of Senegalese troops on the 
 Rhine is of vital import, owing to the effect it 
 may have upon our own native troops else- 
 where. From my own experience of West 
 Africa, I can testify to the fact that the native 
 races are abundantly supplied with information 
 regarding the various movements of sociological 
 import taking place in Europe to-day. Rob 
 them of the respect they have for the white 
 races, once let them imagine that they are 
 superior to any white nation, and the founda- 
 tion will have been laid for untold mischief. 
 
 By a curious irony, while the Black question 
 was agitating the poor folk of Ludwigshafen, 
 in Mannheim was being given the Passion Play 
 as performed at Ober-Ammergau, though, I 
 was told, along rather improved lines. I 
 witnessed it and it was truly marvellous. The 
 Rosengarten holds an audience of five thousand, 
 and there was not a single vacant place. This 
 
76 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 speaks for itself, since in every respect it was 
 regarded as a religious ceremony. Yet some 
 say that religion is dead in Germany. There 
 was no orchestra, only an organ, which was 
 little en evidence, the choir of six hundred 
 voices being usually unaccompanied. In my 
 ignorance I commented upon the fact that 
 there was not more music, and was met with 
 the retort — an obvious retort, I allow — " What 
 do you want more organ for? You don't 
 suppose that when Our Lord was in Gethse- 
 mane He prayed to the accompaniment of a 
 selection from Bach ! " 
 
 Which was the more impressive, the per- 
 formance or the audience ? I find it hard 
 to say. Perhaps the latter. Certainly no 
 church ever held so responsive and devout 
 a congregation. Those ten thousand eyes 
 never wandered from the stage for one 
 moment, and except for a stifled sob or two 
 now and then, there was a tense silence which 
 could literally be felt. And what further 
 struck one was the constituent parts of this 
 vast concourse. How it was arranged I know 
 not, but all classes and kinds of people were 
 to be found in every part of the house, 
 as though a ballot had been taken for the 
 places. The management had kindly given 
 
THE FRENCH IN GERMANY 77 
 
 me two stalls in the second row in order that 
 I might equally study both artistes and 
 audience. From a scenic standpoint the circle 
 at the back would have been better, since from 
 that distance the make-up of the actors would 
 not have been apparent. But the point is 
 that the prices for the stalls were considerable. 
 Yet next to me sat two little boys, aged about 
 ten and twelve, who from their clothes 
 obviously belonged to the working classes. 
 Immediately in front of me were two peasant 
 women, probably sent by some Catholic 
 association, and next door to them was a 
 typical German of the prosperous mercantile 
 class, fat, ugly, and aggressive. It is the 
 German of that type who is always drawn 
 upon as symbolic of Germany as a whole, as 
 John Bull symbolises Britain. There are, how- 
 ever, in England, not a great number of John 
 Bulls in the flesh, and similarly all Germans 
 are neither fat nor ugly. So much for the 
 audience. Of the acting, criticism fails. It 
 was too poignant, too realistic, stronger than 
 any sermon in its direct appeal to the heart 
 and imagination. One seemed to be living 
 through those terrible days in actual fact, and 
 I surmise that not one of that audience left 
 the building without some sense of the super- 
 
 
78 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 natural, some intangible, inexplicable feeling 
 of comfort, some instinct that the troubles 
 of this world are transitory at the worst, and 
 that beyond the veil better awaits. Judas 
 Iscariot was superb. One had sympathy with 
 him, and understanding, when he dashed the 
 thirty pieces of silver in the face of the High 
 Priest. As my companion remarked, " I am 
 sure he has been forgiven." The role of Pilate, 
 as played, is a very difficult though dramatic 
 one. A slight stage oversight rather marred 
 his performance : he had a gold-crowned 
 front tooth which immediately caught one's 
 eye. Stagecraft demands attention to minute 
 detail. Annas and Caiaphas were wonderful 
 types, and since Mannheim contains more 
 Jews than almost any town in Germany, 
 I could not but wonder how they liked it. In 
 fact it is curious that Mannheim was chosen 
 for the play, unless it be that the Rosengarten 
 is the largest hall in south Germany. The 
 Crucifixion was arranged with a care which 
 bespoke months of study. Two points struck 
 me. The first, which I had never previously 
 realised, was that, when a man was crucified, 
 he was strapped to the cross on the ground, 
 and then hoisted into position for the operation 
 of nailing. The second was the meticulous 
 
THE FRENCH IN GERMANY 79 
 
 accuracy which necessitated the first two 
 blows of the hammer, when the nails would be 
 driven through the flesh, to be scarcely audible. 
 Then as the nails reached the wood the blows 
 resounded throughout the entire building. As 
 for the dying thieves, writhing in their agony, 
 all that one can say is that they were both 
 consummate actors. They were the actual 
 people concerned, so real were they, and when 
 the penitent received Our Lord's assurance 
 that his should be Paradise, I do not in the 
 least blame the smothered sobs which could 
 be heard. As for Christ, beyond a dignity 
 such as I have never witnessed, he had a voice 
 which once heard can never be forgotten, quiet, 
 clear, rippling, like water in a stream kissing 
 the stones over which it flows. He and Judas 
 Iscariot are, in real life, the brothers Fassnacht, 
 who have played these parts all their lives. 
 It is surprising to me that The Passion has 
 never been brought to England : it would 
 certainly make people think. 
 
 It is often asserted that the German is 
 sentimental and mawkishly emotional. Let it, 
 for the sake of argument, be granted that he 
 is, and that on that account he has created 
 such wonderful spectacles as The Passion, 
 has evolved such unsurpassed operatic music, 
 
80 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 and has been creative to such an extent in 
 the whole world of art. I do not think this 
 to be the case. I advance the suggestion 
 merely because, if the German be so sus- 
 ceptible to emotion, if he really is swayed to 
 such an extent by feelings of the moment, 
 then I would ask what must be the strength 
 of passion which seizes him when he witnesses 
 every day the unnecessary provocation of 
 French rule and knows that he must submit ? 
 There is, I fear, no argument against my 
 thesis, that the world to-day is more material- 
 istic than ever before. Churches and chapels 
 may be full, but of the doctrines propounded, 
 how many are carried farther than the church 
 door? A Professor of Heidelberg University 
 said to me, " I used to believe in Christ because 
 undoubtedly He was a historic fact, and because 
 I thought I could see all around me evidence 
 of His divinity. I have now come to the 
 conclusion that He was a wonderfully kind 
 and good man, who gave up His life quite 
 unnecessarily. The world is not a whit differ- 
 ent from what it was in His day." That is 
 one way of looking at the case. But there is 
 another, and I fancy I discern it faintly through 
 the emotion of that Mannheim performance. 
 From being one of the greatest Powers on 
 
 . 
 
THE FRENCH IN GERMANY 81 
 
 earth, Germany has fallen to a position in 
 which she must bow her head to her victors, 
 and obey their demands, be they what they 
 may. In effect she is suffering for her mistakes, 
 for the culpable wrongdoing of her leaders, 
 for certain shameful acts for which excuse is 
 lacking. Hence she must endure and she 
 i must pay. It is her Calvary, and I seem to 
 
 I see dimly that the great masses are realising 
 ithe fact, and are steeling themselves to bear 
 
 the burden of their errors, even as did the thief 
 'who achieved redemption. It appears to me 
 that my Heidelberg Professor was wrong. 
 On the contrary, it is my conviction that 
 suffering Germany is gathering to herself a 
 new faith in Christianity, is grasping the 
 \ intent of those words, "In man us tuas, O 
 !Domine," and will eventually emerge from 
 the trial revivified and spiritually strengthened. 
 !And it is worthy of notice that this intense 
 [religious revival happens upon the very terri- 
 tory under French occupation. Of course it 
 lis spreading along lines which I indicate 
 elsewhere. It is accompanied, as emotional 
 : waves ever are, by undesirable features. But 
 
 I I regard it as a healthy sign. Suffering does 
 no one any harm in moderation. To many it 
 is the pathway to salvation. I think it will 
 
82 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 be so to Germany. Thus there are two sides 
 to the question of French occupation, the 
 material and the mystical. The material side 
 is wrong in every particular, bad diplomacy 
 for the French, unjustifiable before the Court 
 of Humanity, dangerous to the world at large, 
 and particularly so to Great Britain, with her 
 vast African possessions. Mystically it will, I 
 think, prove the best propaganda ever devised 
 by Providence to bring back to the fold of 
 Christianity the bulk of a great people who had 
 wandered far. It is almost as though it were 
 a test to see how thorough is the leaven of 
 the doctrine of Christ, how firm the " Credo " 
 that Christ was Christ, and not the myth of 
 a fertile imagination. It is profoundly inter- 
 esting, and it is well, once in a while, to get 
 away from Reuter's telegrams and Special 
 Correspondents' reports from Berlin, and really 
 ponder over the Germany of to-day, of to-mor- 
 row, and of the future. For the good of 
 Western Europe, and, for that matter, of the 
 world, I hope the dawn will come. Personally, 
 I think it will. Otherwise the Bolshevik 
 advent will represent something more than 
 a passing tyrannical and dogmatic government 
 framed by a band of extremists. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 MUNICH, LEIPZIG, DRESDEN 
 
 I have bracketed these three cities together, 
 since in the first place they are all well known 
 to the travelling Englishman, and in the 
 second place, because they supply something 
 of a contrast. 
 
 In the introduction I made a point of empha- 
 sising the fact that the term " German " 
 represents nationals of widely distinct races 
 which, save for the economic bond, would 
 i rapidly disintegrate. This is clearly seen in 
 ! the attitude of the Bavarians. Since the 
 revolution, Bavarian national feeling has 
 | hardened, and the perpetual jealousy exist- 
 ing between her and Prussia has on several 
 occasions rendered von Simons' position exceed- 
 ingly difficult. Economically, Munich to-day 
 is the happiest city in Germany. Bavaria 
 being an agricultural country, the people have 
 not suffered to the same extent from the 
 starvation which has swept across other por- 
 tions of Germany. This does not mean that 
 
 83 
 
84 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 there has not been appalling want, for there 
 has, but not in the same degree. To take one 
 small instance. Munich was the only city I 
 visited where, in the hotel, I was given bread 
 which was eatable. It certainly was not white, 
 but it did not contain what an American friend 
 called " make- weights " in the shape of straw 
 and other oddments which are common enough 
 in the bread elsewhere. Incidentally, bread 
 of the latter type is responsible for most of 
 the gastric troubles which are practically 
 epidemic in Germany at present. 
 
 The streets are full of movement. There 
 are motor-cars by scores. Theatres and cafes 
 are full to overflowing, and there is certainly 
 an atmosphere, forced though it may be, of 
 care-free enjoyment. It is probably super- 
 ficial and it certainly acts as an irritant to 
 the working classes, as was evidenced by the 
 fact that while I was staying in the Bayerischer 
 Hof, the chief hotel, a dance was stopped by a 
 noisy band of threatening youths all drawn 
 from the underworld of the city. I was told 
 that the respectable artisans, those who had 
 fought in the late War, and those who had seen 
 and realised what war had done for them, held 
 aloof from such demonstrations. These hooli- 
 gans—Communists they called themselves—who 
 
MUNICH, LEIPZIG, DRESDEN 85 
 
 had never seen a shot fired in their lives, except 
 when they were being dispersed by the police, 
 were either work-shy or unemployable, and 
 had got out of hand through the generous 
 distribution of Bolshevik literature which had 
 taken place. For the Bolshevik, though in 
 his own country forcing labour upon others, 
 is careful enough not to introduce this incon- 
 venient fact into his propaganda. And nothing 
 is easier to preach than recommendations to 
 violence against the so-called leisured classes, 
 especially when food is scarce ! As a matter 
 of fact there was not the least harm in the 
 dance, and no one could describe dancing as 
 an extravagant way of passing the time. Be 
 that as it may, the mob had their way and 
 the company very ruefully dispersed. 
 
 I had always looked upon the Bavarian as 
 phlegmatic, but the War seems to have altered 
 that. There was a play put on at the theatre 
 which treated the Catholic Church and its 
 policy with none too light a hand. This 
 time it was the Catholic rowdies who turned 
 out in full force and deluged the actors and the 
 unfortunate audience who happened to be 
 sitting in the better parts of the house with 
 bad eggs and some species of vile-smelling 
 chemical. Naturally the curtain had to be 
 
86 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 rung down and the audience went home. 
 Such incidents are of daily occurrence now, 
 and it only requires the slightest spark, political, 
 international, internal or religious, to set the 
 entire city in a blaze. Of course, there has 
 been great exaggeration over what really 
 happened when the revolution occurred. I 
 read in a London paper that the Archbishop 
 had been taken prisoner in his palace and, 
 without being given time to say his prayers, 
 had been severely beaten and then hanged 
 from the window of his study. That Arch- 
 bishop, Dr. von Faulhaber, was only recently 
 made a Cardinal, proving once again how little 
 reliance can be placed upon hearsay reports in 
 times of national upheaval. 
 
 Cardinal Faulhaber is not easy of approach. 
 I desired particularly to ask of him his opinions 
 concerning Catholicism in Bavaria and Germany 
 generally consequent upon the War. It would 
 have been interesting to find out whether he 
 thought the spirit of Faith was as strong as ever, 
 or even stronger, or had the War destroyed that 
 essence of idealism which must be fundamental 
 in all religions ? I therefore wrote to him 
 asking him to afford me an interview of only 
 a few minutes. His secretary replied that His 
 Eminence had seen several journalists in the 
 
MUNICH, LEIPZIG, DRESDEN 87 
 
 past and no good had ever resulted from the 
 interviews. Further, that, were I interested 
 in the social problems confronting the Bavarians, 
 he would remind me that whereas he had 
 received quite a hundred thousand marks 
 from America for the poor of his archdiocese, 
 from England he had not received as much as 
 a pfennig. In conclusion he added that on 
 principle he would not discuss political matters. 
 That His Eminence had a perfect right to refuse 
 me an audience I am the first to allow, but he 
 did make a misstatement of fact when he 
 referred to British assistance. True, the feed- 
 ing of the children throughout the whole of 
 Germany, except in the Cologne area, is carried 
 on by the American Quakers, but he had for- 
 gotten the poor students who are studying at 
 Munich University, and who, to the number 
 of fifteen hundred (the largest number in any 
 town in Germany), are dependent upon British 
 aid to carry on their studies satisfactorily. Or 
 it may be that the Cardinal imagines, as so 
 many do, that this likewise is American enter- 
 prise. But it is a pity that one occupying so 
 exalted a position should labour under such a 
 delusion. Further, even papers in England 
 with distinct anti-German bias have advertised 
 almost day by day Lord Weardale's appeal for 
 
88 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 the starving in Central Europe, which no doubt 
 has brought a goodly amount of financial grist 
 to the American charitable mill. 
 
 With Father Ammer, His Eminence's secre- 
 tary, I was more fortunate, since he was com- 
 municative and very broad-minded. He opined 
 that from a religious standpoint the War had 
 done good : it had brought the thoughtless 
 face to face with the realities of existence. 
 He warned me against being deceived by the 
 apparent looseness of morals which pervaded 
 a certain section of the populace, which did 
 not represent the heart of the nation in the 
 least, and a point which he made struck me 
 as a good one. He gave it as his opinion that 
 the Irish, the Poles and the French placed 
 their nationality before their religion, while 
 the Germans — Catholic Germans — placed their 
 religion before their nationality. In proof 
 of which he mentioned Bismarck and the 
 Kultur kampf. Bismarck feared for the soli- 
 darity of the German confederacy owing to 
 that precise spirit; he fought it and failed. 
 Viewed in the light of Germany's attitude 
 towards the Vatican to-day, it appears that 
 there is a good deal of truth in the theory. 
 And it would explain Dr. von Simons' attempt 
 to obtain the Vatican as intermediary between 
 
MUNICH, LEIPZIG, DRESDEN 89 
 
 Germany and her late enemies. With the 
 fall of Austria, the Vatican has lost grip upon 
 Central Europe, and with a regenerated and 
 revivified Germany, pro-Catholic in sympathy, 
 
 i owing to favours received, Rome would 
 immensely strengthen herself in the field of 
 international diplomacy. 
 
 Prices in Munich, though terrifically high, 
 are not so bad as in Northern Germany. 
 Apparently a certain section of the public 
 has money to spend and to spare. But it 
 is chiefly confined to the few who made money 
 during the War, for Germany has its profiteers, 
 even as we have, and I know of a case where a 
 small shopkeeper, through shrewd speculation 
 in war necessities, has become a millionaire, 
 and now owns a castle and a fleet of motor- 
 cars. And it is amongst this class that one 
 finds the breakdown of the moral code about 
 which so much has been written. 
 
 There certainly are a good many prostitutes 
 in the hotels, but my impression is, not more 
 
 I than in pre-war days. In Germany generally, 
 owing to the laws, the professional street-walker 
 
 I is almost unknown. Since the revolution in 
 most States the maison toleree has been 
 abolished, Hamburg being about the only 
 great city to retain the system. Hence the 
 
90 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 derni-mondaine has removed to a different 
 sphere and uses the hotel or restaurant for her 
 business. If she takes a room in an hotel and 
 pays her bills it is obviously impossible to 
 stop her, since, unless she is very indiscreet, 
 upon what grounds can she be dismissed ? 
 At the same time the police and the hotel 
 managers in Munich are becoming increasingly 
 particular, and while I was in the hotel one 
 of the staff told me that detectives had paid 
 a call on a couple during the night, and had 
 removed them to the police station merely 
 because they had occupied the same room 
 and were known not to be man and wife. 
 Now no hotel manager is going to run the risk 
 of such a happening if he can avoid it, and the 
 result is that, as far as is humanly possible, 
 every precaution against blatant prostitution 
 is taken. I was also told that the influence 
 of the Cardinal Archbishop was so strong in 
 the city that out of deference to him many 
 steps were taken which otherwise would have 
 been neglected. Which does not look as though 
 there were any decline in the religious faith 
 of the Bavarian. Rather does it unmistakably 
 point the other way, and the translation of the 
 Archbishop to the Cardinalate also emphasises 
 the fact that the religious position in Bavaria 
 is well understood and appreciated. 
 
MUNICH, LEIPZIG, DRESDEN 91 
 
 Leipzig shows her war scars clearly. One 
 has not to be in the city half an hour before 
 3ne realises that here, in this great town of 
 520,000 inhabitants, business is at the lowest 
 possible ebb, if not at a complete standstill. 
 Time was when it was a hustling, crowded, 
 not over-clean place. To-day it is listless and 
 Comparatively lifeless. Without exaggeration, 
 it would be possible in many of the main streets 
 to play a game of cricket without much risk 
 of being run over. Be it understood that I 
 was not there when the famous Messe or Fair 
 was on, when naturally people would be 
 
 attracted from other places, and even from 
 
 abroad, and there would be a spurious attempt 
 
 to make the town look prosperous. I visited 
 
 it under normal conditions, and nothing more 
 
 depressing have I seen. Outside the railway 
 
 station it was possible to find a motor-car, 
 
 but in the town itself they were rare, and I 
 
 do not remember seeing a single private car. 
 
 That naturally was chance, but it also proved 
 
 to me that actually the great industrial centres 
 
 really have suffered and are feeling the full 
 
 ! blast of the inevitable commercial depression 
 
 Idue to the War. Scarcity of fuel, I was told, 
 
 ; is largely responsible, and if in the end Germany 
 
 I is deprived both of her Silesian and West- 
 
 phalian coal, speaking merely as an onlooker, 
 
92 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 
 
 I can see nothing ahead save national bank- 
 ruptcy and a huge Communistic or revolutionary 
 upheaval. I 
 
 It is in a town such as Leipzig that one begins 
 to realise the desperation bred of being without 
 work, under-fed, without warmth, without 
 proper clothing, without everything which 
 makes life humanly possible. Despair steps I 
 in : anything is preferable to day after day ' 
 of inaction and hungry monotony — looting a 
 few shops, breaking into the hotels and robbing 
 the guests— anything which will afford excite- 
 ment and lend some colour to the drabness 
 of a horrible life; thus are Communism and 
 Anarchy bred. At the railway station I was 
 indiscreet enough to carry with me, uncovered, 
 the sword of a Heidelberg fighting corps with 
 which I was affiliated in years gone by. Its 
 hilt was decorated with the colours— green, 
 white and black — of the well-known Saxo 
 Boirussia (Saxon-Prussian) student corps. It 
 was enough, and I was nearly mobbed, for 
 to the loafers in the station that " schalger " 
 stood for everything they hated : the military, 
 the aristocracy, the rich bourgeoisie, the edu- 
 cated, the top dog, and moreover it was carried 
 by an obvious Englishman. As my secretary 
 afterwards remarked to me, it was carelessness, 
 
MUNICH, LEIPZIG, DRESDEN 98 
 
 and culpable carelessness, on my part, for I 
 might just as well, under existing conditions, 
 have walked into a yard in which were a lot 
 of bulls and have waved a red flag. The 
 jBritish are distinctly unpopular in Leipzig ! 
 I I should say at a hazard that here the anti- 
 British feeling is even keener than the anti- 
 iFrench. They have experienced the incon- 
 venience, to use a mild term, of the blockade, 
 land it will be long before they forget it. The 
 normal milk supply for the city was 150,000 
 litres per diem. To-day it is only 30,000, or 
 one-fifth, and even that supply is uncertain. 
 No wonder that there is suffering amongst 
 the nursing mothers and children, and no 
 wonder that any one outside of certain cate- 
 gories who drinks milk commits a criminal 
 offence. Also, small wonder that the women 
 in many of these big towns, women belonging 
 jto the intellectual and professional classes, 
 lhave taken to using rouge in order that the 
 unnatural pallor of their faces may not be 
 noticed. I really think that a very large pro- 
 portion of such women do not desire the 
 foreigner to realise the desperate straits through 
 jwhich they have passed and are passings 
 
 Leipzig is not a large University, yet there 
 are eight hundred students receiving assistance. 
 
94 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 .. 
 
 
 As a man said to me, hunger and hardship 
 are much more easily borne amongst pleasant 
 surroundings, and it must be confessed that 
 Leipzig is lacking in that respect. No one 
 could truthfully call Lindenau, the poor 
 quarter, a pleasant place, though it is clean 
 as regards its streets. Here is the centre of 
 the Communist activities and, I have heard 
 it whispered, the focal point of Bolshevik 
 propaganda — though Hamburg and Berlin both 
 make the same claim. Hence, the impression 
 I formed of this great city was that it was 
 seething over with a black hatred against not 
 only the Allies or the German Government, 
 but against all organised social rule. The 
 poorer classes have lost all hold upon every 
 conceivable factor constituting the minimum 
 of happiness in life. Merely a blank remains, 
 a void filled only with a lust for the blood of 
 every one with a shred of authority, decency 
 or even humanity— for to be human is to be 
 weak. 
 
 Time was when Leipzig was the hub of the 
 publishing world. Germany, always pre- 
 eminent in the world of books, made it a dis- 
 tributing centre for the universe, and who does 
 not remember the great book fair which was 
 taking place as the World War broke out? 
 
MUNICH, LEIPZIG, DRESDEN 95 
 
 If I am not incorrect, the late Mr. Heinemann 
 had charge of the British section, which con- 
 tained many specimens of wonderful bindings 
 and, again if memory serves me, to the credit 
 jof Germany, all were carefully stored and 
 i returned to their owners as occasion offered. 
 
 Naturally, to journalist and author alike, 
 the question of the state of the publishing 
 trade is of interest, and so I sought out Herr 
 Koehler, the head of one of the best-known 
 publishing houses in Germany. I anticipated 
 something in the nature of a wail as to publish- 
 ing prospects, and was agreeably surprised to 
 find the contrary. In spite of paper shortage 
 such as hitherto has never been experienced, 
 I was told that in Germany to-day many very 
 fine books were finding their way into print 
 i — at a price. That is comprehensible, since 
 wages, materials and accessories have risen a 
 (hundredfold in cost. But who buys the books ? 
 I queried. The answer was that the war 
 profiteer bought many for his children, in the 
 hope that thereby they could attain to an 
 educational standard to which their parents 
 had never aspired, and also that they could lay 
 the foundations of libraries, which, in days to 
 some, would be of use to their children. I take 
 this to be symptomatic of the German trend 
 
96 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 of thought. Germans are by nature believers 
 in and lovers of intellectuality, and it is plainly 
 not snobbishness which makes these nouveaux 
 riches invest so freely in the book market. 
 There is nothing very outstanding to the naked 
 eye in a row of books, nothing to make the 
 passer-by stop and stare and ask some one 
 who that may be in the wonderful motor-car. 
 It bespeaks a seriousness of purpose which 
 might with advantage be copied even in our 
 own country. It is a sad fact, but on my return 
 to England I happened to meet an old friend, 
 one of the premier second-hand booksellers 
 in the British Isles, and he told me that four- 
 fifths of his best stock invariably went to 
 America, so little do any of his own countrymen 
 care for the written word. And since publish- 
 ing in Germany at the present moment has 
 limitations for obvious reasons, this influx 
 of good books has had the effect of killing to a 
 great extent the trade in silly and morbid fiction. 
 There is ample eroticism in Germany and to 
 spare without encouraging any more. Herr 
 Koehler seemed to think that there was much 
 opportunity for increased international pub- 
 lishing. I was shown quite a number of English 
 books, mostly dealing with the War or with our 
 colonies, and which, having been translated 
 
MUNICH, LEIPZIG, DRESDEN 97 
 
 into German, were finding a good sale. But 
 we really must amend our methods. To be 
 shown a letter from a first-class publishing 
 house not a hundred miles from the Strand, 
 and to read a postscript, " Please reply if 
 possible in English," is a poor commentary 
 upon business methods in a great firm. And, 
 after all, German is not such a very difficult 
 language to learn. 
 
 For Leipzig to recover its normal atmosphere, 
 were I its physician, I should prescribe milk 
 and coal. There are eight thousand tuberculous 
 children in the city, while the mortality amongst 
 babies is nearly four times what it was in pre- 
 war days. This does not tend to make either 
 a contented or a cheerful population. As 
 I regards prices, remembering that a mark is a 
 mark to a German, whatever it be to a foreigner, 
 a suit of clothes which, before 1914, cost from 
 1 60 to 80 marks to-day costs 1,200 to 2,000 marks. 
 ! A shirt in the old days cost 3 marks, and you 
 got a good one at that. To-day anything 
 ifrom 70 to a 100, while boots and shoes range 
 from 180 to as much as 350 marks, the price 
 previously being about 20 marks. Then, on 
 :the top of that, add unemployment and scarcity 
 |of food, and can it be wondered if the soil 
 is fertilised sufficiently to produce as rich 
 
 G 
 
98 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 a crop of trouble as ever was imagined by the 
 brain of man ? The Vier Jahreszeiten Hotel 
 is the best in Leipzig, I believe. I have never 
 been to it, but I heard the British and Allied 
 Missions were staying there. I also heard 
 that they found life very pleasant, and would 
 be sorry to move on elsewhere. With Germany 
 paying the piper, and the Leipzigers well aware 
 of the fact, is it wonderful if the Allies are not 
 exactly in favour ? Naturally it does not matter 
 one way or the other for the moment, but it 
 may later, and if Germany is really to pay her 
 debts and make such financial amends as she 
 can, then for Heaven's sake don't take away 
 her coal, and do help the Quakers in their efforts 
 at relieving a very distressful situation. 
 
 Personally I was heartily glad to board the 
 night mail to Dresden. 
 
 Beautiful weather greeted my arrival there, 
 and Dresden with the sun shining is as 
 attractive a city as I know. It is very friendly 
 and seems to smile a welcome to an old 
 customer. Outwardly disaster has left it 
 unscarred. To be sure, what was called the 
 English quarter is deserted and the many 
 pensions which made a living — and a good one — 
 from the hundreds of musical and art students 
 who formerly flocked thither have the shutters 
 
MUNICH, LEIPZIG, DRESDEN 99 
 
 up. Likewise, at the Bristol, where I stayed, 
 the hall porter despondently shook his head 
 and opined that few English would come this 
 yeaxor next, or, for the matter of that, the 
 year after. The War had been a horrible 
 bungle from start to finish, and the Dresdners 
 never wanted it. They had always been the 
 best of friends with the English, and their 
 attitude was evidenced by the fact that an 
 English lady who had a soldier husband and 
 two soldier sons had stayed in the hotel during 
 the whole War and had never been molested 
 in any way. Which really was remarkable 
 when feeling was running high ! 
 
 The revolution has swept away many historic 
 
 associations. The old palace is now the office 
 
 of the Municipal Council, and I was told that 
 
 before it changed hands there was a savage 
 
 I scene and a good deal of bloodshed. I am 
 
 j not surprised, for your Dresdner, unlike the 
 
 j Leipziger, is a bit of a Conservative and hates 
 
 ! dramatic changes. The Prager Strasse is still 
 
 I crowded with " bummlers " devoid of anything 
 
 i more important to do than examine the shop 
 
 ! windows, but the wares displayed are no longer 
 
 : what they were. This is noticeable in all 
 
 ! German towns. There is a brave effort to 
 
 achieve the impossible and make ersatz 
 
100 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 (substitutes) look like the real thing, but they 
 fail hopelessly. The jewellers' shops, which 
 used to be a feature of Dresden, now display 
 silver trinkets, oxidised cigarette cases and the 
 like; gold is almost unknown. 
 
 But naturally interest centres around the 
 Opera House, one of the finest in the world, the 
 birthplace of many of Wagner's operas, and in 
 which, at one time, he himself conducted. I 
 went every night of my stay, to imbibe exact 
 impressions of how things had altered. In the 
 first place, the old regal hangings of crimson, 
 with gold-embroidered crowns, still decorate 
 the Royal boxes. It was pleasant to see that 
 they had not been removed, for shorn of them 
 the great auditorium would lose something 
 of its dignity. In some strange way it seems 
 to me that an opera house needs always the 
 flavour of Royalty to complete it. The per- 
 formances were, as usual, wonderful, and I 
 do not think I ever heard a finer rendering 
 of Tristan, with Curt Taucher in the title role. 
 The Dresdners think the world of him and are 
 impatient for him to make a world success. 
 But perhaps the scenery was not so super- 
 excellent as in the old days, when Count 
 Zebach was the Intendant, neither was the 
 orchestra so strong as when Schuch occupied 
 
MUNICH, LEIPZIG, DRESDEN 101 
 
 the conductor's chair. To-day Scheidemantel, 
 who sang at Co vent Garden, if I mistake not, 
 and who was a great star in the Dresden 
 operatic firmament, controls the destinies of the 
 Opera House, and complains, not without reason, 
 that he cannot make bricks without straw, and 
 that the municipality will not give him enough 
 money to carry things on efficiently, as they 
 should be carried on. My old friend Robin 
 Legge, the musical critic of The Daily Telegraph, 
 may be interested to learn that Malten is still 
 alive, and lives in a villa overlooking her 
 beloved Elbe, while Erika Wedekind, assuredly 
 one of the most delightful light sopranos 
 imaginable, has issued a dictum that she will 
 never sing for the Social Democrats, and has 
 retired into private and happy married life. 
 So at least I was told. Of Anthes, Perron, 
 Wittich, Teleky and Bossenberger, all beloved 
 of Dresden opera-goers, I could hear but little, 
 though I fancy Wittich is dead. Dresden 
 was never a dressy opera house, but to-day 
 it has become, as far as its audience is con- 
 cerned, more like a picture palace. The Saxon 
 women always had the name, however, of 
 being well-turned-out, but that has also 
 changed. I was with a lady, and she said 
 that the best-dressed women were those who 
 
 i 
 

 102 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 had been able to remake their pre-war clothes ! 
 Imported silks and satins, velvets and fine cloth 
 are sold at simply fabulous sums, rendering 
 them far beyond the reach of any one with a 
 normal purse. The best-dressed women I ever 
 saw were invariably clemi-mon dairies. There 
 is no doubt that in Dresden itself the King 
 is much missed. The Royal subsidy kept up 
 the opera at concert pitch, and the city, like 
 the Opera House, needed a Royal setting. 
 The famous picture galleries and the " Grune 
 Gewolbe 5 have been allowed to remain 
 untouched and, indeed, are being added to as 
 funds allow. 
 
 I have no doubt that the city will ultimately 
 revive, for, together with Heidelberg, it would 
 be hard to find places offering so many attrac- 
 tions to foreigners. America remains first 
 favourite, however, in the hearts of the Dresden 
 people. They cannot forget the children and 
 what has been done for them. When one shops, 
 the first question asked is, " Are you American ? " 
 Upon informing the questioner that you are 
 British, some remark is passed such as, " We 
 shall be so glad when some Americans visit 
 us. We can never forget their kindness.' 1 
 In all truth they deserve that affection. In 
 my mind's eye I see those three cities again, 
 
MUNICH, LEIPZIG, DRESDEN 103 
 
 the one exotic, the second grim and the third 
 delicate. 
 
 Some time after I had left Leipzig, its annual 
 fair took place, and I heard that it was fairly 
 successful. There was a sprinkling of British 
 buyers, but the tax on German goods operated 
 adversely, and in some cases disastrously. 
 The manufacturers sell at local prices and leave 
 the purchaser to pay the tax. In this they 
 remain firmly independent, and if it actually 
 pays the purchaser to pay the heavy tax 
 in order to import the article into Britain, 
 and he is then able to retail it at a profit to 
 himself, surely that affords proof positive 
 of the excellence of the German manufactured 
 article? Or can it be, on the other hand, 
 that our wages are so excessively high that we 
 are unable to produce finished goods at any- 
 thing approaching a reasonable price ? I heard 
 of a Dublin buyer who expended £75,000 
 on machinery and was glad to get it at any 
 price. With all the encouragement being 
 offered to British manufacturers and workmen 
 to-day it is a curious state of affairs. 
 
 Mr. Schwab, the American steel magnate, 
 speaking recently before a meeting of the New 
 York Chamber of Commerce, declared he had 
 returned from Europe with the conviction, 
 
104 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 which made his nights sleepless, that, after 
 all the sacrifices the Allies had made, we were 
 in peril of losing the fruits of the victory to 
 the vanquished, because of their appreciation 
 of the stern necessities of the industrial situation. 
 "German workmen are efficient," said he; 
 44 German workmen are eager for work; Ger- 
 man workmen are giving a full day's work for 
 a full day's pay, and upon that basis is built 
 all great industrial prosperity in every country. 
 For exanmle, Germany can to-day put a ton of 
 steel in England at a price five pounds cheaper 
 than it costs England to make it. Germany 
 to-day is selling pneumatic tools in Detroit, 
 where formerly we made such machinery and 
 shipped it to Germany to sell there cheaper 
 than she could make it. The difference is 
 solely a matter of labour costs." (Times, 
 April 30th, 1921.) 
 
 With reference to this statement, it must 
 be remembered that America is recovering 
 no war damages from Germany with the excep- 
 tion of a few steamers which have been handed 
 over to her. Our position is not similar, and 
 Mr. Schwab's statement conclusively proves 
 to me, as a dispassionate observer, that, given 
 opportunity and permitted the tools, Germany 
 can and will pay her war damage. The danger 
 
MUNICH, LEIPZIG, DRESDEN 105 
 
 is that France, being on the verge herself of 
 national bankruptcy, will metaphorically kill 
 the goose which in time will lay the golden 
 eggs, by eating farther and farther into the 
 German industrial districts, evacuating the 
 coal for her own benefit, and stirring up 
 industrial strife which will eventually only 
 further plunge France into financial ruin. 
 
 Another minor point which I heard dis- 
 cussed on several occasions was that of samples. 
 The German merchants, rightly or wrongly, 
 declare that samples sent to England are held 
 up by the Customs or by the Post Office 
 authorities. Be that as it may, they seldom 
 arrive, even though registered. It is certainly 
 irritating for both parties, though it seems 
 hardly possible that the stoppage is deliberate. 
 
 Every business man in Britain will support 
 me in saying that, as a commercial factor, 
 the sooner Germany again enters the European 
 ! arena the better. 
 
 Consider the wastage of war which remains 
 to be repaired. Remember that of the new 
 States brought into being by the Treaty of 
 Versailles none can be said to be self-supporting. 
 All need the finished article, and whence can 
 it be obtained? In other words, a reor- 
 ganised Germany is needed to stabilise Western 
 
106 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 Europe commercially, and sometimes it appears 
 as though the diplomatist forgets the existence 
 of such a thing as commerce and deals with 
 situations merely from a political or moral 
 standpoint. Day by day it becomes increas- 
 ingly apparent that something must be done 
 to steady the exchanges which are directly 
 dependent upon trade. Some of these figures 
 may give the ordinary reader food for thought. 
 The purchasing power of one pound sterling 
 in Warsaw is over £110. I saw a man change 
 a ten-pound note at the American Express 
 Company in Berlin, and I do not exaggerate 
 when I say he went away with an armful of 
 Polish notes. In Vienna the pound is worth 
 £63, in Prague £12 16s. and in Berlin about £12. 
 As I have explained, to the foreigner — at least 
 in Germany — these figures are largely fictitious, 
 except in the country districts, which foreigners 
 rarely visit. But with Poland it is different, 
 and if Poland is to remain as a buffer State 
 against the advance of Bolshevism — for which 
 purpose she was re-created, and not from 
 altruistic sentiment, as people so fondly 
 imagine — then she must be put in a sound 
 financial position. And a bankrupt and ruined 
 Germany would inevitably further complicate 
 the already colossal financial chaos in Poland. 
 
 , 
 
 
MUNICH, LEIPZIG, DRESDEN 107 
 
 It is a situation full of complexity, and some- 
 times I am inclined heartily to concur with my 
 American friend that the future of Middle 
 Europe should be arranged by a committee 
 of business men, who would deal with the 
 situation on sound business lines. The poli- 
 ticians have had a good innings, and I have yet 
 to find any one who is thoroughly satisfied 
 with what has been accomplished either in 
 Paris or at Versailles. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 Since education is the vital force in any 
 nation, since from education emanates every 
 improvement in the world of science, commerce 
 and economics, and since it is education that 
 moulds public thought, naturally in studying a 
 country the first activity to come under review 
 is the University. Many years before the War 
 the German University stood high in rank, 
 especially in the faculties of medicine and 
 science. With the War, and later the revolu- 
 tion, there came an overwhelming change, and 
 to-day the old University student of twenty- 
 five years ago will find it difficult to place him- 
 self in tune with existing conditions. At least 
 that was my experience at Heidelberg, and 
 since the post-war Universities are all managed 
 similarly, in dealing with Heidelberg, as I saw 
 it recently, I am describing all the other 
 Universities. 
 
 Heidelberg itself has not changed a whit — it 
 may still justly lay claim to that line of the old 
 
 108 
 
THE UNIVERSITIES 109 
 
 German song, " Kein anderer kommt dir 
 gleich " — "nothing can touch you' would be 
 the rendering in English. It saw some stormy 
 days after the Armistice was signed, and when 
 the German troops, demobilised, disheartened 
 and disgusted, streamed through its streets to 
 hide their diminished heads somewhere up the 
 Neckar Valley. A Professor told me that he 
 imagined that it must have been very like the 
 sauve qui peat which followed Napoleon's 
 Russian debacle. A horse was sold for twenty 
 marks — twopence in English money to-day — 
 and schoolboys bought Browning automatic 
 pistols for two marks and a bag of apples. It 
 was the most pitiable exhibition of catastrophe 
 which the mind of man could imagine, and I 
 lonestly believe that had any propaganda been 
 needed effectually to crush any military ardour 
 that still might have remained among the 
 people in Baden, that once and for all eradi- 
 2ated it. Reorganisation of necessity had to 
 ? ollow, and I believe the reopening of the 
 Universities throughout Germany had a stabil- 
 sing effect upon the nation as a whole. It was 
 is though some vent for suppressed emotion 
 A^as required, and this was found in increased 
 ittention to study. 
 As I remember the University there were 
 
110 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 about 1,500 students. In 1904 there were 1,600, 
 including women. I make a special point of this 
 fact, because, since the admission of women, the 
 women student movement has increased by 
 leaps and bounds, especially in the faculties 
 of philosophy and science. In 1914 there were 
 2,409 students, of whom 216 were women, while 
 in 1920 there were 3,236, of whom 391 were 
 women. One might have imagined that, on 
 account of the mortality due to the War, num- 
 bers would have fallen off, but, as will be seen, 
 they have increased considerably. In the year 
 1914, amongst foreigners studying at Heidel- 
 berg were Russians to the number of 218, 
 Austrians to the number of 29, British 22, and 
 Americans 19. India also had 3 represen- 
 tatives, thus bringing the British total to 25. 
 Of the latter, 4 were theological students, 
 4 medical, 10 philosophical and 7 mathema- 
 tical. The total number of foreigners was 349. 
 Turning now to 1921, as might be expected, 
 things have altered. Great Britain is not 
 represented at all. Russia has only 7, America 
 2, and Austria 24 students. Both among 
 foreigners and native Germans there has been 
 a tremendous drop in the theological faculty, 
 but all the other faculties have increased as 
 much as 33 per cent. This seems to indicate 
 
THE UNIVERSITIES 111 
 
 i that the youth of Germany is turning its mind 
 towards construction and research rather than 
 to the propagation of religious truth. It may 
 here, however, be added that the majority of 
 Catholic theological students attend their own 
 i" Seminars" in preference to going to a lay 
 University. 
 
 I am afraid that, as I remember Heidelberg, 
 | we certainly enjoyed ourselves and did the 
 minimum amount of work. That has changed. 
 To-day there is an atmosphere of seriousness, 
 one might almost say of severity, and, as one 
 i of the learned Professors framed it, they drink 
 less but work more. The old student restau- 
 rants, where beer used to flow in rivers, are 
 being either closed up or having a hard struggle 
 for existence. The " Perkeo " is of almost 
 (international fame, and one of the waitresses 
 there told me that even the midday meal 
 iespecially arranged for students, and costing 
 only two marks twenty-five, was now beyond 
 the reach of their pockets, j For, as I shall show, 
 the German student of to-day is not only 
 jfighting for his future, his dreams and his 
 ambitions, but is facing, with the most com- 
 •mendable endurance, something akin to starva- \ 
 tion. Of course, the fighting corps still exist, J 
 for amongst over 3,000 students it would be 
 

 112 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 strange did one not encounter some who are 
 financially in easy circumstances. 
 
 I will digress here to explain something of the 
 functions of the " Corps " and " Verbindungen,' : 
 which are to be found in all German Universi- 
 ties, but particularly in Heidelberg, and whose 
 functions form an integral part of the University 
 life. At Heidelberg there are five corps, of 
 which the " Saxo Borussia,' or " white caps," 
 is the elite. No one may join this corps 
 unless he can show sixteen quarterings to his 
 coat-of-arms, the colours on their sword-hilts 
 being green, white and black. As their name 
 shows, they are recruited from Saxony and 
 Prussia, and it is to this corps that both 
 the ex-Kaiser and Bismarck belonged. The 
 others are respectively the Swabian (yellow 
 caps), Westphalian (green caps), Vandalian (red 
 caps) and the Rhenanian (blue caps). All these 
 are recruited from the nobility, and in spite of 
 the revolution this custom still remains. 
 Amongst themselves duels are arranged, the 
 average number of duels at the present time 
 being about forty a week. They will also fight 
 with the "Burschenschaften," who are, as their 
 name implies, recruited from the bourgeoisie, 
 and who stand midway between the Corps and 
 the " Verbindungen," who are of the people, and 
 
THE UNIVERSITIES 113 
 
 with whom the corps never cross swords. I 
 have never been able to understand personally 
 why the student duelling system has been held 
 in such abhorrence or else so ridiculed in Eng- 
 land. Having witnessed many duels, and 
 having seen a goodly number of prize-fights, I 
 can only say that skill and pluck are essential 
 in both. To become a fair hand with the 
 student's " schlager " (sword) takes at least a 
 year, and even the severest critic will allow 
 that when a man has his face literally cut to 
 ribbons, and by the etiquette of the Corps is 
 
 1 not allowed either to flinch or groan when being 
 sewn up, he requires a considerable amount of 
 
 I self-control. It goes without saying that in 
 these days of democracy the Corps students 
 keep themselves very much to themselves, and 
 
 lit is comparatively rare to see them in the town 
 streets with their caps, as was formerly their 
 
 ; wont. 
 
 The " Corps" and " Burschenschaften " main* 
 
 ! tain their own clubs for social purposes, and have 
 associations of Alumni fulfilling various func- 
 tions. There was, therefore, the basis of some 
 organisation when it was wanted after the War, 
 
 ;not for social uses, but to assist in maintaining 
 University life under completely new condi- 
 tions. The financial downfall of Germany has 
 
 H 
 
114 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 nowhere been so severely felt as educationally. 
 Formerly even a poor student could manage on 
 his pittance, for food and clothing were extra- 1 
 ordinarily cheap. Now that prices have risen 
 over a hundredfold and the purchasing power 
 of the mark has decreased, the poor student 
 finds himself in a parlous and practically 
 impossible position. As this is not realised in 
 England, or, for that matter, is not fully grasped I 
 in Germany, and since upon the students 
 depends the whole future of the German land 
 — for it is they who will in time form the 
 backbone of the commercial, professional and 
 scientific callings — then it is well that it should 
 be studied in its various aspects by those who 
 allow that a revivified Germany is an economic 
 necessity. The following data were supplied i 
 to me and were arranged for me by a member 
 of the German Student Union. Other coun- 
 tries are accustomed to the call for help from 
 the children of Central Europe, but the call 
 of the student is a new departure. It may be 
 accepted that the majority of German students 
 come from the lower and middle classes of 
 officialdom, from artisans, shopkeepers and the 
 like — from those, in fact, in receipt of fixed 
 incomes which could not be raised to keep pace 
 with the decline in value of the mark, as was 
 
THE UNIVERSITIES 115 
 
 done in the case of the day labourer. Thus 
 in Munich University, of 290 students with a 
 monthly income of 300 marks, 36 per cent, 
 are sons of officials, 15 per cent, sons of 
 artisans and 10 per cent, of traders owning 
 small businesses. Let it be emphasised that 
 for the German the purchasing value of a mark 
 is about a ^quarter of what it was in pre-war 
 days. The average allowances per mensem of 
 students in the various faculties at Heidelberg 
 University were as follows : theology came off 
 worst with 290 marks; philosophy and science 
 370 marks ; medicine 400 and law 470. 
 
 In Berlin University, of 350 students now 
 receiving assistance 240 had no pecuniary 
 allowance at all, 21 had under 100 marks per 
 mensem, and only 23 more than 200. Now 
 lit must be remembered that the homes of 
 'many of these students are at a distance from 
 ■ their place of study, and that, therefore, they 
 jcannot partake of the common family midday 
 jmeal, when it is possible they might be satisfied 
 |— if satiety can ever be obtained in Germany 
 to-day amongst this class, which personally I 
 much doubt. Therefore that pittance of a hun- 
 dred or two marks must find sustenance for the 
 growing and working student, as well as pay 
 for his educational requirements, for a whole 
 
II 
 
 116 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 month, which, as Euclid would say, is " impos- i 
 sible. ' In addition, it must be rememberec 
 that of the twenty-four University towns ir. i 
 Germany only eleven have more than 100,00C 
 inhabitants. The greater proportion of the 
 remainder have far less than 50,000 inhabitants, 
 and the larger part of these people live upon 
 the University in one way or another. Hence, i 
 economically, such towns as Marburg, Tubingen: J* 
 and Jena are feeling the pinch severely, and | 
 relatively the poor student here is in a worse 
 position than in the larger towns, such as 
 Frankfort, Berlin or Munich. And to complete 
 his perplexity he finds daily ever rising prices, 
 even for the simplest food, and the same for 
 the study he is undertaking. A minimum 
 annual budget has been supplied me from the 
 University of Munich. Room, 960 marks;! 
 heating, 600; attendance and light, 240; 
 midday dinner, supper and breakfast, 360i 
 marks a month, or 4,320 for the year; clothing,' 
 boots, 1,440 (one suit of clothes costs more 
 than that); books and University fees, 240; 
 travelling expenses, 300. I notice some omis-i 
 sions. For instance, no allowance is made> 
 for washing, which is an expensive item in 
 Germany owing to shortage of fuel and soap, 
 coupled with high wages for the washerwomen, i't 
 
 i 
 
THE UNIVERSITIES 117 
 
 s- who actually make more money in a month 
 I-! than the majority of young professional men. 
 illThis budget represents a monthly require- 
 K ment of 675 marks. How then is the student 
 to exist and^ carry on his studies ? 
 
 In this direction the British Quakers, with 
 the assistance of the German Student Union, 
 jiare doing admirable work. For again it must 
 Ibe emphasised that even though a student 
 possesses the minimum sum for his monthly 
 expenses, the food in Germany which would 
 be supplied to him does not possess the neces- 
 j pary nutrition to keep him in the state of health 
 'which mental activity demands. Physical 
 work necessitates a diet of one kind, mental of 
 i another. The Ministry of Health in Berlin 
 t estimated that the average midday meal of 
 ;the poor student amounted to less than one- 
 fifth of the three thousand calories deemed 
 ('■sufficient for the daily requirements of any 
 ;, jidult. 
 
 Now as to the results. Mental and physical 
 ill-health is increasing by leaps and bounds 
 'imongst all students. Complaints as to tired- 
 i less, lack of concentrative power, forgetfulness 
 jour in from all sides. The fact that many 
 ;tudents served in the War and returned to 
 :heir studies suffering from shell-shock or 
 
118 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 varieties thereof adds to the complexity of the 
 situation. Take the case of the University of 
 Breslau. Many important differences from 
 former years were revealed by the statistics 
 published by the Polyklinik. Amongst the 
 students treated in 1920, who incidentally 
 exceeded the total of 1919 by 200, none was 
 discovered who was what one might call well 
 fed. On this account, if on no other, tuber- 
 culosis is steadily increasing and promises to 
 decimate the student population unless some- 
 thing can be done, and done quickly. In 1913 
 402 students were treated for phthisis, of whom 
 only two were in a far gone condition; 1920 
 saw the number jump to 658, of whom fourteen 
 were hopeless. It must be allowed that phthisis 
 amongst students is largely the result of 
 unhygienic living conditions, and even before 
 the War this was recognised. Left on his own 
 in a strange town, the youth of any country is 
 apt to go astray and put up with any sort of 
 temporary surroundings so long as he can feel 
 a few shillings in his pocket to spend upon 
 amusement. The German pre-war student was 
 no different, and even if he had the money he 
 preferred to " pig " it, to use a colloquialism, 
 and have the spare cash, rather than pay more 
 for lodgings. To-day the " pigging " cannot 
 
THE UNIVERSITIES 119 
 
 be avoided, and so he is not to blame at the 
 increasing toll of the incapacitated. At the 
 twenty-fourth annual meeting of the German 
 Central Committee for Combatting Consumption 
 it was stated 4 that the following numbers had 
 died from the disease in 1914 and 1920 respect- 
 ively : in the former year, 58,577, or 13*87 per 
 10,000 in Prussia alone; in the latter year the 
 figures had increased to 85*198, or 21*53 per 
 10,000 of the Prussian population. Those 
 figures speak for themselves. 
 
 Faced with the burden of such conditions, 
 as might be expected, there has been a ten- 
 dency towards moral collapse on the part of 
 students. No figures are available, but I am 
 afraid that the crimes of violence which are 
 daily becoming commoner in the great cities 
 are often the work of University youths hard 
 put to it for their next meal or the where- 
 withal to clothe themselves. It is not a cheer- 
 ful picture, but it must be faced. The measures 
 hitherto taken to relieve this very dangerous 
 situation, with the exception of the Quaker 
 feeding, are haphazard and disorganised, which 
 ! robs them of efficiency. In Bavaria, how- 
 ever, a loan of 500,000 marks has been 
 placed by the Government, without interest, 
 at the disposal of the Student Union. This 
 
120 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 indicates some slight appreciation of the peril 
 of the situation. Better prospects are promised 
 by the development of University Labour 
 Exchanges, which find the poor student some- 
 thing to do in his spare time and in the holidays. 
 Of this in subsequent pages I give some 
 examples which are instructive, but it must 
 be remembered that unemployment is just as 
 rife in Germany as it is in modern England. 
 Since Germany is pre-eminently a scientific 
 nation, I cannot forbear from quoting in extenso 
 the following paragraphs from the report 
 supplied me : 
 
 " The Emergency Fellowship of German 
 scientists, which was called into existence a 
 few weeks ago, has set itself the task of insuring 
 the essential carrying forward of all scientific 
 work by a generous provision of funds. All 
 classes of the German nation have found a 
 common ground in the Idea of Unity and the 
 carrying forward of German science. The 
 Deutsche Studentschaft desires to take part in 
 a sympathetic furthering and fulfilment of the 
 objects of the Emergency Society by the 
 measures it is planning for the maintenance 
 of the rising academic generation, the living 
 bearers of the future burden of scientific work. 
 The necessity of helping these students is 
 urgent. They must be helped quickly and 
 
THE UNIVERSITIES 121 
 
 comprehensively. For, despite all efforts to 
 the contrary, the condition of misery threatens, 
 if it continues for long, to destroy not only the 
 value, but actually the existence of German 
 science. It seems unnecessary to enlarge upon 
 the significance of such a calamity." 
 
 Now the idea of charity is just as distasteful 
 to a student at Heidelberg or Bonn as it would 
 be to one at Oxford or Cambridge, and so at 
 every University it has been a case of all hands 
 to the pump, and it has been precisely in this 
 direction that the " Corps " and " Burschen 
 schaften " have proved themselves not merely 
 ornamental societies for the amusement of the 
 well-to-do, but extremely useful entities. With 
 their organisation all have combined for the 
 weal of the less fortunate, and there has been 
 evolved a species of self-help which must have 
 an important bearing upon the future. Thus in 
 Munich University is now found : (a) A Publicity 
 Department. This is an information bureau 
 combined with a press-cutting agency. Infor- 
 mation as to what foreign Universities are doing 
 is tabulated and advice given as to the methods 
 whereby German students can matriculate in 
 foreign countries, (b) The Facilities Depart- 
 ment arranges cheap tickets for students at 
 the theatres, operas and concerts, lectures and 
 conversaziones. It arranges meetings between 
 
122 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 townsfolk and students coming from afar, and 
 by decent social intercourse keeps them away 
 from the doubtful pleasures of the cafe chan- 
 tant, or even, worst of all, the tingel tangel, a 
 most vicious form of night club, (c) The Work 
 Department is a form of Labour Exchange. 
 It assists students to find employment in their 
 spare time and holidays, and many and varied 
 are the tasks undertaken, from coal-mining in 
 the Ruhr and peat- cutting in Oberschwaben 
 to acting as waiters in the fashionable hotels 
 or painting houses, (d) The Department of 
 Physical Training explains itself. It has charge 
 of the rowing clubs, which are numerous where 
 there is a river, football clubs, and gymnastic 
 Vereins, and arranges reduced price tickets for 
 Alpine-climbing tours. In fact, anything to- 
 wards the desired consummation of mens sana 
 in corpore sano. (e) The Department of Educa- 
 tional Materials provides paper, pens and the 
 like at wholesale prices, buys and sells second- 
 hand books, and exchanges the same at a very 
 much better advantage than would be obtain- 
 able outside. (/) The Store Department deals 
 in cheap clothing, smoking materials and the 
 like. Here the advice of practical business men 
 is sought and great heads of co-operative store 
 enterprise. It is very embracing, and includes 
 even the mending of clothes and sewing on of 
 
THE UNIVERSITIES 123 
 
 buttons, which every bachelor knows to his cost 
 is an important item towards economic salva- 
 tion. (/) The Social Department, which unifies 
 otherwise independent associations, such as the 
 Academic Course for Working Men, the Catholic 
 Fellowship of Social Workers, the Academic 
 Society of St. Vincent and the Students' Social 
 Centre. It encourages the love of folklore and 
 folk-songs and dances, and in every way pos- 
 sible inculcates into the student love of his or 
 her country, and insists upon the individual unit 
 that duty is to the nation and to the community, 
 and must take first place as opposed to personal 
 inclination. Quite possibly it is this sense of 
 duty which keeps the student to his last, for it 
 would be only taking the line of least resistance 
 if he threw his books into a corner and gave 
 his services to the purely automatic operation 
 of a manual labourer, at which at least he could 
 make a living. 
 
 One of these students writes, " We have 
 benefactors in Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark 
 and America [notice the latter : the writer is 
 evidently unaware of British assistance]. They 
 are of those who have not merely talked of 
 love for mankind, but have carried it out in 
 deed. Through sympathy and co-operation, we 
 students will gain knowledge also. Only 
 through this kind of sympathy that is lifted 
 
124 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 above hate and sentimentality can our German 
 fatherland be built up once more. Not a 
 superstitious faith in the power of a mechanical 
 organisation, not force, whether from the right 
 or from the left, but the moral qualities of 
 the workers will lead us to a better Germany 
 as surely as the first Christians outlived the 
 collapse of the Roman Empire." 
 
 Impartial readers of this report of University 
 activity will admit that it is apparent what a 
 new spirit is pervading these great and world- 
 renowned centres of learning, and withal upon 
 what sound, impartial, democratic principles 
 they are being conducted. But co-operation 
 and financial organisation included, there was 
 still much to be done, since the bald fact 
 remained that the effort put forth was in- 
 sufficient as it stood, and then it was that 
 the Quakers stepped in and gave their whole- 
 hearted support. 
 
 They realised only too well the darkness of 
 the situation, and they brought light, even 
 though at first faint. And it must stand to their 
 everlasting credit. That one does not agree 
 with all the tenets of their faith matters not 
 a whit. That they materially alleviated a 
 desperate situation does. Food to the value 
 of one mark fifty per diem was sent to the 
 neediest students in all the great German 
 
THE UNIVERSITIES 125 
 
 Universities and technical schools ranking as 
 Universities. There was no pretence of coping 
 with the entire case — funds were not sufficient 
 for that — but the worst cases were and are 
 being relieved, and as funds grow, as one must 
 hope they will, the scope of the scheme will 
 enlarge. In order to be admitted to this feed- 
 ing, every applicant must fill in a questionnaire. 
 Generally, where frank answers are given, 
 there is no difficulty whatsoever in deciding 
 whether the applicant should receive assist- 
 ance or not. The questionnaire contains, 
 amongst other queries, questions as to parents' 
 means, the number and pecuniary situation of 
 the family, the amount of support received from 
 home, the income from supplementary work 
 and nature of the same, where the applicant 
 has hitherto had his midday meal, and how 
 much he has paid for it, where he lives and what 
 price he pays for his lodgings. At present, of 
 1,000 forms filled in only about 350 applicants 
 can be admitted to the feeding. 
 
 Upon the Committee of Decision are students, 
 Professors and medical men, and in the case of 
 any forms being false or giving wrong informa- 
 tion, the delinquents are dealt with by the Court 
 of Honour, directly connected with the organ- 
 isation of the lighting Corps. The supplemen- 
 tary work done by these students in their spare 
 
126 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 time is all-embracing. Every profession almost 
 is represented. The greater proportion are 
 teachers or supplementary bank hands. Others 
 are telephone employees, clerks, correspondents, 
 authors — the worst paid profession in the world 
 — piano-players in restaurants and cinemas, 
 porters at railway stations, bill-posters and 
 miners. As with the students, so with their 
 parents and brothers and sisters, who often 
 nowadays follow professions which in pre-war 
 days would have been considered derogatory. 
 Very often where the son is a teacher in his 
 spare time the father has taken to ordinary 
 day labour or is a minor artisan. Where the 
 father — the bread-winner — is dead, the mother 
 turns to and becomes a seamstress, a steno- 
 grapher, or lets lodgings, though all her life she 
 may have lived in comparative luxury and 
 may be well on in the sixties. The boy must 
 continue his University career, and the sisters 
 join in, and many a Berlin hotel can boast of 
 a housemaid who belongs to the nobility. 
 Many students there are who will fill in no 
 questionnaire because they are ashamed or 
 resent charity. It might be pointed out to 
 them that it is not really charity, only common 
 sense. In one way, of course, it is charity, 
 for all the devoted staff give their services and 
 
THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 127 
 
 their heart to the cause. On the other hand, 
 any subscriber, himself not a Quaker, but let 
 us suppose a most pronounced materialist, can 
 comfort himself with the knowledge that he is 
 assisting in the economic rebirth of Germany, 
 which all the world, with the exception of 
 France, ardently desires. 
 
 Some idea of the huge task undertaken can 
 be gathered from the following figures, which 
 are literally staggering. 
 
 Universities where Quaker Feeding is in Operation 
 and Numbers of Students receiving such Relief. 
 
 .Aachen 
 
 , 1,000 
 
 Brought forward 
 
 9,070 
 
 Berlin .... 
 
 400 
 
 Hanover . . . 300 
 
 
 1 000 
 
 Heidelberg 
 
 
 
 . 300 
 
 (Brunswick 
 
 . 300 
 
 Jena 
 
 
 
 . 250 
 
 iiBreslau University 
 IJBreslau Technical 
 
 , 550 
 
 Karlsruhe . 
 Kiel . . 
 
 
 
 . 400 
 . 500 
 
 I) School . 
 
 , 250 
 
 Cologne 
 
 
 
 1,000 
 
 jCharlottenburg . 
 
 250 
 
 Konigsberg 
 
 
 
 400 
 
 panzig . 
 JDarmstadt 
 
 , 600 
 , 600 
 
 Leipzig 
 Marburg . 
 
 
 
 800 
 300 
 
 [Dresden . 
 
 450 
 
 Munich 
 
 
 
 1,500 
 
 Erlangen . 
 
 500 
 
 Minister 
 
 
 
 , 700 
 
 Frankfort . 
 
 500 
 
 Rostock 
 
 
 
 , 200 
 
 Freiburg . 
 jiessen . 
 
 1,000 
 200 
 
 Stuttgart . 
 Tubingen . 
 
 
 
 400 
 600 
 
 jottingen . 
 ireifswald 
 
 470 
 500 
 
 Wurzburg 
 
 
 
 700 
 
 jlalle 
 
 500 
 
 
 
 9,070 
 
 
 17,420 
 
 
128 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 
 Stuttgart Technical High School 
 
 Statistics Relative to the effect of Under -feeding amongst 
 
 Students 
 
 
 In peace 
 time. 
 
 Autumn, 
 1920. 
 
 Number of mechanical candi- 
 
 
 
 dates, of whom the following 
 
 
 
 failed .... 
 
 100 
 
 329 
 
 
 7 
 
 116 or 34 3 
 
 Number of mathematical candi- 
 
 106 
 
 per cent. 
 198 
 
 dates .... 
 
 27 
 
 87 or 45 
 per cent. 
 
 The failures in mechanics increased from 
 7 per cent, to 34 per cent., that is to say, by 
 390 per cent, to 490 per cent. 
 
 The failures in mathematics increased from 
 25*5 per cent, to 45*3 per cent., that is to say. 
 from 78*4 per cent, to 178*4 per cent. 
 
 Some Examples of " Student ' Cases 
 
 (a) Father dead, mother a music teacher, 
 sixty-four years old, earns about 1,800 marks a 
 year. There is another sister who has to be 
 kept by the mother. The student has still to 
 study for about six semesters (terms). 
 
THE UNIVERSITIES 129 
 
 (b) Father dead, and there are three other 
 sisters or brothers, for whom there is no pro- 
 vision. He, the student, has to earn all the 
 money he requires for his living. 
 
 (c) War invalid, father dead. Mother lives 
 on a small teacher's pension and has to provide 
 for two other children. 
 
 (d) War blind, married, gets a pension of 
 300 marks, on which he and his wife have to 
 live. The wife has to guide him when he goes 
 to the lectures and also to meals. 
 
 (e) Thirty- two years old, just returned from 
 internment in Siberia, very ailing (doctor's cer- 
 tificate III-IV). Has also seven sisters for 
 whom no provision is made. Is just about to 
 finish up his studies. (But what then ?) 
 
 (/) Father dead, student got 100 marks a 
 month when his father was alive, at present 
 
 i no income. He has used up all his money 
 down to 450 marks. He has three sisters to 
 
 i be looked after. 
 
 Many more instances could be given, but 
 
 I think that it can be gathered from the 
 
 above in what needy conditions the students 
 
 are. A great number of them starve and have 
 
 no means of heating their rooms; many of 
 
 them do not get any breakfast. Many depend 
 
 on their earnings, although the condition of 
 i 
 

 
 130 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 their health is more or less wretched. They 
 earn money wherever they can. 
 
 These figures represent a cost of over £100 
 a day, not taking into consideration outside 
 expenses of various kinds, freightage, packing 
 and organisation. Three hundred and sixty-five 
 thousand pounds a year, and the work only 
 begun. That is enough to make one think. 
 And the thought flashes through one's mind, 
 can it be carried on ? The answer ought to be, 
 It must, at all hazards. Germany used to be a 
 country of sharp differentiations of society. It 
 was one of the banes of its constitution. The 
 merchant had as much chance of being received 
 by military or official society as he had of climb- 
 ing through the eye of a needle. Upon this 
 class distinction militarism flourished, and there 
 was propagated that detestable idea that be- 
 cause fate has placed a person in a certain social 
 position, therefore he or she must be superior 
 to the ordinary rank and file. It was quite 
 forgotten that there were cycles of birthright, 
 and that, as in England, the old families of to- 
 day are slowly being throttled out of existence 
 by the nouveaux riches, the latter a century 
 hence will be the old nobility, while the former 
 will have found their way back to whence they 
 originally sprang, the plough, the shop, or the 
 
 
 
THE UNIVERSITIES 131 
 
 office. It needed the War to teach Germany 
 the fact that her social system was rotten to 
 the core, and that her regeneration would de- 
 pend upon a complete reshuffling of her social 
 cards. 
 
 That the Universities have grasped the signifi- 
 cance of the whole proceeding, and have so 
 promptly formed into line with the needs of 
 the day, is a sign of great promise. Upon a 
 stabilised Central Europe depends the future 
 of the entire world, and this stabilisation must 
 permeate upwards from the rising generation 
 i who form the population of the Universities. 
 I New thought there must be, but it must also 
 be considered thought, and not the rant of 
 } ill-balanced theoreticians. The world has seen 
 I what that spells when with the fall of Czardom 
 a band of well-meaning gentlemen, many of 
 them eminent in their own professions, com- 
 bined to formulate plans for governing Russia. 
 ;And it can see in the chaos east of the Polish 
 frontier how far they understood the situation. 
 Administration is not learnt in a day, and is a 
 specialised study built upon experience, which 
 must start early in the life of the individual. 
 To combat the specious wiles of the revolution- 
 ary fanatic, to control by sensible argument 
 the disgruntled portion ever to be met with in 
 
132 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 all nations, needs training, and such training 
 can be best absorbed in a University frankly 
 framed upon democratic lines. There must 
 have been a great temptation to young Ger- 
 many to break away from all law and order and 
 run riot. They had provocation from the 
 French, they had encouragement from Moscow, 
 and they had reason for profound discourage- 
 ment and dissatisfaction. Yet they kept their 
 heads and determined to turn over a new leaf 
 of history, and show that, in spite of all, they 
 could and would rebuild upon a sounder basis, 
 forming in due course the best conceivable 
 barrier against the monstrous menace and 
 strenuous propaganda of Bolshevik Russia. 
 
 Moreover, as I show in another chapter, 
 not alone have the grown students so well 
 deserved merit, but the schoolboys and girls 
 are developing a new spirit along humanistic 
 lines, which it is profoundly satisfying to wit- 
 ness, and which bids fair to bring back Germany 
 in the future to a reasonably honoured place in 
 the Council of Nations. 
 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE UPPER SILESIAN QUESTION AND 
 
 KORFANTY 
 
 When the historian in the future comes to 
 deal with the problems which confronted the 
 Powers after the Great War, it will not be very 
 astonishing if he hazards the opinion that the 
 Upper Silesian question had many far-reaching 
 results. A glance at the map of Germany, 
 coupled with some knowledge of her coal 
 and mineral resources, will show that she is 
 unfortunately placed in having these resources 
 1 either in the extreme west, as in the Ruhr 
 ': region, or else in the extreme east, and more 
 particularly south-east, in the region of 
 Upper Silesia. All the vast industrial areas 
 to be found in the rest of Germany are practic- 
 ally dependent for the essence of their under- 
 takings, namely coal, on the two above- 
 mentioned areas. 
 
 Long prior to the War, the Silesian question 
 had always been one of some difficulty. 
 Originally Polish, so the Poles claim— that is to 
 
 133 
 
134 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 say, Polish as regards the majority of popula- 
 tion — the third partition of Poland handed 
 Silesia over to Prussia. And thus for over 
 a century a portion of the population, imbued 
 with intense nationalistic sentiment, found 
 itself dominated by a foreign element which 
 it cordially disliked. At the same time the 
 German party of control were not slow to 
 realise what Silesia meant to them, and con- 
 sistently and steadily exploited the resources 
 of the country. In this there was nothing 
 either unjust or objectionable. But with the 
 advance of time — so at least the Poles con- 
 tended — large areas of country passed into the 
 hands of German princes and nobility. More- 
 over, from fear of the Polish national spirit, 
 difficulties were placed in the way of the 
 Poles using their own language; it was pro- 
 hibited in their schools, and even their 
 Catholic faith was to some extent placed under 
 a ban. Before the War it was always a well- 
 understood thing that the German treatment 
 of the Poles left much to be desired, and to 
 some extent this was used as anti-German 
 propaganda. 
 
 Now there is nothing like taking both sides 
 of the question. Before me, as I write, I have 
 an accumulation of propaganda from both 
 
THE UPPER SILESIAN QUESTION 185 
 
 plaintiffs, both compiled with the utmost 
 plausibility, both teeming with figures to 
 prove one thing or the other, and both, 
 probably, only reliable in portions. 
 
 To deal first of all with the German side. 
 I must admit that if the Polish author, Sien- 
 kiwicz, really wrote as follows (and I cull the 
 paragraph from Mr. Sidney Osborne's Upper 
 Silesian Question), then he was doing his 
 country rather a bad turn, though I must 
 admit my own experience of a year in Poland 
 goes to prove the truth of his statement. 
 
 " Our people, compared with the Western 
 opinions of Europe, stand, as regards ethics, 
 on a very low level. Here I do not refer only 
 to our unbridled passions, nor only to our cities. 
 But let us look at the Polish villages, especially 
 in the old kingdom. Undoubtedly, ignorance 
 is partly to blame for this corruption, yet we 
 know that it is not the political conditions 
 which have shaken the faith of the people, 
 for the country population themselves com- 
 plain that unchastity and degeneration, deceit, 
 wickedness, incendiarism, hatred and theft, 
 have greatly increased among the common 
 people. How often one can observe that even 
 those of the country population who over- 
 stepped at every turn the commandments of 
 
136 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 God and of the Church, are yet faithful in 
 their attendance at Church and in the practice 
 of the usual rites of the Church. By this it is 
 undoubtedly proved that their faith is dead, 
 and that they now practise it only mechanically, 
 observing certain rules, fasting and Church 
 ceremonies." 
 
 Making allowances for differences of tem- 
 perament, if the statistician Krose is correct, 
 and the percentage of illegitimate children in 
 the whole of Upper Silesia amounted to only 
 5 per 1,000, while in the city of Lemberg, of 
 6,129 births, one-third were illegitimate, it 
 would seem to prove that the German moral 
 control over the Poles had done away with a 
 good deal of undesirable latitudinarianism. 
 It also shows the complete difference of ideal. 
 
 I quote, again from the same book, a Polish 
 author who writes in a Galician paper, The 
 Catholic Voice, as follows : " The Czechs are 
 famous for their musical gifts; the Jews for 
 business capacity and thrift; the Germans for 
 the spirit of order and enterprise; France 
 for fashion; America for large fortunes. But 
 wherein is Galicia distinguished before the 
 world? By misery — only misery. ,! The state- 
 ment in this quotation, " the Germans for 
 order and enterprise,' 1 is literally nothing 
 
THE UPPER SILESIAN QUESTION 137 
 
 more than the most partial and prejudiced 
 observer must admit to be just. 
 
 I have visited most of the towns and villages 
 which have occupied so prominent a position 
 in the daily papers of late, owing to the 
 Silesian rebellion. I was in Beuthen with 
 Korfanty, I saw Kattovitz, Hindenburg, Rib- 
 nik and Konigshutte. I must admit that I 
 am unable to go into the raptures in which 
 Mr. Osborne indulges over some of these places 
 and their surroundings. They struck me as 
 being busy, hustling centres, devoid of any 
 more beauty than one expects to find in 
 industrial Bristol, or in a town like Leeds. 
 Not being so large, of course, they appeared 
 clean by contrast, and there certainly was an 
 atmosphere of prosperity. Now to whom was 
 that atmosphere due? The answer is, I am 
 afraid, certainly not to the Poles. Six months 
 in Warsaw, spent not in the charming sur- 
 roundings of the Bristol or Polonia Hotels, 
 where the Missions stay and frame their 
 reports, firmly convinced me that this great 
 city was one of the dirtiest places to be found 
 in Europe. Even Limehouse, Stepney or 
 Wapping, on a foggy day in November, when 
 everything is looking as sordid as it possibly 
 can, have nothing to compare with the 
 
188 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 " Franziskanska," one of the most important 
 main thoroughfares of Warsaw. And this is 
 repeated wherever one likes to go in Polish 
 industrialdom. My secretary and I used to 
 have a great joke together whenever we 
 arrived at a Silesian town and started our 
 usual quest of hotel-hunting. We would close 
 our eyes, enter the hotel, and then hazard 
 whether it was under Polish or German manage- 
 ment. We very seldom made a mistake. It 
 could always be smelt ! If the Germans are 
 the finest hotel managers in the world, which 
 they undoubtedly are, then the Poles are 
 assuredly the worst. And I merely mention 
 this in no spirit of carping criticism, but 
 because it appears to me that running a hotel, 
 like running a bookshop or a commercial 
 undertaking, requires a steady organisation, 
 which the Poles always lack. 
 
 It is not too much to say that the economic 
 prosperity of Silesia is entirely due to German 
 organisation, administration, and to the influ- 
 ence predominantly of German capital. And 
 what is true of the business side is equally 
 true of the commercial side, since from the 
 capital of Upper Silesia, Breslau, emanates 
 the scientific technique without which the 
 mineral wealth of the country could never be 
 
THE UPPER SILESIAN QUESTION 139 
 
 exploited. The University of Breslau and the 
 Technical High School there are world famous. 
 Founded at the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century, both have ever maintained their 
 high standards for research work. In point 
 of fact the efforts of the University have not 
 been confined merely to mineralogy, but have 
 included bacteriology, astronomy, and the arts 
 generally. Hence it seems a fair conclusion 
 at which to arrive that, irrespective of the 
 question of creed or population, German ad- 
 ministration, though perhaps lacking in senti- 
 ment and consideration, has been directly 
 beneficial to the country as a whole. And 
 further, speaking again, as I must emphasise 
 not from hearsay, but from actual contiguity 
 with Polish people, who will ever be able 
 to govern them to their own satisfaction? 
 Is it unkind to suggest that they will never 
 be able to govern themselves? When Poland 
 was at its zenith it was for ever in conflict 
 with its neighbours over some question or 
 another. They are the Irish of the European 
 continent, and if one party of opinion is 
 willing to accept some political course, it is 
 wrecked by fanatical extremists. After the 
 partition, the Poles under German rule envied 
 the Poles under the Russian Government, 
 
140 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 and the latter asserted that their Austrian 
 brethren were much more happily placed. 
 And so was formed a circle of discontent, one 
 with the other, which actually did not lack 
 in humour. 
 
 Whatever may be written about Czardom 
 in the nineteenth century, it must be admitted 
 that Alexander I. and Alexander II. both 
 tried their hands at winning a more sym- 
 pathetic attitude from Poland by reforms of 
 various kinds. Their efforts were repaid by 
 revolts ! And there really is no guarantee 
 that an enlarged Poland, containing all that 
 once belonged to her, plus portions of Silesia, 
 would make of her Republic a really stable 
 entity. The population of Upper Silesia is 
 put at 2,207,000, of whom 884,000 speak 
 German, but these are not necessarily German 
 by nationality, and form a comparatively 
 small population. 
 
 It will be interesting now, perhaps, to review 
 some of the Polish propaganda distributed 
 widecast through the agency of Mr. Korfanty. 
 First of all I must quote a speech in the Polish 
 Diet by one of the Polish deputies : " The 
 systematic deception of the intellects of the 
 whole world as to the Upper Silesian question 
 was begun on a large scale." (This has refer- 
 
THE UPPER SILESIAN QUESTION 141 
 
 ence to the consideration of the German 
 claim to Upper Silesia at the Paris Conference.) 
 " This propaganda, this deception of intellect, 
 actually yielded excellent fruit. ' : " A book 
 by Keynes, an eminent English economist, 
 Secretary to the Royal Economic Institution 
 of London, the author of a well-known book 
 on India, that pearl of the English Crown, 
 that land which is a beloved subject of study 
 to the English.' : " Through such studies a 
 man may win himself name and fame.' : That 
 is typical Polish rhetoric of the florid sort, 
 attended with a certain sarcasm for unfor- 
 tunate Professor Keynes, who is responsible 
 for the following deductions. Let me quote 
 my Polish Deputy again : " Keynes's thesis 
 is that a new political world cannot be built 
 up without the economic rebuilding of the 
 whole of Europe, including Germany, and this 
 thesis leads me to the idea of the revision of 
 the treaty, of showing statesmen that they 
 ought to take advantage, in a certain definite 
 direction, of all clauses of the treaty which 
 were definitively formulated at the Paris 
 Conference, and which postponed any question 
 such as plebiscite, or which fixed temporary 
 rights, as in the question of war concessions. 
 And behold, the whole world began to repeat 
 
142 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 after Keynes that the Germans could not 
 stand without Upper Silesia, that Poland did 
 not need Upper Silesia, that Upper Silesia 
 supplied Poland before the War only with an 
 insignificant amount of coal, that of the 
 43,000,000 tons of coal produced in Silesia, 
 only 1,500,000 went to Poland, that Poland 
 was a country which was economically unde- 
 veloped, which could not take due advantage 
 of these immeasurable treasures which exist to 
 Upper Silesia. And if Germany were deprived 
 of Upper Silesia, she would not be able to 
 fulfil the applications which she undertook 
 at Versailles in regard to supplying coal to 
 the Allies." The Deputy then proceeds to 
 call Professor Keynes prejudiced, because he 
 has brought his economic capacity and skill 
 to bear, and has formally pronounced against 
 Polish pretensions. Incidentally he adds that 
 Professor Keynes, who " ought to belong to 
 the number of impartial statesmen," has bowed 
 before German propaganda. In the whole of 
 this pamphlet of seventy-five pages there is 
 scarcely one paragraph devoted to aught else 
 save what one can only call feathery, efferves- 
 cent, sentimental claims. Of economic pleas 
 there are practically none. 
 
 Another pamphlet, written by Mr. George 
 
THE UPPER SILESIAN QUESTION 143 
 
 Kramaztyk, asserts that no one knows of 
 what a united Poland is capable, and predicts 
 that industrially, by organisation and admin- 
 istration, she is well suited to take her share 
 of the economic necessities of the present 
 situation. " Now that the Polish territories 
 are united, Polish industry, not being hindered 
 by foreign Governments, has many possibilities 
 of quick developments. To put her industry 
 into operation she needs, however, coal and 
 once more coal, which can be supplied only 
 to her by Upper Silesia. In other words, from 
 whatever view one regards the coal question 
 in Poland, one everywhere sees her dependent 
 upon Upper Silesia." Does this gentleman 
 seriously suppose that by depriving Germany 
 of Silesian coal for the benefit of Poland the 
 'latter is really going to be able to substitute 
 'her manufactures and her commercial methods 
 |for those already perfect organisations existing 
 ;in Germany? And does he honestly believe 
 that the commercial world at large is going 
 |to be altruistic enough — or some may say 
 foolhardy enough — to gamble on such a pos- 
 sibility? Surely the answer is a direct 
 negative. Give the Poles the mines, give 
 them the smelters, give them the zinc indus- 
 tries, withdraw the German overseers, engin- 
 
144 GERMANY AS IT IS TODAY 
 
 eers, artificers, metallurgists, chemists and 
 electricians, and the output of Silesian coal 
 will disappear to vanishing point. 
 
 It may appear as though I have shown bias 
 in dealing with Polish claims, but as I sat in 
 the hotel at Breslau and pondered over the 
 whole matter, I thought I would retrace my 
 steps to Beuthen, where I could find Korfanty, 
 the apostle of Polish Silesian control, a 
 politician of eminence, with the ripe experience 
 of twenty years in the Reichstag behind him. 
 For apart from the interest of his personality, 
 I gathered that he was a strong man, who, if 
 occasion demanded, would not hesitate to 
 turn the ploughshare back into the sword, in 
 spite of all the delectable promises made by 
 European statesmen when the War came to 
 its conclusion. I am very much afraid that 
 the era of universal peace is far distant, and 
 that much water, and not a little blood, will 
 have to pass under the bridges before that 
 consummation is reached. 
 
 Well, I found Korfanty ; I had no difficulty 
 in being allowed to see him, after I had 
 explained what I wanted to one of his secre- 
 taries. So much one does very often when 
 one goes to see one's lawyer or one's doctor. 
 Leaning back in his easy-chair at the Lomnitz 
 
THE UPPER SILESIAN QUESTION 145 
 
 Hotel, smoking his habitual cigarette, he 
 remarked to me : " And if the Germans and 
 the Allies don't do so-and-so and so on, then 
 we shall have war ! " That seemed to amuse 
 him. 
 
 Now, first of all, a few words about Mr. 
 Korfanty. Enemies have described him as 
 being one of the most horrible people imagin- 
 able, and friends — if he has any — as the saviour 
 of Poland. I take the middle view. Person- 
 ally, I am very attracted to Korfanty. He 
 is not quite as his photograph makes him. 
 He is a good deal stouter, but if the eyes can 
 ever speak, with Korfanty they speak sincerity. 
 I read in one English paper, and in multitu- 
 dinous German papers, that he lived in an 
 oasis of splendour amongst the squalors of 
 Beuthen, which may be compared with the 
 lower quarters of Birmingham. Through the 
 same sources I learnt that he had a harem of 
 Polish beauties, that the approaches to his 
 room were guarded by machine-guns, and that 
 it was practically impossible for any one to 
 have a word with him. I found no difficulty. 
 I must admit I did not see the harem, which 
 ;is a myth, for, apart from everything else, 
 Korfanty is a practical man, and whatever 
 his private life may be — of which I know 
 
 K 
 
' 
 
 
 ; 
 
 : 
 
 146 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 nothing — it never intrudes upon his public 
 position, which is that of the regenerator of 
 Poland. I hold no brief for Korfanty. From 
 personal experience, as I have already written, 
 I can honestly say that the Poles are the most 
 impossible people to govern themselves in the 
 world. If any one can do it, then Korfanty 
 is undoubtedly the man, and not Paderewski, 
 idealist, musician and theoretician. Adminis- 
 tration is learnt in the school of hard facts. 
 Korfanty has graduated in that school. He 
 told me that his father was a working miner, 
 and that it was quite untrue — as has been 
 reported in the foreign Press — that he ever 
 had to work for his living. Like many other | 
 German students, all that he had to do was, 
 during the vacations, in order to make both 
 ends meet, to work as a miner, because, first 
 of all, he was physically fit to do this work, 
 and secondly, because, as he described himself, 
 " I wanted to be the Keir Hardie of Germany. ' ! 
 Rather like Keir Hardie, whom I knew very 
 well, he is intensely sympathetic, though he 
 may be antagonistic to those who are unwilling 
 to listen to his arguments. By birth he is 
 German Silesian. During the hours I spent 
 with him I never heard him express an anti- 
 German sentiment. If the French really 
 
THE UPPER SILESIAN QUESTION 147 
 
 believe that in Mr. Korfanty they have found 
 an Ally, then let me undeceive them. In so 
 many words he told me that the first thing 
 he would do in a reorganised Poland would 
 be to dissociate himself from French control. 
 He was all for giving Germany German Silesia ; 
 all that he asked for was that the portion of 
 Upper Silesia which had the biggest Polish 
 population should be given to Poland by 
 popular vote, since the people were Polish by 
 origin, Polish by sentiment, and Catholic by 
 religion. 
 
 As I have mentioned before, Korfanty is a 
 practical man, and if his room has bomb- 
 proof grilles, I do not blame him. Unfriendly 
 hands have attempted to throw a good many 
 bombs at Mr. Korfanty, and have hitherto 
 failed. 
 
 Now the question is, What is Korfanty 
 going to do in the world of international 
 politics ? and, possibly more important, Whence 
 does he obtain the enormous amount of money 
 which undoubtedly is at his disposal ? As 
 regards the latter, I may say that he was kind 
 enough to show me over his Propaganda 
 Department. Knowing something of pub- 
 licity, I was astounded at the extraordinary 
 completeness of his organisation. He had a 
 
148 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 bureau for the Press, offices where they designed 
 and distributed postcards, and a studio devoted 
 to the construction of, frankly, inflammatory \ 
 posters. Korfanty is no admirer of convention, 
 international or otherwise. He is a man with 
 an obsession, and the dangerous part about 
 him is that he is not a theoretician, but he is 
 a practical dreamer. That is one of the most 
 dangerous combinations it is possible to find 
 in the world of to-day, and it is of this material 
 that the greatest cataclysms which have ever 
 befallen the world are made. He frankly 
 laughed at the League of Nations. I cannot 
 remember his exact words, but I think he said, 
 " It keeps idle people busy.' : I asked him 
 point-blank, "Are you a Bolshevik?" He 
 replied equally promptly, " God forbid ! " 
 He told me that, in his opinion, Russia under 
 the Bolsheviki was a thousand times worse 
 off than it had ever been under the regime 
 of the Czars, and that he believed that a 
 constitutional monarchy was the ideal system 
 of government, provided that the population 
 were sufficiently educated to accept the same. 
 Otherwise, he believed in autocracy. He 
 believed that a benevolent autocracy was a 
 thousand times better than a haphazard 
 Republican Government. And he did give me 
 
 
THE UPPER SILESIAN QUESTION 149 
 
 a message straight to the British working- 
 man, which was to the effect that he should 
 not be led away by foreign propaganda, 
 emanating chiefly from Russia, and in the 
 search for Utopia lose that prestige which he 
 already has in the working councils of the 
 world. 
 
 Upon the question of Upper Silesia I must 
 admit he was very broad-minded— at least so 
 it appeared to me. But he did give me the 
 following rather remarkable figures. Whether 
 they are correct or no I cannot say, but I 
 have every reason to believe them so to be, 
 since they were supported by the British 
 Mission. In the whole of Upper Silesia, twenty- 
 two landowners control all the coal-mines ; 
 eight proprietors control all the smelting ; and 
 | seven companies the whole of the zinc industry. 
 I Count Ballestrom owns personally five coal- 
 I mines, eleven iron foundries, seven zinc-mines, 
 Isix smelters, and two sulphuric acid works. 
 He further contended that forty-two pro- 
 prietors own over 55 per cent, of the 
 whole of the Upper Silesian area. To give 
 some idea of what this means, the following 
 figures may be of interest : The Duke of 
 Ujezd owns about 24,000 square miles; the 
 Prince of Pless, 20,000: the Duke of Ratis- 
 
150 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 bor, 18,000; Prince Hohenlohe, 18,000; and 
 Count Donnersmark, 12,000. These figures 
 are, of course, rather astounding when it is 
 remembered that the major portion of this 
 acreage lies in the south-eastern district of 
 Upper Silesia, which admittedly is populated 
 by the Poles. I hold no brief for either party, 
 and therefore will continue with a short 
 epitome of my friend Mr. Korfanty's claims. 
 
 I asked him quite frankly whether, as a 
 German-bred Pole, he thought Poland could 
 ever be regenerated sufficiently to become an 
 essential factor in European politics. His 
 answer was, " Certainly." 
 
 I asked him, " What then do you propose 
 to do with the Jewish population, which forms 
 at least one- third of the Polish people ? : His 
 answer was the reply of a theoretician, rather 
 than that of a practical man of business. He 
 said in effect, " Let the Poles give the Jews 
 a chance. It is a social question. They must 
 become artisans and agriculturists, not solely 
 tradesmen. Then I really think they will 
 become good Poles.' 1 And then he added 
 something which gives one food for thought. 
 He said emphatically the words, " Zionism is 
 rubbish ! It is the dream of rich Jews, and 
 many rich Polish Jews support it, but it is 
 not practical politics. The working-class 
 
THE UPPER SILESIAN QUESTION 151 
 
 Polish Jews care nothing for this propaganda, 
 which emanates from London and New York. 
 There is no active Jewish nationality, and if 
 we are to have a stable Poland we must 
 absorb the Polish Jews and make them of 
 ourselves, though temperamentally we are 
 different. 
 
 " But you must give us a chance ! Since 
 when in history have we had a chance? You 
 say that we are impractical, but you allow 
 that from our theories emanate constructive 
 schemes of importance, and that, given a 
 strong hand, Poland might prove invaluable 
 to the future stability of Western Europe. 
 I agree. You will not deny that, as far as 
 education is concerned, Poland has proved 
 through her Universities, crippled as they are, 
 that she is capable of competing with the 
 world. Do not run away with the impression 
 that I am anti-German ; I am not. Germany, 
 as a economic unit, must exist. Without 
 Germany Poland obviously could not exist. I 
 frankly confess that if a plebiscite had been 
 taken of the towns of Thorn and Posen, I 
 think they would have remained German, and, 
 in agreement with my convictions, I should 
 not have complained. My contention is that 
 where the majority of the population is Polish, 
 then let that territory be Polish, and become 
 
152 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 a complement of the regenerated Poland. Do 
 I think that Germany will ever again become 
 Monarchist? My answer is, Certainly. It 
 will be her salvation. And if Poland is to be 
 overrun once more by Germany in the future, 
 then for God's sake let her be overrun by 
 Monarchist troops, and not by the so-called 
 Socialists ! I have seen — we all have seen — 
 what General Hoessing, blacksmith by pro- 
 fession and obviously a butcher by inclination, 
 accomplished when he crushed the revolution 
 of maddened Poles which occurred shortly 
 after the Armistice. He was worse than 
 Suvoroff or Paskievitch. With a monarchical 
 Germany I think we could live content." 
 
 And then I queried : " And if your dreams 
 don't come true, and you don't get all you 
 want, and Eastern Silesia doesn't become 
 Polish, what then ? : He leant back in his 
 chair and smiled. " There will be,' : he said, 
 " another very bloody war.' : But as we shook 
 hands he added, " My friend, sometimes I 
 think that potatoes are infinitely preferable to 
 politics. Some day come down to my country 
 house, and we will try to forget the latter." 
 
 To say that Korfanty is the hope of Poland 
 is not to exaggerate. Impractical, impression- 
 able dreamers, the Poles have always been a 
 source of discomfort to steady-going, phleg- 
 
THE UPPER SILESIAN QUESTION 153 
 
 matic Europe — as it was. No comfortable 
 householder cares about a powder-barrel in 
 his back-yard, especially when some thought- 
 ful person has inserted a fuse. In any and 
 every circumstance Poland has always occupied 
 that rather unenviable position, because she 
 has Jacked the controlling hand of a strong 
 leader. When Poland was reconstructed, one 
 must ask oneself, Why ? It would be ridiculous 
 to suppose that the gentlemen who comprised 
 the Conference of Versailles were swayed by 
 sentiment, any more than is the bank-manager 
 from whom you ask an over- draft. There 
 must have been practical considerations, and 
 the only practical consideration which could 
 have occupied their minds was that most 
 important of all others, namely, the prevention 
 of the inrush of Bolshevism into Western 
 Europe. Germany was in the melting-pot, 
 France and Britain had their own internal 
 problems with which to deal, and as a collision 
 mat to save the Ship of State, Poland was 
 alone available. Given a strong and resus- 
 citated Poland, undoubtedly there would be a 
 buffer between the activities of MM. Lenin and 
 Trotsky and the peoples of Western Europe. 
 Poland by temperament, by history, and by 
 heredity is loyalist and royalist. That she 
 is completely impractical merely bears out 
 
154 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 the contention, for any one who studies human 
 nature realises that those whose characters 
 tend in that direction never make City mag- 
 nates. At the same time, however, they may 
 serve useful purposes, and in this direction 
 Poland may serve a very useful purpose, but 
 she must have a leader. Korfanty, by his 
 upbringing, is more or less practical. I was 
 told by a prominent Berlin politician that he 
 could be bought. That is a lie. So much 
 for Korfanty. 
 
 But the question which is uppermost in my 
 mind is, Whence has he obtained the immense 
 sums of money which obviously he had at 
 his control? Some people might hazard, 
 France — only France to-day is in a parlous 
 condition from a financial point of view. So 
 reasonably France may be crossed off the list 
 of possibilities. It might conceivably emanate 
 from the Bolsheviki at Moscow— only the 
 Poles and the Bolsheviks are sworn foes, 
 and Mr. Korfanty told me categorically that 
 he would rather be dead than see Bolshevik 
 influence extend over Western Europe, and 
 when he stated that, I sincerely believe that 
 he was telling the truth. Or again, it was 
 suggested to me that the money had been 
 supplied by the Vatican. Not because I am 
 a Roman Catholic myself, but because I know 
 
THE UPPER SILESIAN QUESTION 155 
 
 1 something of the Vatican finance, apart from 
 their diplomacy, which has usually been clean, 
 I do not credit that. Therefore, whence comes 
 the money? Obviously not from Warsaw, 
 
 i where at the present rate of exchange one 
 pound sterling is equal to over one hundred 
 pounds in Polish money. Is it just possible 
 
 I that Nesta Webster, in her remarkable book 
 upon the French Revolution, struck the right 
 note? Is it possible that the Freemasons on 
 the Continent, with whom the English Free- 
 masons have nothing in common, are at the 
 back of a great international scheme which 
 has for its end the breaking up of the whole 
 economic and social existence of present-day 
 Western Europe? To that question I prefer 
 to give no answer : but I think Korfanty 
 could. 
 
 As I write the clouds hang heavily over 
 Silesia. Korfanty is described as the new 
 d'Annunzio. But the chances of geographical 
 position, apart from the temperament of the 
 man, have rendered the action of Korfanty 's 
 supporters far more dangerous to the peace 
 of Europe. When the Allies guaranteed Poland 
 a new existence, they naturally expected 
 Poland, colloquially speaking, " to play the 
 game." Apparently Poland now disowns 
 Korfanty, and if one can believe newspaper 
 
156 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 reports, this " stormy petrel " now declares 
 that he does not care a rap about Poland. 
 Germany is placed in a most equivocal position : 
 it is a question for her, either of international 
 war, that is to say, a war against Poland, for 
 which nominally she must receive Allied per- 
 mission, or it is a question of civil war, the 
 consequences of which it is impossible to fore- 
 tell. Again, writing, as I am, far away from 
 the sphere of operations, I have only paper 
 reports to guide me, and I read that the 
 French troops, under the command of General 
 Lerond, have done little or nothing to stem 
 the Polish tide. I find this not difficult to 
 believe. During my wanderings in Silesia, 
 time and again was I struck by the unfriendli- 
 ness, I might almost use the word hostility, 
 displayed to me by the French Controls every- 
 where. At Oppeln, although I had an English 
 passport, duly vised by the necessary author- 
 ities, a French sergeant-major took the trouble 
 to examine the contents of my attache case, 
 which contained nothing more interesting than 
 a copy of one of Temple Thurston's novels just 
 issued in the Tauchnitz edition, and two letters 
 from my wife, which he perused, apparently 
 with interest. Such action, to phrase it mildly, 
 was indiscreet on the part of a soldier belonging 
 
THE UPPER SILESIAN QUESTION 157 
 
 to a friendly Power to a perfectly harmless 
 traveller. Such little straws show how the 
 wind blows. 
 
 The Poles complained that the Germans 
 were being allowed to flood back to the 
 country for the purposes of the plebiscite, 
 Germans who had no claim to be interested 
 in Silesia as Nationals, but who, by hook or 
 crook, through forgery or otherwise, had 
 obtained voting-papers. This is the sort of 
 exaggeration which passes from mouth to 
 mouth and leads to a complete misconception 
 of the state of affairs. That almost meticulous 
 care was taken by the British, I can affirm, 
 since in receiving permission myself to go 
 where I liked I was asked not to bring my 
 German secretary. Could careful observance 
 go further? The French methods towards 
 the Germans in Silesia are all on a par with 
 the methods they employed in their Rhine 
 occupied territory, with the exception, of 
 course, that there are no coloured troops. 
 
 Incidentally, however, I must remark that 
 I was a little surprised that Oppeln had been 
 chosen as the headquarters of the Inter-Allied 
 Commission. It is rather a pretty town, with 
 no other industry, I believe, than cement- 
 making. It is a considerable distance from 
 
158 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 Beuthen, which was then, and still is, I 
 imagine, the storm centre. Upper Silesia is 
 a long way from London, and what with the 
 coal strikes and the uncertainty of the labour 
 situation, questions of policy involved by 
 Germany's inability or otherwise to meet the 
 Allied demands, and the hundred and one 
 topics of local interest which fill the daily 
 papers, her claim for salvation is liable to be 
 overlooked or not understood by the general 
 public. But since it appears to me that 
 Silesia is likely to be the focal point of many 
 disturbances in the future, and since, no 
 matter what the plebiscite showed or what 
 the Allies decide as to the fate of districts like 
 Pless and Rybnik, where there is a strong 
 Polish population, nothing can alter the fact 
 that for a generation to come, and possibly 
 for even longer, there will be ill-feeling and 
 unrest betwixt the Poles and Germans. 
 
 As for an Upper Silesian Republic of its own, 
 independent both of Poland and Germany, 
 that is indeed an Utopian dream, and if 
 Korfanty has really made recently such a 
 suggestion, then I am a little disappointed in 
 one who, though a visionary, has many 
 practical characteristics. Silesia is a puzzle and 
 a problem for the future. I will leave it at that. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 FRANKFORT 
 
 The backwash of war has an unpleasant 
 habit of leaving stranded upon the beach pre- 
 cisely those classes who are least interested in 
 the causes or the carrying out of the upheaval. 
 This has been evidenced strongly in England. 
 The shopkeeping and commercial classes, the 
 workmen, artisans and miners, all find them- 
 selves to-day in comparatively comfortable 
 circumstances. Strikes need not be taken as 
 meaning that those who strike are unable to 
 live upon their wages, but rather that they 
 are unwilling to return to the normal con- 
 ditions of a country at peace. Also, there are 
 other influences at work making for industrial 
 unrest, influences foreign to this country. 
 But the people who have suffered, without 
 any doubt whatsoever, are the professional 
 world, the world of higher education, of 
 science, of research, of all those efforts re- 
 quiring the maximum of concentrated brain- 
 power, rewarded with the minimum of this 
 
 159 
 
160 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 world's goods and frequently landing the 
 owners either in great pecuniary want, or 
 even in the workhouse. And if this be true 
 of England, then it is doubly true of Germany. 
 For the category of which I am writing is, by 
 comparison, very much larger than it is in 
 England, and the average of hardship has been 
 many times multiplied. 
 
 In pre-war days Frankfort was one of the 
 most opulent towns in Germany. To-day I 
 fancy it contains as big a quantity of misery 
 as any city in the world — indecent sufferings 
 of helpless individuals which would shock 
 even the most bigoted anti-German. The 
 sight of suffering is never pleasant, but it 
 seems to me to be intensified when one realises 
 that the old man shuffling along the street, 
 trying to look respectable, with ragged trousers, 
 dirty shirt, forlorn-looking hat and down-at- 
 heel boots, with a face drawn and emaciated 
 with want, has a world-wide reputation as a 
 Professor of oriental languages ; then it is that 
 one's gorge rises and one feels inclined to 
 curse the waste of modern so-called civilisation. 
 Yet such a sight is quite common in Frankfort- 
 am-Main. 
 
 I am indebted to Miss Helen Dixon, who has 
 made a special study of this subject for the 
 
FRANKFORT 161 
 
 Quakers, for the many points she so kindly 
 gave me. I quite agree with her that it is a 
 perfectly hopeless thing to pass through any 
 German town to-day, stay at an hotel, go to 
 the theatre, watch the people having expensive 
 meals and drinking the best wines — they are 
 probably Jews from Galicia or profiteers, inci- 
 dentally — and form any just opinion as to the 
 economic conditions prevailing. It is like so 
 much window-dressing. Shops displaying food, 
 at a price ; trams rattling and banging through 
 the streets; people hurrying along the pave- 
 ments, appearing comfortably dressed. No, 
 there is nothing in that. To quote Miss 
 Dixon : " You do not see death from starva- 
 tion in a dramatic, convincing form, you do 
 not see begging in the streets (in no single 
 German town did I ever run across one 
 beggar during my tour. This is surely rather 
 a noteworthy fact). And you are not confronted 
 with pitiable sights in public, such as one 
 reads about in accounts of besieged and starving- 
 cities . No ! All the starvation is done quietly 
 and decently at home. And when death 
 comes, it comes in the form of influenza, 
 tuberculosis, heart failure, or one of the new 
 and mysterious diseases caused by the War, 
 and carries off its exhausted victims with the 
 
 L 
 
162 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 utmost ease. It is neither dramatic nor strik- 
 ing, and cannot be realised by a hasty visit." 
 This fact cannot be over-emphasised, and 
 unless one puts oneself into the hands of the 
 Quakers, or some similar organisation — if such 
 exists — it is next door to impossible to grasp 
 the significance of the true features of the 
 picture. Let me again quote Miss Dixon, for 
 she is writing here directly concerning Frank- 
 fort : " The only food that is at all reasonable 
 in price is that which is rationed and subsidised 
 by the Government. But there is not sufficient 
 of it to maintain life, even at its present low 
 state of energy. Potatoes and bread are the 
 chief items. There appears to be very little 
 nutritive value in the bread, as it consists 
 chiefly of c middlings,' with a certain quantity 
 of rye, barley and potato flour. [While I was 
 in Frankfort, with the exception of Berlin, the 
 bread was the worst I found in Germany.] 
 The potato ration was only three pounds a 
 fortnight, but even this supply stopped. On 
 one occasion a friend of mine was in a draper's 
 shop and noticed that the saleswoman took 
 little interest in the purchase and leant back 
 against the shelves when she had finished. 
 And so I asked if she had a headache. ' Oh 
 no,' said the girl, ' it is only hunger; we have 
 not got any potatoes now. : 
 
 ? ?> 
 
FRANKFORT 168 
 
 Frankfort being a great educational centre, 
 there are naturally a large number of teachers, 
 and this class has suffered, and I fear will 
 continue to suffer terribly. And I can quite 
 support Miss Dixon when she writes, " As 
 regards the teachers themselves, the salaries 
 of those in the town and State schools have 
 been raised, but in some of the private schools 
 they have not been raised since before the 
 War, and yet the average price of commodities 
 has gone up 1,744 per cent. It sounds in- 
 credible, but it is, I believe, a fact. Shirting 
 costs from 29 to 39 marks a metre ; flannelette, 
 46 marks; a small Turkish towel, 26 marks; 
 a large one, 51 marks; boots for a four-year- 
 old child, 56 marks ; for a child of eight years, 
 120 marks, and very thin prints 30 marks a 
 metre. Considering all this, it is the more 
 touching to come across instances of the 
 teachers' unselfish attitude and their careful 
 thought for the children. In one folk-school 
 certain of the teachers have been giving a cup 
 of hot cocoa made with milk to two of the 
 most needy children in each of the twenty-nine 
 school classes. Some milk had been given 
 from America, and the teachers had supplied 
 the cocoa themselves, and came early to pre- 
 pare it each morning. The milk had all been 
 exhausted when we heard of the plan, but we 
 
164 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 were able to make it possible to continue for a 
 time, and went to see it given. It appeared 
 to me that the teachers wanted the milk as 
 badly as the children. A plan has been tried 
 of hiring a former holiday home in the country 
 and taking out one class at a time to continue 
 its studies with its teacher, in the hope that 
 in the better air, and with perhaps slightly 
 better food, the boys may gain a little strength 
 before going out into the world to work. For 
 this reason the Quakers are beginning with the 
 boys of sixteen to eighteen, as it is found that 
 so many break down and go into consumption 
 directly work or hard study is undertaken. In 
 one school the master called up to me about 
 a dozen anaemic, undersized little lads to look 
 at, and there were tears in his eyes when he 
 said to me, 6 Every one of these will die of 
 tuberculosis before he is twenty ! ' " 
 
 It was this situation and the suffering among 
 the professional and educated classes which 
 influenced the Quakers to break out in a fresh 
 direction by opening a depot where food and 
 clothing could either be given away or sold at 
 a very low rate. At the end of 1920, therefore, 
 two workers went to Frankfort and started a 
 depot of stores and clothing for the benefit 
 of a certain number of professional people, 
 
 
FRANKFORT 165 
 
 teachers and doctors, etc., whose incomes had 
 not increased during the War and who were in 
 a state of semi-starvation. It must be remem- 
 bered that these were people accustomed to 
 decent and comfortable methods of living, and 
 their position can be gathered from the fact 
 that a pre-war income of £500 a year in Ger- 
 many is to-day worth under £40. It was 
 obvious from the start that all the needy 
 families concerned could not receive this 
 benefit, so a scheme was hit upon whereby 
 forty families had a right to come and purchase 
 clothing and food during a period of two 
 months, making eight visits in all. There- 
 after another set of familes would be selected, 
 and they in their turn would receive the same 
 benefits. The following are some of the cases 
 which were brought to my notice. But I 
 must add, however, that at first great difficulty 
 was experienced, because, very naturally, most 
 of the professional classes had a strong and 
 natural reluctance to accept help, lest they 
 should be considered objects of charity and 
 thereby should lose their sense of self-respect. 
 (a) Fraux had been ill for fifteen months, 
 and is a great invalid, suffering especially 
 dreadful agony at night. The two daughters 
 sleep in the same room with her and have to 
 
166 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 take measures to ease the pain every hour and 
 a half. One supports the family by teaching 
 in a school; the other, who has something the 
 matter with her neck, looks after the house 
 and the mother. They go to the depot to 
 buy the bare necessaries for the son, who is 
 learning engineering at Darmstadt. Inci- 
 dentally, for two and a half years he was a 
 prisoner of war in Basses Pyrenees, and it is 
 pleasant to be able to say that he was not at 
 all badly treated; he also added that most of 
 such stories he knew to be exaggerations. 
 
 (b) A University Professor comes to buy 
 groceries and clothing material for his wife 
 because she is too ill to come herself, and for 
 his three children, who are also all ill from 
 various forms of under-nourishment. 
 
 (c) A doctor's wife overwhelmed the manage- 
 ment of the depot with gratitude for being 
 allowed to buy white flour for a specially 
 ailing member of her family. 
 
 (d) An old lady, who naturally shall be 
 nameless, a relation of one of Germany's 
 greatest historians, came and asked pathe- 
 tically whether there would be any dripping 
 for the following week, as she could not afford 
 to buy any at the present moment. 
 
 (e) A clergyman's wife was delighted to 
 
FRANKFORT 167 
 
 buy some shirting, so that her daughter's 
 trousseau might be the richer by two articles 
 of underclothing. 
 
 (/) A schoolmaster's wife was made happy 
 because she was able to provide her student 
 son with a second shirt : he only had 
 one ! 
 
 (g) An old University professor, a lecturer 
 on science, and his wife. He had a world-wide 
 reputation for his study of pre-historic man 
 and had been adviser to many museums, 
 foreign and otherwise, in that direction, and 
 he is now absolutely destitute : buys such 
 groceries as he can from the depot. And, 
 finally, a journalist, with a delightful wife and 
 six children, all the family habitually hungry; 
 and a one-time flourishing artist, now a refugee 
 from Alsace, with a wife and two growing boys. 
 Such evidence is not pleasant reading, I will 
 admit. 
 
 More particularly so when one reflects upon 
 what one saw in the Frankforter Hof, with its 
 glitter and dazzle, its soft music and pretty 
 women, its varied menu and its dinner-tables 
 burdened with wine-bottles. The latter repre- 
 sents fictitious Germany, the Germany which 
 is trying to forget, or which does not care and 
 whose motto is, " Eat, drink and be merry, for 
 
168 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 to-morrow we die. v It is the Germany which 
 is not worth salving, the empty husks of what 
 has been. The former, on the contrary, repre- 
 sents everything which should be salved in the 
 interests of Germany herself and of Europe. 
 It represents the vital force in her spine, 
 without which she must become debilitated, 
 worn out and useless. It is something to 
 know that a start has been made and that 
 good fruit is already being borne, as a result 
 of the effort. 
 
 There is another very interesting feature in 
 Frankfort, or, I should say, near the town, 
 which throws a lurid light upon the benefits 
 which have accrued to Alsace and Lorraine 
 through French occupation. Baldly stated, 
 up to the end of April, 1920, there were 
 over 120,000 refugees from that area into 
 Germany. Heaven knows how many there 
 are to-day. But as far as one can hear, the 
 cry is, " Still they come." The fact of the 
 matter appears to me that, except for the 
 comparatively small proportion of pure- 
 blooded French who are to be found in these 
 provinces, the remainder were neither fish, 
 flesh, fowl nor good red herring. In the pre- 
 war days, if one questioned an Alsatian waiter 
 in a London restaurant and asked him what 
 
FRANKFORT 169 
 
 he was, after summing you up and deciding 
 whether you were English or American or 
 German or Turk, he would suit his nationality 
 to the occasion and say, I am a German 
 Alsatian, or a French Alsatian, as might be 
 the case. Probably the truth lies about half- 
 way; as long as they had peace and a quiet 
 life they did not much care to whom they 
 owed allegiance. Occasionally the Germans 
 were either indiscreet or brutal, which aroused 
 local passions and gave the French an excel- 
 lent opportunity for propaganda work. Equally 
 'there was always a certain appeal to some 
 natures in being in a position to say something 
 akin to this, " Of course, nominally I am a 
 Britisher, but if I have half a chance I shall 
 take out nationalisation papers in the United 
 States." Ninety-nine per cent, of them do not 
 'really mean what they say, but it gives them 
 la species of exultant satisfaction to be " agin 
 |the Government." Certainly the figures I 
 quote do not appear to show that, shorn of 
 German domination, the population desire to 
 make no change, and one cannot help but 
 wonder why the report I have seen closes with 
 jthe following sinister words : "In most cases 
 all the furniture and possessions of these 
 refugees had to be left behind (except what 
 
170 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 they could carry) when they were turned out 
 by the French." Note the verb, " turned 
 out." Why were they turned out? Turning 
 out 120,000 people, destitute and homeless, 
 forcing them across the frontier into a country 
 which is already destitute of many of the most 
 essential features of the most ordinary life, 
 demands a great deal of explanation. 
 
 Apologists will, of course, say that the 
 Germans did the same in Belgium. The cases, 
 however, are not parallel. In the one case, 
 there was a war in process, and the invaders 
 sent the invaded across the frontier, pre- 
 sumably as a precautionary measure, but the 
 deported knew full well that with the end of 
 the War they would return to their homes. 
 That the action was inhuman, not to say 
 brutal, is true. That the empty homes in 
 many cases may have been spoilt, I do not deny, 
 though I have never seen that stated in print. 
 But what does the French action connote? 
 Hundreds of families, with a stroke of the pen, 
 are swept across from their homes into an 
 inhospitable country, whence there is no return. 
 Irrespective of age, sex or health, they must 
 face life all over again, and either build up or 
 fall fainting by the roadside to die. In the 
 craze for propaganda which is sweeping across 
 
FRANKFORT 171 
 
 the world nowadays, anything which is un- 
 pleasant reading as to the action of a momen- 
 tary friend is quickly banished, either to the 
 waste-paper basket or to a pigeon-hole, which 
 is labelled, " Not to be used " till the time 
 arrives ! And so the result is that the great 
 public, which has not the leisure to inquire too 
 closely, is persistently fed upon half-truths, 
 or else no truths at all. Imagination, coupled 
 with some education, can fabricate wonderfully 
 plausible facts for unofficial consumption. 
 
 And there is this to be said further. The 
 Quakers as a body have, vulgarly speaking, no 
 fish to fry by either elaboration or exaggera- 
 tion. They happen to consider it their duty 
 to their fellow-men to assuage suffering, and, 
 as far as their pockets will permit, to put 
 into practical politics the teachings of the 
 Redeemer. Therefore, as witnesses for the 
 prosecution — though they have no desire to 
 prosecute, and they would have to appear 
 under subpoena — their evidence is damning. 
 
 With this influx of refugees something had to 
 be done, since, if the Germans are unable to 
 feed their own poor, how on earth are they 
 going to feed these other unfortunates? 
 Various efforts were made, and as a small 
 start the Quakers opened a farm colony in 
 
172 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 the villages, or rather mountain hamlets, of 
 Lettgen-Brunn and Vilbach, some thirty miles 
 from Frankfort. In 1911 these hamlets had 
 been taken over by the Germans as military 
 sanatoria, when the original inhabitants were 
 turned out and compensated. In 1920, how- 
 ever, when the camp was no longer needed, it 
 was offered for settlement purposes to the 
 officials in charge of the Alsace-Lorraine 
 refugees, of whom, at that time, Frankfort 
 was entertaining no less than 30,000, whilst 
 others were on their way to the unknown and 
 probably inhospitable waste lands of Prussia. 
 Happily the offer was accepted, and the 
 settlers, being provided with a stock of im- 
 plements and a little money for the journey, 
 made their way as best they could to their 
 new mountain home. Miss Dixon travelled 
 with one party, amongst whom was a family 
 of twelve who had been living in one room in 
 barracks for over nine months. 
 
 It does not require great strength of imagina- 
 tion to picture the glorious content which 
 must have entered into those poor people's 
 souls when they saw the pine-clad valleys, 
 fragrant with that curious essence of pine 
 which, borne on the breeze, makes one want 
 to breathe and breathe and breathe again. 
 
FRANKFORT 173 
 
 Incidentally, therein, as I know full well, lies 
 the fascination of Northern Russia. 
 
 For the benefit of those who may happen to 
 ; visit Frankfort, I would say that this little 
 i settlement is in the Spessart district, and is 
 six miles from the nearest town and railway 
 station of Bad Orb. A small stream meanders 
 i through the village street of Lettgen-Brunn, 
 ! under tiny footbridges leading to the houses. 
 j These are none of your jerry-built monstrosi- 
 ties, out of all keeping with the picture, but 
 quaint stone and timbered buildings, standing 
 1 on the pastured slopes. By a scheme of pay- 
 \ ments approved by the German Government, 
 this pastureland becomes the refugees' in- 
 ! dividual property in 1923, and it is hoped that 
 by that time they will have made enough money 
 to buy some sheep or live-stock of some sort. 
 At present they are not quite self-supporting, 
 but everything points to the fact that they 
 soon will be. To-day each household has a 
 pig, some fowls and a small strip of private 
 ground; whilst the remainder of the land is 
 held communally, with the four cows and six 
 horses and implements which form the stand- 
 by of the village. In effect, whether wittingly 
 or no, the Quakers have copied the old- 
 fashioned system of the " Mir," which was 
 
174 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 formally the groundwork of the village social 
 system in Russia. There is a small church 
 where Protestant and Catholic services are 
 held on alternate Sundays, though there is as 
 yet no resident clergyman. A schoolmaster 
 has been found and a library and other school 
 requirements have been given privately by 
 friends. Miss Dixon wrote that it was very 
 pleasant to see how quickly the settlers turned 
 to and tidied up the over-grown graveyard 
 and tended to the graves of several Russian 
 prisoners of war who have found resting-places 
 there. These perished from that same epidemic 
 of starvation, influenza, which decimated the 
 population of the German towns. Last summer 
 it was reported to me that before the school- 
 master arrived the children spent their time in 
 picking bilberries for jam and to sell. Already 
 they are looking much better than the non- 
 refugee children of Frankfort. This is worth 
 notice. They are, however, very bare of 
 everything save the most absolutely necessary 
 furniture and utensils, and many a woman is 
 obliged to sit idle and look at her rusty stove, 
 stained floor, and worn-out garments, for lack 
 of means to buy blacklead, soap and mending 
 material. It stands to reason that this effort 
 is but a drop in the ocean, but it should be 
 
FRANKFORT 175 
 
 understood that it is British effort, for the 
 Quakers are the first people in the world to 
 admit that they do get assistance from all 
 sorts of sources, though, needless to add, not 
 so much as they would like. Here is good, 
 sound, constructive policy, which is urgently 
 in need of further assistance. 
 
 It is perfectly correct that large areas of 
 France need reconstruction, but I doubt 
 whether any of her citizens whom war has 
 dispossessed of their belongings are to-day 
 suffering such great straits as these Alsatian 
 refugees. In the first place, quite rightly, 
 many English towns have adopted French 
 villages which have been ruined, and money 
 has literally been poured out like water by the 
 British in the attempt to heal France's war 
 agonies. But, as Mr. Lloyd George very truth- 
 fully said, when speaking at Maidstone in the 
 month of May, now that the War is over and 
 [Germany crushed, if she will but accept the 
 reasonable demands made upon her by the 
 Allies, then by no means is it British policy 
 to kick her when she is down. On the 
 contrary, it must be our policy reasonably 
 :o assist her to face the problems, social and 
 Economic, with which she is confronted. After 
 ;hree years, surely the passions of the moment 
 
176 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 have evaporated, and it is possible calmly to 
 view the facts of the situation. Frankfort is 
 only about six hours from Cologne, whither 
 so many English are now wending their way. 
 And I confidently believe that if more people 
 grasped what was being accomplished on a 
 small scale amongst these people, they would 
 make their way thither, see for themselves 
 and come back with a better realisation of 
 what humanity spells. 
 
 It may seem to some readers that I have 
 dealt too particularly with the work of the 
 Quakers in Germany; but it must be pointed 
 out first, that in considering the state of the 
 country at present, it is absolutely impossible 
 to disregard the influence of the Quakers 
 upon the general situation. I must emphasise 
 to the fullest extent what I have already 
 touched upon, namely the moral effect of 
 Quaker action upon the German people. At 
 the present it is American Quakerdom which 
 is everywhere supposed to have been respon- 
 sible for the wonderful work which has been 
 accomplished. That Britain has done her 
 share is either not known or ignored. I think 
 the majority of the people are quite ignorant as 
 to the facts of the case. This is a great pity. 
 One picks up paper after paper in Germany 
 
FRANKFORT 177 
 
 and one finds nothing therein but quotations 
 from irresponsible publicists in England, con- 
 signing Germany, her land and her works to 
 eternal perdition. That is not to our interests. 
 The better the understanding that we have 
 with Germany, now that she has come to terms 
 with us, the better it will be for us economically, 
 while the need for a strong stable Power in 
 Central Europe becomes more and more 
 apparent every day. 
 
 There are whispers again of trouble in the 
 Balkans, that ever-recurrent theme which must 
 perplex and tire the diplomatists of all countries. 
 
 There is the Silesian question, which promises 
 to be a source of trouble for many years to 
 come. 
 
 There are Lithuania, Esthonia, Finland, 
 Hungary, Poland, Czecho - Slovackia, Yugo- 
 slavia, all of them scrambling for something 
 I or other, like so many boys in a tuckshop ; 
 ! while Europe stands looking on, like a very 
 ! undignified schoolmaster, offering endless 
 | advice and accomplishing nothing. A solidi- 
 fied Germany, with sufficient strength behind 
 her to enable her to maintain her own dignity 
 ; prestige and to insist upon obedience, not alone 
 to her own orders, but to the orders of the 
 Great Powers, would be an invaluable asset. 
 
 M 
 
178 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 Now the first step towards that desirable 
 consummation is to make the man in the 
 street understand that post-war Germany is 
 not in the least like the Germany of pre-war 
 days. She has lived through that era and 
 has suffered, and is suffering at the present 
 time. Later she will emerge a very different 
 State and one with which there is no earthly 
 reason why we should not be on friendly terms. 
 I am reminded of a picture which appeared in 
 Punch some years ago, and which always 
 appealed to me because it epitomised so 
 succinctly the general attitude, or rather the 
 want of knowledge of foreign things and 
 people, possessed by the man in the street. 
 Two obvious Frenchmen meet at a street 
 corner and embrace. Speaking almost at the 
 same time, one says to the other, " Mon cher 
 Alphonse ! " The other exclaims, " Mon cher 
 Francois ! " The remark of a passing coal- 
 heaver is : " Blasted Germans ! " 
 
 Perhaps the War has quickened up public 
 intelligence in such matters, but at the same 
 time it has certainly speeded up prejudice, 
 and, after all, it is only natural that the ordinary 
 reader should take his or her opinion from the 
 daily paper, which finds its way into the par- 
 sonage or the doctor's house or the shop or 
 
FRANKFORT 179 
 
 the factory. Thus is public opinion formed ! 
 Balanced judgment is rather uncommon, and, 
 when delivered, is usually unpopular ; but there 
 is one thing about the British in which we 
 stand pre-eminent : we have a good deal of 
 common sense, combined with sympathy. 
 Use both these qualities in combination and 
 study the German situation, and I feel con- 
 fident that the verdict of the public will be : 
 " Don't humiliate— help." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 BERLIN 
 
 It is not incorrect to assert that the capital 
 of a country is never typical of the country 
 itself. From the nature of things it must 
 necessarily be cosmopolitan. It is the hub 
 of a people. It is the home of its foreign 
 relationships. It is the kernel of economic 
 and financial life. It is usually the gathering 
 point of its politicians and law-makers, and what 
 it says to-day, the rest of the land agrees on 
 to-morrow. Perhaps ! It rather prides itself 
 upon being cosmopolitan and upon being in a 
 position to say : "I represent one nation, but I 
 am in touch with and understand all." It em- 
 braces every known political cult; it supplies 
 food for every conceivable thought, philosophical 
 or otherwise, and within its walls can be found 
 shrines devoted to the worship of any creed 
 devised by the mind of man. Hence, no 
 capital can be called actually distinctive, but 
 from its very cosmopolitanism it is possible 
 to gauge the temperament of its citizens, 
 
 180 
 
BERLIN 181 
 
 the strength of their prejudices, the activities 
 of their consciences, the trend of their opinions 
 and possibly discover something of the soul 
 of the people. 
 
 Berlin to-day is no more German in char- 
 acter, as far as its fashionable districts are 
 concerned, than Paris, London or New York. 
 One may dine at the Adlon or the Esplanade 
 and forget one's surroundings and think one- 
 self back in one's own country. In point of 
 fact, the illusion at the Esplanade is uncommonly 
 easy, since the furniture has all been formerly 
 in use at one of the Carlton Hotel Company's 
 caravanserais, I think at Hamburg. So the 
 palm-garden and the restaurant breathe an 
 atmosphere of London, heightened by the sight 
 of a number of familiar faces. For the moment 
 one wonders where one could possibly have 
 seen them before, and then memory comes 
 to the rescue. Here are all the old staffs of 
 pre-war days from the Carlton, the Savoy, 
 the Berkeley and Claridge's. There is nothing 
 to show that Germany has ever been at war. 
 The place is always crammed with that wonder- 
 ful medley of nationalities which must ever 
 hold the subtle fascination for the onlooker 
 possessed of some slight sense of romance. 
 One wonders what they are all doing in Berlin ; 
 
182 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 all apparently with unlimited cash to burn, 
 as the saying is, the ladies spattered with 
 diamonds, the rubber-laid courtyard outside 
 blocked with the most extravagant automobiles, 
 the steady hum of voices only broken by the 
 wailing melody of some weird gypsy song 
 played by an inimitable orchestra. Is this 
 an Aladdin's palace? Can it be that one is 
 actually pausing momentarily in the popular 
 rendezvous of a beaten and nearly bankrupt 
 nation? It seems impossible, incredible, 
 foolish. Or is it that some merciful anodyne 
 had of necessity to be discovered to dull the 
 bitterness of thought and anguish of mind? 
 And then suddenly one comes upon a glaring 
 inconsequence which brings one back with 
 a jerk to present realities. Neatly framed 
 notices are exposed everywhere : outside the 
 cloakroom, outside the bedroom doors — every- 
 where, in fact, where they may catch the eye 
 of the visitor. They run as follows : 
 
 "TAKE CARE. THIEVES. 
 
 " Please in no circumstances place either 
 your clothes for valeting or your boots for 
 cleaning outside your bedroom doors, but 
 give them direct into the hands of some hotel 
 servant. 
 
BERLIN 183 
 
 " In no circumstances leave your rooms with- 
 out the doors being locked, when the key should 
 be given to the hall porter. Even so, port- 
 manteaux, bags and personal luggage should 
 always be packed every morning and the 
 articles locked. 
 
 " Never leave your hat, coat or stick in the 
 lounge or in any other place used by visitors. 
 
 " Any one who does not follow out these 
 instructions renders himself liable to attention 
 by thieves, and the hotel management cannot, 
 in such circumstances, be expected to take 
 any responsibilities." 
 
 I asked the maitre d'hotel whether these 
 cautions were really necessary in admittedly 
 one of the best Berlin hotels, and his reply was : 
 " That is exactly why we have to be so careful. 
 Germany is simply full of the 6 swell mob \ 
 of all countries, the riff-raff of the Orient and 
 undesirables by the score from South America. 
 You cannot tell a Cabinet Minister from a 
 card-sharper at the present day in a place 
 like this, and in my belief it is getting worse 
 instead of better." I believe that statement 
 to be correct. 
 
 Crimes of violence are increasing by leaps 
 and bounds in districts like Charlottenberg 
 
184 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 and Wilmersdorf, both fashionable suburbs; 
 women unattended dare not go out after dark, 
 and murder of the grossest type has become 
 even more prevalent than it is in Chicago, 
 which at the present moment holds the world's 
 record in this desirable pastime ! Now the 
 point which may be made is this : the Esplan- 
 ade, with its cosmopolitan throng, its dances, 
 and its debauches, together with the Berlin 
 gun-men, their automatic pistols and their 
 decoy girls, are both symptomatic of a feeling 
 of emotional unrestraint, consequent upon the 
 uncertainty of the future, the realisation of 
 defeat and the break-up of all traditional 
 custom. It is as though the city had drifted 
 back a thousand years into a stage of primitive 
 passion, masked by the veneer of centuries 
 of mechanical and scientific appliances ren- 
 dered necessary by modern usage. 
 
 I spent the evening of March 5th watching 
 a performance of the operetta " Zigeunerblut." 
 It has been my lot to be present in many places 
 where, so to speak, there was electricity in the air. 
 Any great occasion is marked by a nervous 
 tension which communicates itself from person 
 to person by some sort of mental telepathy. 
 And so it was on that Saturday night. On 
 the following Monday it was to be known 
 
BERLIN 185 
 
 whether the mission of Dr. Simons to Lon- 
 don had been successful, or, even if not success- 
 ful, whether his counter-proposals had received 
 consideration or would receive consideration. 
 It made one acutely uncomfortable. Scraps 
 of conversation reached one's ears : nothing 
 about the excellent performance — solely and 
 only about what would happen to Germany 
 in the future. Some hazarded the theory 
 i that the German working-men would never 
 submit to the demands of the Allies, and that 
 rather than do so they would starve. And 
 1 others openly said, " Let them come to Berlin. 
 We don't care. They cannot do any more 
 to us, and as it is we haven't much to live for.' 
 The conductor in the entr^acte gave his opinion 
 to a lady in the front row of the stalls, and 
 i suggested that, if there were a levee en masse, 
 i the Allied troops would find it a hopeless task 
 | absolutely to break the determination of sixty- 
 : five million people. Of course, there was 
 \ abundance of wild talk, but it all showed the 
 i tremendous nervous strain under which Berlin 
 i was working. From what I have heard at 
 a later date, feelings ran very high, chiefly 
 because the masses thought that their case 
 had been stated very badly before the Tribunal 
 of International Justice. And they realised 
 
186 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 fully that they were on the verge of the desert, 
 that they were about to traverse an extremely 
 lonely trail. This rendered them irritable, 
 intractable, excited, irresponsible even for their 
 actions. 
 
 Similarly the increase in eroticism and blatant 
 prostitution can be traced to the same cause, 
 but this subject I discuss at full length in the 
 chapter dealing with Post-War Germany. I 
 merely mention it here because nowhere does 
 one meet with vice more prominently than in 
 the expensive Berlin hotels, which encourage 
 it rather than otherwise. There is one point 
 which may be made here, and which may be 
 of assistance to travellers in the future. It 
 is quite a mistake to imagine that by staying 
 at a second-class hotel or by dining in a cheap 
 restaurant — cheap so called — one saves any 
 money. Rather is the result contrariwise. 
 The paucity of buildings in the Berlin area 
 has forced people into the hotels, with the 
 result that it is as difficult to obtain a room 
 in a third-class hotel as it is in a first-class, 
 and, as might be expected, the proprietors 
 have not been slow to note this, and in con- 
 sequence have levelled up their prices all round. 
 I tried a second-class hotel with a very indiffer- 
 ent reputation and where things were both 
 
BERLIN 187 
 
 slipshod and not cleanly. The cost of my 
 room was exactly similar to what I paid at 
 the Esplanade, under the control of " Jacques " 
 of the Carlton in London of pre-war days. 
 I lunched many times in cheap restaurants 
 and did not save appreciably over my bill. 
 Of course, this applies to the West end of 
 Berlin, and not to the poorer quarters. But 
 to give an idea of the cost of an ordinary dinner 
 in Berlin to-day, obtained from a similar sort 
 of house to Lyons' Popular Cafe, I may quote 
 the following. I started with a couple of eggs, 
 a la russe, that is to say, hard-boiled eggs 
 with a little mayonnaise sauce, and behold, 
 the charge was 18 marks. To follow I had 
 a veal cutlet, which cost 66 marks. The 
 cheapest feature of the meal was a half-bottle 
 of wine at 15 marks. Altogether, including 
 a cup of coffee, the bill amounted to about 
 100 marks, which, even at our rate of exchange, 
 approximates ten shillings, while the German 
 value would be certainly over a pound. Hence, 
 the cheapest restaurants are only suited to 
 people who have got a considerable amount 
 of spare cash. The natural query then is, 
 Who are these people? It might have been 
 expected that since, as I have already said, 
 there was practically no difference between 
 
188 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 second- and first-class restaurants, the most 
 fashionable would have been chosen. No, 
 these people belong to the abominable profiteer- 
 ing class, of whom there are plenty in Germany, 
 and who, owing to their social upbringing, 
 do not feel themselves happy in surroundings 
 to which they have never been accustomed. 
 Though it is rare, in some hotels in Berlin 
 the English are not received as guests in any 
 circumstances, so I was told. I met with 
 particular trouble at Stuttgart, where I 
 arrived very late at night and thoroughly 
 worn-out. I applied at three hotels, and at 
 each was turned down for no other reason than 
 that I was an Englishman. I certainly remon- 
 strated, and was met with one response, 
 " Imagine a German who wants to find a 
 room in a London hotel. What sort of recep- 
 tion does he receive? From experience we 
 know that he is not a persona grata, for we 
 have a relative who, after searching in vain 
 for rooms, had to spend the night in the railway 
 station." Perhaps this is correct, and I have 
 heard the remark myself made hundreds of 
 times in England by hotel proprietors and 
 managers in fashionable places, " We would 
 not have any Germans here if they came. 
 We don't want them." 
 
 
BERLIN 189 
 
 I suppose, sauce for the goose being sauce 
 for the gander, it is rather futile to complain 
 of the matter. And again it is seldom that 
 one meets with such a reception. Only it is 
 surprising, because if the English are the best 
 sailors in the world, the French the best cooks, 
 the Americans the best business men, then 
 most assuredly the Germans are the best 
 hotel managers, and from a business point of 
 view one would have imagined that they would 
 have been glad to take in the devil himself, 
 so long as that gentleman paid handsomely 
 for it. 
 
 However, since Berlin contains other quarters 
 than those in which are to be found hotels, 
 it may be of interest to pay a visit to its Nord 
 district, wherein the very poor find their 
 domicile. One then begins to wonder whether 
 there are only two classes in Berlin, the very 
 rich and the very poor, which, as I have 
 emphasised elsewhere, means no social dis- 
 tinction whatsoever. For among the very 
 poor are the great bulk of the " intellectuals " 
 of the German " Reich." Outwardly the Nord 
 district of Berlin is no whit different from its 
 more opulent neighbours, though it may be 
 compared with Hoxton or Shadwell as regards 
 its rents, its internal squalor and its poverty. 
 
190 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 As I write, externally there is nothing to show 
 this. The streets are wide and tree-lined; 
 the footpaths are broad and kept in excellent 
 condition; the houses, of six or seven or even 
 more storeys, are built upon the plan common 
 to all German cities, which gives an appearance 
 of solidity and strength not unmixed with 
 some sense of architectural proportion. In 
 fact, to the casual visitor who happened to be 
 driving past they would appear to be eminently 
 desirable residences. But there the local con- 
 trol ends. It is not the business of the muni- 
 cipality to keep the interiors of the flats or 
 tenement rooms in order, and it certainly 
 does not and cannot provide furniture or food 
 for the lodgers. Inside these tenements one 
 comes face to face with " poor " Berlin. 
 Whole families crowd into one room which, 
 though clean — for the Germans are a cleanly 
 race — will be devoid of everything in the nature 
 of furniture except an old pallet-bed, a bare 
 table, a couple of chairs and a few bits of 
 crockeryware. Everything else will have gone 
 to the pawnshop long ago. 
 
 Supposing, for instance, the father of the 
 family to be a tramwayman : he receives a 
 salary of 1,000 marks a month. Before he 
 draws this wage he must pay 10 per cent, of 
 
 
 
BERLIN 191 
 
 it away in indemnity tax, and, since Germany 
 has now agreed to the Allied demands, it 
 would not be surprising were this 10 per cent, 
 increased to 15 or even, perchance, to 20. 
 However, we will consider the situation on 
 the 10 per cent, basis, which leaves him 900 
 marks. From this 900 marks he must again 
 deduct 8 per cent, on Sick Insurance and Old 
 Age Pension, which will leave him 820 marks. 
 To travel on a tram to his work he will have 
 to pay at least a mark each way, making 12 
 marks a week, or 48 marks a month ; call it 50. 
 A residue is left of 770 marks, and the end 
 is not there. For practically every purchase 
 that he makes an ad valorem tax is now put 
 against it, running the prices up to an impossible 
 extent. Yet upon that 770 marks a month 
 he has to live himself, keep his wife and how- 
 ever many children he may possess — on the 
 ;average about three — clothe them, feed them, 
 house them and not allow them to get ill, 
 if possible, for that literally spells the end of 
 his story. 
 
 The hospitals in Berlin have no more 
 iccommodation ! Is it small wonder that 
 l:here is a strong Communistic element in 
 Berlin, and that ever and anon it flashes 
 nto flame and for some hours the streets in 
 
192 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 these quarters run blood ? It is the bitterness 
 of knowing that the responsibility of this 
 suffering lies not with them, but with their 
 former Imperial leaders. Had they gone into 
 the War with a light heart against an hereditary 
 enemy with whom they had long-outstanding 
 wrongs to right, and whose very existence 
 seemed to threaten theirs, the matter would 
 have been different. But these unfortunate 
 folk had no quarrel with England, in fact 
 they knew little about her, except when some 
 noisy Trade Union delegate from Great Britain 
 came to Berlin to preach sedition to the working 
 class, to stir up ill-feeling against the bureau- 
 cracy and generally to cause a maximum of 
 distrust on all sides with the minimum of 
 reason. 
 
 Consider the matter from another point of 
 view. What labouring man with a comfortable 
 home, even though it be a humble one, desires 
 to leave it for the adventure of fighting in a 
 war? Clearly none in his senses. If there is 
 any excitement or any glory to be gained, 
 then the politicians, the diplomatists and the 
 commanding officers partake of it; the rank 
 and file receiving plenty of kicks, but very few 
 halfpennies. Naturally, promises are strewn 
 before them at every turn of the road, and the 
 
BERLIN 193 
 
 unfortunate part of it is that human nature, 
 being so gullible, accepts these promises at 
 face value. This is not a pleasant theme to 
 pursue, for have we not before us to-day the 
 spectre of the disillusioned soldiers of Great 
 Britain who fought cheerfully on the right side — 
 of that there can be no possible argument — 
 and who now find themselves derelict by the 
 roadside ! In Germany the case is precisely 
 the same, only that the iron discipline to which 
 the masses had always been subjected by the 
 ruling classes, bereft them at the time of articu- 
 late protest. This should be fully grasped, 
 for what applies to Berlin applies to most of 
 the great industrial centres, and though in the 
 past it may have been agreeable and easy 
 propaganda to lay the blame of all the suffering 
 at the doors of Great Britain through the use 
 she made of her Navy in the blockade, yet 
 to-day the masses have grown not only to be 
 articulate, but to be thoughtful, and are dis- 
 covering how they have been duped by their 
 leaders. 
 
 Could any soil be found more fertile for 
 Messrs. Lenin and Braunstein Trotsky? The 
 ivery fact that the German masses are thought- 
 ful and that Bolshevik propaganda is plausible 
 renders them all the more liable to accept it. 
 
 I N 
 
194 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 But I have confidence, personally, in the 
 commonsense of the German working-man, 
 and as soon as he feels that he has got a lead 
 from his Government to follow, and that in 
 honour bound he must exert himself for the 
 weal of his country and for its regeneration, 
 then I think that the bait of the agitator will 
 cease to attract him. At the present moment 
 the German artisan is passing through a terrible 
 experience, and, since family feeling is perhaps 
 stronger in Germany than elsewhere, the suffer- 
 ings of his children have wrung his heart and 
 the alleviation of these sufferings has filled 
 him with a profound gratitude, the depth 
 of which it is not easy to assess. It seems to 
 me apposite here that I should give the history 
 of the work of the American Child Relief 
 Mission to Germany, as supplied to me by Mr. 
 Alfred G. Scattergood, to whose good offices 
 I am greatly indebted. 
 
 Origin. — The Mission had its origin in the 
 offer made in November 1919 by Mr. Herbert 
 Hoover to the American Friends' Service 
 Committee to turn over to it the work of feeding 
 the under-nourished children and mothers of 
 Germany, in the same way that he was already 
 feeding the children and mothers of other 
 European countries, through the European 
 
BERLIN 195 
 
 Children's Fund. The work was gladly under- 
 taken by the American Friends' Service Com- 
 mittee upon the understanding that, in addition 
 to being a mere feeding operation, it might 
 also be the expression of a real message of goodwill 
 and encouragement from Americans to the German 
 people in their time of sore trial (the italics 
 are my own), just as the Quaker Missions 
 have gone to France and other countries in 
 their hour of need. 
 
 Basis of Work. — The basis of the work is 
 fundamentally religious. It is an attempt to 
 1 put into practice the belief of the Society of 
 Friends that lasting good can only be accom- 
 plished, not by war and violence, but by love 
 and service, and to apply to the present world 
 situation the essential principles of Christianity. 
 
 Scope. — The original mission, composed of 
 fifteen Americans — all volunteers — arrived in 
 Germany in January 1920. The actual feeding 
 commenced on February 26th, and has since 
 continued uninterruptedly. There was a drop 
 in numbers during the summer months, due 
 to school vacations and to easier food con- 
 ditions during that period. During the week 
 of January 10th-16th 528,899 children and 
 mothers -were fed in 5,076 feeding places in 
 669 cities, towns and suburbs, which, on account 
 
 • 
 
196 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 of the German plan of separate municipal 
 organisations for the suburbs of large cities, 
 means about 300 different communities through- 
 out Germany. The cooking for this operation 
 is being done in 1,468 kitchens. 
 
 Funds. — The necessary funds, except as noted 
 below, have been furnished by the American 
 Relief Administration, European Children's 
 Fund, Chairman, Herbert Hoover, and by 
 contributions from Americans of all circles. 
 Up to December 1st, 1920, approximately 
 $4,250,000 had been contributed by the 
 European Children's Fund, and approximately 
 $900,000 by general contributors, and, in addi- 
 tion, $144,000, profits from the sale of food 
 drafts in Germany, was contributed by the 
 American Relief Administration. (It is impos- 
 sible to give figures for January 1st, as a wide 
 campaign for funds is being carried on, in 
 co-operation with other American relief agencies 
 from December 19th to January 19th, for which 
 returns are not yet available.) Funds for 
 operation in the British occupied territory, 
 known as Cologne District No. 2, which began 
 to feed on December 1st, 1920, and where we 
 hope to feed 20,000 mothers and children, come 
 from British sources, and are collected by the 
 Friends' Emergency and War Victims' Relief 
 
BERLIN 
 
 197 
 
 Committee. The foreign personnel working 
 there are British, and are supplied by the same 
 Committee. 
 
 Overhead Expenses. — The overhead expenses 
 of the Mission are all paid from funds of the 
 American Friends' Service Committee. Funds 
 from general contributors are used solely for 
 the purchase of food. 
 
 Purchase and Shipment of Food. — The food 
 is, for the most part, purchased in America, 
 and the costs of transportation and insurance 
 to Hamburg have been paid by the European 
 Children's Fund. Our prospective programme 
 of 700,000 children requires 126 tons of food- 
 stuffs daily. Up to January 1st, 1921, about 
 17,460 tons of foodstuffs have arrived in Ham- 
 burg as follows : 
 
 Lard . 
 
 , 1,360 tons 
 
 Cocoa . 
 
 552 „ 
 
 Sugar . . * 
 
 909 „ 
 
 Condensed Milk 
 
 . 3,321 „ 
 
 Evaporated Milk 
 
 1,488 „ 
 
 Rice . 
 
 1,962 „ 
 
 Flour . 
 
 4,867 „ 
 
 Peas . 
 
 1,128 „ 
 
 Beans . 
 
 1,873 „ 
 
 
 17,460 tons 
 
 Distribution in Germany. — The food is dis- 
 tributed in Germany under the direction and 
 
198 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 control of the Mission in the form of one meal a 
 day (Sunday excepted) to under-nourished chil- 
 dren and expectant and nursing mothers. The 
 children of six to fourteen years of age are fed 
 in the schools, the younger children and mothers 
 in kindergartens and other similar institutions. 
 Our operations have recently been extended 
 to include boys and girls between the fifteenth 
 and eighteenth birthdays who are for the most 
 part employed in some form of industry. The 
 details of the cooking and distribution of 
 the food in each city are carried out by repre- 
 sentatives, non-sectarian, non-political local 
 German committees or by the cities' Welfare 
 Departments. The general method of opera- 
 tion in a large city is that the food is cooked 
 in a few large central kitchens and distributed 
 in thermos kettles to the various feeding centres. 
 Two of the kitchens in Berlin cook for 29,000 
 and 53,000 children respectively. In Essen 
 the central kitchen cooks for 20,000. 
 
 Cost of Distribution. — The cost of unloading, 
 storing, insuring and transporting the food 
 from Hamburg to cities where distribution 
 is made is borne by the German Government 
 and by the local committees. The cost of 
 storing, cooking and distributing the food in 
 each city is borne by the city or by the local 
 
BERLIN 199 
 
 committee. These costs are partially defrayed 
 by a charge of not more than 40 pfennigs per 
 meal made by the local committees, and by 
 the salvage of the sacks, cans and containers 
 in which the food has been shipped. 
 
 German Personnel. — In addition to the office 
 assistants employed by the Mission, between 
 20,000 and 25,000 Germans are engaged in the 
 cooking and distribution of the food and in 
 the inspections of kitchens and feeding centres. 
 Many of these are volunteers who work in 
 close co-operation with our district offices. 
 
 Selection of Children and Mothers. — The chil- 
 dren and mothers to be fed are selected by 
 physicians solely on the basis of under-nourish- 
 ment in accordance with regulations laid down 
 by the leading child specialists of Germany. 
 No distinction is made on account of politics, 
 religion or social position. In this matter 
 efforts are constantly being directed toward 
 making a more uniform standard of selection 
 for the many physicians involved. 
 
 Menus.— The meals of the school children 
 consist of one-half litre portions of cocoa, 
 rice, pea or bean soup, milk, rice, etc., usually 
 accompanied four times a week by white bread, 
 rolls or biscuits. These meals contain on an 
 average 667 calories each, though mothers 
 
200 
 
 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 receive a somewhat larger portion of about 
 800 calories. Children under six receive three- 
 fifths of the standard portion. The menus 
 are prepared under the direction of expert 
 dietitians. 
 
 Control and Direction. — There are now about 
 thirty-six members of the Mission directing 
 the operations in Germany. Its headquarters 
 are at Berlin and its transportation office 
 at Hamburg. The following district offices 
 are also maintained : 
 
 District. 
 
 Territory. 
 
 District Office. 
 
 1. 
 
 Ruhr, Westphalia, Belgian oc- 
 
 
 
 cupied territory. 
 
 Essen 
 
 2. 
 
 English occupied territory. 
 
 Coin 
 
 3. 
 
 Hamburg, North Prussia, 
 
 
 
 Mecklenburg, etc. 
 
 Hamburg 
 
 4. 
 
 Brandenburg, Pomerania, 
 North Saxony (Prov.), East 
 
 
 
 Prussia, Danzig. 
 
 Berlin 
 
 5. 
 
 West Saxony, Thuringia, etc. 
 
 Leipzig 
 
 6. 
 
 Hessen, Baden, Wurttemberg, 
 French and American occu- 
 
 
 
 pied territory. 
 
 Frankfurt/M. 
 
 7. 
 
 East Saxony, Silesia. 
 
 Dresden 
 
 10. 
 
 Bavaria. 
 
 Munich 
 
 There are two or more members of the Mission 
 in charge of each office. 
 
BERLIN 201 
 
 Weekly Reports. — All food furnished by the 
 Mission must be accounted for by the proper 
 number of meals actually served. For this 
 purpose the meal tickets must be properly 
 punched, attendance regularly recorded and 
 inventories carefully kept. Weekly reports, 
 showing the number of meals served and the 
 quantity of food used, are rendered by each 
 city to the Mission. 
 
 German Co-operation. — The Mission works 
 in close co-operation with the Deutscher Zen- 
 tralausschuss fur die Auslandshilfe, an organisa- 
 tion headed by Dr. Bose of the German Food 
 Ministry, established for the purpose of repre- 
 senting all Welfare Organisations in Germany 
 receiving foreign relief. The food allotments 
 for the various cities and districts are made 
 in consultation with this organisation. Inde- 
 pendent investigations of the conditions of 
 children throughout Germany are also made 
 by the Mission. The German Government 
 has co-operated in the work of the Mission 
 in the following ways : (1) by furnishing free 
 transportation and express service for all 
 shipments of foodstuffs; (2) By furnishing 
 free transportation on German railways to 
 members of the Mission when on Mission 
 business ; (3) by giving the Mission preferential 
 
202 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 'phone service; (4) by appropriating in June 
 1920 for the work of the Deutscher Zen- 
 tralausschuss fur die Auslandshilfe the sum of 
 13,000,000 marks, a large part of which will be 
 vised in connection with the work of the Mission ; 
 (5) by agreeing to furnish free of charge the 
 flour and sugar necessary for the continuation 
 of the feeding of 500,000 children from October 
 1st, 1920 until June 1st, 1921. 
 
 Funds for Continuation of Work. — The number 
 of children that can be fed this winter and 
 spring will depend entirely on the amount 
 of contributions made in America. Roughly 
 estimated, the need is for 1,000,000 meals 
 for 1,000,000 children a day. The funds now 
 in sight are about $500,000 short of assuring 
 an operation of 700,000 children until June 1st, 
 1921. We hope, however, to feed 700,000. 
 We shall increase this number as funds permit. 
 The cost of the meal of 667 calories which is 
 distributed throughout Germany is a little 
 less than 5 cents. The entire overhead expenses 
 of the Mission in supervising and directing 
 the distribution of food, less than 2 per cent, of 
 the total cost, as before stated, comes not from 
 the contributions for food, but from the general 
 funds of the American Friends' Service Com- 
 mittee. In closing this brief statement we 
 
BERLIN 203 
 
 desire to call attention to the enthusiastic and 
 able co-operation which has been given through- 
 out Germany by the German people. Without 
 this hearty co-operation it would have been 
 impossible for such an extensive piece of relief 
 work to have been carried on. 
 
 In connection with the above report there 
 are certain outstanding features which are 
 of more than ordinary importance. The first 
 is that statement in the opening paragraph 
 which is italicised. There comes a time 
 in the lives of human beings, as in the lives 
 of nations, when encouragement and support 
 represent more than can easily be fathomed. 
 The grip of a hand, the quietly spoken word, 
 what one might almost describe as the silence 
 of sympathy, has done more to reorganise poor, 
 shattered individuality, to pull it together, 
 to ease the load of its burden and to make 
 it persevere and once again pick up its yoke 
 and resume the collar work, than aught else. 
 It is such refreshment to the soul which is 
 refreshment to the body and refreshment to 
 the over-taxed and over-tired brain centres. 
 And I reiterate, what applies to individuals 
 applies to nations. The words, " It might 
 also be the expression of a real message of 
 goodwill and encouragement from Americans 
 
204 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 to the German people in their time of sore 
 trial," believe me, have sunk deep into the 
 hearts of the German people and will never be 
 forgotten. Disillusion must come to all of us 
 sooner or later. Those we trust, fail; those 
 in whom we have believed prove to be wobblers. 
 When it comes to practical performance even 
 one's own kith and kin, one's own flesh and 
 blood are only too prone, like the Pharisee, 
 unctuously to say, " Thank God I am not as 
 other men are." And again I write, this 
 applies not only to individuals, but also to 
 nations, and that in her day of stress and trial 
 Germany found in America sufficient love, 
 sympathy and friendship, to permit the extra- 
 ordinary and colossal work which has been 
 carried out under the Quaker flag, means 
 something beyond the acceptance of help 
 over a stile, and, if I mistake not, very greatly 
 will cement for untold years a better under- 
 standing between Germany and America than 
 ever before existed. 
 
 I visited numberless schools in the Nord 
 area where the feeding operations of the 
 Quakers were in process. Two features struck 
 me predominantly. The first, which I had 
 not previously witnessed myself, was the self- 
 sacrificing devotion of the teachers for their 
 
BERLIN 205 
 
 charges. The wages of these men and women 
 of culture are so ridiculously low as to be 
 depressing, and when one remembers that they 
 have many of them dependents, and that they 
 have to deny themselves everything which 
 goes to make life worth living, then their 
 attitude towards their duty is simply astound- 
 ing. They are not confined to any particular 
 creed, and I rejoice to think that I met many 
 Catholics amongst the number. But all of 
 them had the same spirit. One teacher told 
 me that as the little Stage in which she lived 
 was too small for her mother, her brother 
 and herself, the brother being a student, he 
 always slept at the railway station, and she 
 was able to keep him with enough food upon 
 which to carry on his studies. Self-sacrifice 
 wonderful on 500 marks a month, less than a 
 tram conductor's pay, inclusive of 10 per cent, 
 tax ! 
 
 The next thing which struck me was the 
 extraordinary cleanliness of all the children, 
 from the highest grades to the lowest. I 
 suppose it becomes part of what the Americans 
 term one's make-up, in wandering through 
 the world, as has always been my mission, 
 to notice the small things which are symptom- 
 atic of much greater influences. Thus in 
 
206 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 one classroom I noticed a girl with the most 
 beautiful fingers and hands I thought I had 
 ever seen. She was only the daughter of some 
 very, very poor person, but it was evident 
 that she took pride in them. I asked the school- 
 mistress about it, and she said, " Let all the 
 children show you their hands," which they 
 did. I do not believe that a Bond Street 
 manicurist could have made a better display 
 if he had been given a month in which to 
 operate upon the hands of a class drawn from 
 one of the poorer, lower schools in London. 
 Now this habit of pride in personal appearance 
 is inculcated by the teachers, and it is also 
 laid down by the Berlin Educational Board 
 that, no matter how short coal or fuel may be, 
 each child must have a weekly. bath upon the 
 school premises, at which time they bring with 
 them their clean linen. In very sad cases where 
 the linen is lacking, arrangements are made 
 for washing what there is, and various institu- 
 tions have co-operated towards providing an 
 extra change. Who wrote the following 
 account of " A Day in Berlin " I have no idea; 
 but my friend Mr. Scattergood provided it 
 for me, and it appears to me, after reading 
 it with care, that my pen could certainly not 
 amend it. 
 
BERLIN 207 
 
 " From the palatial offices in Dorotheen- 
 strasse 2, furnished to the Kinderhilfsmission 
 of the American Friends' Service Committee 
 through the courtesy of the German Govern- 
 ment, we start out to visit the feeding which 
 is being done in Berlin. Of course, it is mani- 
 festly impossible to visit all, or any large number 
 of the eight hundred feeding centres, but we 
 have been promised that we shall have a fair 
 sample. Our conveyance is a Ford car, an 
 International auto, for it was born in Detroit, 
 spent its youth in relief work in France, and 
 now bids fair to die very soon in Germany. 
 It is adorned at the sides and in the front 
 with the star which symbolises Friends' Service 
 and driven by one of our most enthusiastic 
 Friends, himself formerly a chauffeur in the 
 ! family of one of the late Ambassadors from 
 i Germany to the United States. There seems 
 to be no limit to the carrying capacity of the 
 car, so in we all climb and off we go to visit 
 school feeding. 
 
 " The first stop is the Gruener Weg (Green 
 Road), a name which doubtless has historical 
 significance, but which certainly has none now, 
 for the street is dull and old and ugly. Once 
 inside the quadrangle of the school, however — 
 svery German school is built around a large 
 
208 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 court — there are trees and an open space for 
 children to play. Here in the yard in summer, 
 and in the nearby gymnasium in winter, 
 may be seen crowds of little girls eagerly 
 eating the good American food. All the chil- 
 dren in the school have been examined — no 
 light task in itself— and at the present time 
 only those are being fed who are certified to be 
 in a dangerous state of under-nourishment. 
 They are kindly, friendly children : both those 
 who are getting the food and their less — or more 
 — fortunate friends greet us with pretty cour- 
 tesies as we enter, and a slender child runs 
 to open the gate into the inner yard for us. 
 Here there is a smiling Rector (principal), who 
 explains with joy that many of his children 
 are in a much better condition than they 
 were before the feeding commenced. He 
 exhibits with pride two small maidens who 
 have improved so much that they have been 
 ruled out of the feeding. The children come 
 with rather rueful faces to meet us. To them 
 it does not make so much difference that they 
 are healthier and better; they are still hungry 
 and want the food. Here in the Gruener Weg 
 are fed seventy- five children, and the teacher 
 tells us with an eager face that if per- 
 mitted they can feed two more regularly, 
 
BERLIN 209 
 
 as there is an average absence of two among 
 the children on the list. This is a Mittelschule, 
 or school for girls of the middle classes, and the 
 children are exceedingly bright, attractive 
 girls. 
 
 " Directly around the corner in the Markus- 
 
 strasse are two other schools in one quadrangle. 
 
 To the right is a boys' school, where ninety 
 
 little urchins are being fed in the gymnasium — 
 
 I such an eager hungry lot of boys. By request 
 
 the Rector calls out all those in the group who 
 
 are six and seven years old. We make a 
 
 1 mental note : c The most of them look about 
 
 Ifive.' He calls those of eight, of nine, of ten, 
 
 and so on to fourteen. On an average the 
 
 children are about two years behind in physical 
 
 development. Those who are tall enough are 
 
 imuch too thin, and the colour of all the young 
 
 ! faces is very bad. 
 
 " We call out at random eight boys from the 
 line. fi What did you have for breakfast ? : 
 !we ask. Of the eight four reply : ' Nothing 
 yet.' That is an answer that we get very 
 many times in Germany, when we ask what a 
 child has had for a meal that should be an 
 hour or two past. c Noch nichts,' they say. 
 'Nothing yet.) The four who had breakfast 
 say that they had sandwiches for that meal, 
 o 
 
210 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 c How many ? ' we ask. Three had only one. 
 6 And made of what ? ' ' Bread and lard or 
 bread and margarine.' 
 
 " ' And what did you have for dinner yes- 
 terday ? ' we ask. One boy had potatoes, 
 a second carrots, a third again carrots, and so 
 on. Of the eight one asserts with pride that 
 he had tinned meat. The others, after the 
 manner of boys, jeer at him as a 6 plutocrat.' 
 
 " The teacher hastens to explain : ' It is a 
 great temptation to parents,' he says; ' if one 
 child is going to get this good food, and there 
 really is not enough to go round, to give all 
 that there is to the others. Of course, in 
 many cases, such as this one (laying his hand 
 on the head of a small boy beside him), there 
 is no work at home, and consequently there 
 was actually no breakfast.' 
 
 " ' How many of your children should be 
 fed ? ' we ask him. He shrugs expressively. 
 c I have eight hundred children in my school. 
 We are now feeding ninety. At least half 
 of my children are really underfed. I think 
 all are hungry. I am often myself,' he replies 
 somewhat humorously. 
 
 " Across the yard is a school for deaf-mute 
 children, a class of defectives which has much 
 increased during the War. Here, too, the 
 
BERLIN 211 
 
 children are eating the food with signs of evident 
 satisfaction. Very naturally we have some 
 difficulty in communicating with these children. 
 Speaking German to a deaf-mute is not the 
 easiest thing in the world to an American. 
 But their looks and their actions show their 
 need and appreciation. 
 
 " The faithful Ford now carries us to one 
 
 of the great kitchens where our food for the 
 
 city of Berlin is cooked. It is in the Tresckow- 
 
 strasse, in a building erected in 1892 by the 
 
 city as a market hall. In 1916, when most 
 
 of the women of the country had gone into 
 
 industry, and so were unable to care for their 
 
 families properly, the municipality installed 
 
 here a great kitchen — one of many which were 
 
 instituted throughout Germany to cook food 
 
 ' for the masses. In this kitchen food can be 
 
 i cooked for 35,000 persons at one time, and was 
 
 | originally supplied at a cost of 40 pfennigs per 
 
 ; portion. At present this feeding has been 
 
 \ diminished to 4,700, and the cost is now 1 mark 
 
 i 30 pfennigs. The major portion of this kitchen 
 
 is now being used for preparing the American 
 
 .food. Two rooms at the side are devoted to 
 
 storing the American supplies, and certain 
 
 of the huge kettles are set apart for its 
 
 preparation. We meet the Herr Inspector 
 
212 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 who is in charge of the whole institution, and 
 the woman who has direct supervision of the 
 cooking. Pleasant, interested people they are, 
 both of them proud of the great work they are 
 doing, and eager to make it efficient. We go 
 over to see one of the great kettles. It holds 
 six hundred litres, and is heated by gas flames 
 below. They are cooking chocolate pudding, 
 and a pleasant odour hovers in the vicinity 
 of the kettles. At the next kettle three women 
 are engaged in measuring out the pudding 
 into thermos kettles in which it will be sent 
 to the feeding centres for the afternoon feeding. 
 We see these thermos kettles, carefully sealed, 
 to prevent loss between the kitchen and centre, 
 being loaded in wagons along with sealed bags 
 of lovely big white rolls. 
 
 " While the wagons are being loaded, the 
 horses are having their dinner. From the 
 nose-bag of one of them we take a handful of 
 his fodder. It is mainly composed of straw, with 
 an occasional oat, and a little bran. There is 
 a chorus of amazement from the Americans 
 who see it. How can the horses live on this ? 
 
 " At the other end of the kitchen we see 
 the food which is being cooked for the muni- 
 cipal feeding. It is a sort of gruel to-day, 
 made mostly of buckwheat, a grey, uninterest- 
 ing-looking mass. For to-morrow they will 
 
BERLIN 213 
 
 have a boiled dinner, as we can see from the 
 great piles of purple cabbage which are already 
 in course of preparation. To this cabbage, 
 the inspector informs us, there will be added 
 some potatoes — about an eighth of a pound 
 per person, and twenty pounds of meat for every 
 six hundred persons. ' Of course, it is not as 
 appetising as your food,' says the head cook, 
 ' but it is a meal.' Near the entrance to the 
 great hall there is a place railed off, where 
 citizens come to eat the municipal food. They 
 are an interesting group — many unemployed, 
 many old, and so beyond employment, a few 
 thin children, and here and there some one who 
 stands out from the crowd as an intellectual. 
 We question the inspector about these. ' Oh, 
 yes,' he replies, ' we always have a good number 
 of teachers and professors. They get so little 
 money nowadays that they are often glad 
 to take advantage of this feeding. Of course 
 it costs the city much more than the charge 
 we make.' 
 
 " Out again to the Ford, and southward 
 to a section of the city where in a good 
 restaurant we eat a good meal. If one has 
 foreign exchange, one can live pretty well, 
 even in Central Europe, though we do have some 
 difficulty in getting any of the miserable brown 
 bread, as some of the party are only visitors 
 
 ! 
 
214 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 and so have no ration cards. At three in 
 the afternoon begins the feeding of expectant 
 and nursing mothers and little children below 
 school age, in various places which are known 
 as ' open feeding centres.' We go to the one 
 in Waldemarstrasse. This is an exceedingly 
 poor neighbourhood in Berlin South. One 
 hundred and fifty women are receiving their 
 extra meal here, and outside the gate — poor 
 little Peris shut out of a very human Paradise — 
 there are waiting many children who came 
 along but could not be admitted. Inside 
 there are many touching bits of stories. Here 
 is a girl of ten who has brought her brother, 
 aged five. She has had no lunch herself, 
 but she may not eat his food. She seems very 
 glad that he gets it. There are countless 
 little fathers and mothers of this sort in our 
 feeding centres everywhere. Here is a mother 
 who has smuggled her three-year-old child 
 into the room with her, and is surreptitiously 
 feeding him. She is not the only mother 
 in the world who would do the same. The 
 leader of this feeding centre can tell us many 
 stories of the need of her people. But we 
 must go on. We turn northward again to 
 the Muellerstrasse. Here we see a duplication 
 of the former scene, with one addition. There 
 is some food left over, after every one has had 
 
BERLIN 215 
 
 his measured portion, and it is to be divided 
 among the mothers who are there at the end 
 of the feeding time. At five minutes before 
 five, our attention is attracted by a moving 
 sight. Behind the counter where the food 
 is given out, is the woman who distributes 
 it ; on the other side of the counter are perhaps 
 thirty women, many of whose figures show 
 that they are being fed for the sake of the 
 child to come. Silently they stand, each 
 holding out her bowl in mute appeal for the 
 nourishing food. If it is divided, there will 
 be less than half a cup apiece. ' A picture of 
 that would make good publicity material,' 
 whispers one of the American visitors ; but it 
 is impossible to make pictures of that kind 
 of human need. We go back to the Dorotheen- 
 strasse office, where on the wall is a map which 
 shows that the things we have seen to-day 
 are being duplicated to-day and to-morrow, 
 and all the winter, in many cities in Germany. 
 In our minds is the firm conviction that that 
 map should show more spots, and that each 
 spot should represent more feeding than is 
 at present possible. 
 
 " Feeding to Date.— This is the anniversary 
 week. On February 26th, 1920, we started 
 the feeding of under-nourished German children 
 in Germany. On that day we fed about 
 
216 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 thirty children in Dr. Neumann's Kinderhaus, 
 Berlin. Last week we fed 701,199 children 
 and mothers in 5,897 feeding centres in 875 
 cities, towns and villages in Germany. The 
 food was cooked in 1,846 kitchens. This is 
 an increase of 10,000 over the number fed 
 the week before. To date, more than 17,500 
 tons of food have been consumed in this feeding. 
 We have now fed 100,000,000 meals. In Greater 
 Berlin we are now feeding approximately 
 115,169 individuals daily. The newest develop- 
 ment in the feeding work is the feeding of the 
 Jugendliche, or boys and girls from fourteen 
 to eighteen years of age. These are chosen 
 from among the youth in attendance in ' con- 
 tinuation schools,' which attendance is obli- 
 gatory under the new law. They are chosen 
 on the basis of a medical examination, as are 
 the other groups of persons fed. We are 
 feeding 4,875 of these boys and girls in Greater 
 Berlin, and many more elsewhere. Experience 
 shows them to be one of the neediest groups 
 in the entire population. We are now feeding 
 a group of these youths in the Krupp factories 
 in Essen. These factories are now working 
 not on guns, but locomotives and such con- 
 structive products." 
 
 With this before readers I think they will 
 
BERLIN 217 
 
 have a better impression of what Berlin to-day 
 is than if they spent their money upon a first- 
 class return ticket and stayed in that city 
 for a month. At moments I think we are 
 all liable to get a trifle discouraged over the 
 attitude of some people in this great world of 
 ours, when it comes to questions which have 
 aroused personal animosity. Thus I have 
 always regarded Horatio Bottomley as one 
 of the champions of charity in all and every 
 circumstance, and this it is which has led 
 me usually to read his paper. Latterly he has, 
 to phrase it mildly, been uncommonly stringent 
 over the German question; I think it comes 
 from a misapprehension of actuality — in fact 
 I am sure this is so. Mr. Bottomley has seen 
 too much of the unhappy side of life ever to 
 wish to see the under-dog suffer. And in his 
 cleverly conducted journal he has one caption 
 which always catches my eye. It is, " And 
 
 the greatest of these is " If these remarks 
 
 should ever catch his eye, I hope he will think 
 of the large circulation his paper possesses 
 and the infinite good he might do by com- 
 bating animosity and preparing rather for a 
 better, more prosperous and happier world 
 for us all. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 POST-WAR GERMANY 
 
 It stands to reason that no country can 
 emerge from such a fearful struggle as the 
 Great War without scars, which neither time 
 nor care will quite obliterate, and with a changed 
 attitude towards life in general. Even with 
 the victors, influences will have altered per- 
 spective and what was good for yesterday will 
 not do for to-morrow. This can be clearly 
 seen in the England of to-day. 
 
 I asked a foreigner shortly after my return 
 from Germany what struck him most about the 
 new England, as I called it. He replied, " The 
 enormous number of old homes for sale, places 
 of historic interest, simply flung into the market 
 in order, I suppose, to escape taxation and get 
 some ready cash in hand for emergencies." 
 That is one of the signs of the new era, and 
 others are not wanting on all sides. Old tradi- 
 tions are being swept away, labour is realising 
 as it never did before that it is a living, virile 
 force, and that it can sway the destinies of the 
 
 218 
 
POST-WAR GERMANY 219 
 
 country as in other days it never conceived 
 possible. There is also a spirit of unrest 
 manifesting itself more and more, the work of 
 outside influence, maybe, but none the less a 
 force with which to reckon. To say that it is 
 the exception and not the rule to find satis- 
 faction is no exaggeration. Nobody appears 
 satisfied now that they have emerged from 
 the War victoriously. On the contrary, the 
 opportunity is seized for the senior men of both 
 Services to write books proving that the other 
 chap was wrong, and that this, that and the 
 other should never have been tolerated. 
 Ministers defend their actions and condemn 
 others. There has been no marked revival of 
 religious thought or feeling, the churches are no 
 fuller than hitherto, some opine that they are 
 emptier ! Universal peace appears no nearer, 
 that peace which was promised and which looks 
 as though its strength must be that of pie- crust 
 when an adventurer, a regular roistering swash- 
 buckler, like Korfanty, bids fair to stir up a 
 smouldering European bonfire afresh. Taxes 
 have never been so high, unemployment never 
 so rampant, theatres never so full, publishers 
 never so pessimistic. And this is a victorious 
 country, one flushed with the supreme know- 
 ledge that against an unscrupulous foe she has 
 
220 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 won through, largely owing to the sheer valour 
 of her sons. It is not an attractive picture, 
 and the visitor from Mars might be forgiven for 
 wonderment that, if this be all that comes to 
 the conqueror, was it in the least worth while ? 
 
 Then what of the vanquished ? What of the 
 feelings, the innermost personal feelings, of the 
 vast population of a country which entered into 
 the War at the behest of its overlords, humbly, 
 like slaves, but heartened by ridicule of the 
 foe, dazed by the intoxication of a speedy and 
 easy termination of hostilities, which should 
 bring in its train booty and wealth beyond the 
 dreams of Midas, and then suddenly to awake 
 to the fact that dreams and theoretical imagin- 
 ings are one thing, and bald, hard facts another ? 
 No wealth to-day in Berlin, or Leipzig, or 
 Breslau, or Hamburg, or any other great 
 centre. In its place, suffering, hunger, squalor, 
 unrest, disappointment, fear, desperation — all 
 the emotions to play upon which the devil so 
 dearly loves when he has humans as shuttles. 
 
 The debacle would not have been so terrible 
 had it not been that the machine had been con- 
 structed with such diabolical ingenuity, and 
 had not the engineers — admittedly good ones, 
 brilliant ones — devoted the better part of their 
 lives to the perfection thereof. Not a screw 
 
POST-WAR GERMANY 221 
 
 was supposed to be missing. Headquarters in 
 Berlin knew, or thought they did, to an ounce 
 the amount of coffee which would be required 
 at the Hauptbahnof of Frankfort-am-Main 
 on a certain morning when such and such a 
 brigade would be there. As a feat of organ- 
 isation it was colossal, and they allowed the 
 German people to gather the enormity and 
 complexity of their operations, in order, if 
 possible, to instil into a somewhat uninterested 
 mass of individualdom, shortly to be called 
 upon to make the supreme sacrifice, some sort 
 of enthusiasm. But human nature, as the 
 German War Lords either ignored or forgot, 
 is made otherwise. It reminds me of once 
 taking a schoolboy to see one of the early 
 exhibitions of wireless telegraphy. Even in its 
 then incomplete condition it was realised that 
 here was a force in its infancy which would 
 inevitably play no small part in the world's 
 future. While the demonstration was in pro- 
 gress my young friend was interested, though 
 not unduly excited. He did not talk much 
 on his way home, but when he got to Fenchurch 
 Street Station he suddenly pulled himself 
 together and said in a business-like way, " I 
 say, what about those chocolates? " So much 
 actual impression had this marvellous inven- 
 
222 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 tion made upon his brain : interest, certainly, 
 but fleeting, secondary only to an obsession that 
 chocolates were of real importance. 
 
 And so I think it was with Germany as 
 regards the masses. 
 
 On high days and holidays they were treated 
 to reviews. Magnificent military bands played 
 martial airs, and the air resounded to the per- 
 fectly natural "Hoch" of the multitude. As 
 some one once said to me, and I believe it, 
 dress up a few sandwichmen, place them in a 
 brake with a band and you'll soon have a 
 cheering mob in any self-respecting London 
 street. Naturally it would not mean anything, 
 any more than the German cheers when the 
 troops marched by to the parade-ground. 
 Afterwards the good townspeople went to their 
 favourite cafe or beer-house, and the incident 
 passed out of their minds. There was little 
 martial enthusiasm, except amongst the actual 
 military party and those who made a living 
 by describing such functions in the Press. 
 But the population did grow to accept it, and 
 they accepted it without any question what- 
 soever. Whenever a war came, if such a dire 
 calamity should happen, they were comfortably 
 assured that it was a mechanical certainty that 
 victory would be swiftly wafted to them with 
 
POST-WAR GERMANY 223 
 
 the minimum of discomfort. For had they 
 not seen? Had not the great military swells 
 of the world come to see their annual man- 
 oeuvres, and was not the foreign Press daily 
 speaking of the wonderful German military 
 machine? Thus it was that by tacit assent it 
 was accepted as a fait accompli, and the Pro- 
 fessor went on with his studies, the shopman 
 with his sales, and the haus-frau with her 
 duties without any pulsating interest in the 
 matter. Then came the day, the day of trial, 
 and during four years the water eddied and 
 broke around this monument of mechanical 
 efficiency, and with it eddied and broke the 
 hopes of the German people, who from com- 
 placency were rapidly turning to embittered 
 realisation. 
 
 The inconceivable happened with awe-inspir- 
 ing rapidity. After all these year-long per- 
 formances came the most terrific crash in 
 history, a crash of such magnitude that even 
 now, in the cold light of day, it seems almost 
 incredible. Everything had miscarried : com- 
 i fortable illusions gone ; ships gone ; friends 
 gone ; homes gone ; money gone ; honour gone — 
 so the victors averred. The only surprise is 
 that when the revolution matured and broke it 
 was not a much more bloody episode. Sixty- 
 
224 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 five million of disillusioned, heart-broken, mad- 
 dened, passionate, hate-ridden, intellectual 
 people. The final adjective is important, for 
 with intellectuality is associated keener com- 
 prehension of happenings and keener tempera- 
 mental discords. For a moment Providence 
 must have feared for its own handiwork. That 
 the revolution was of so unsanguinary a nature 
 speaks volumes for German self-control. It 
 would have been so simple to unleash the 
 passions of the multitude, to exhort a crowd of 
 liquor-inflamed roughs to wreak death, ruin and 
 destruction anywhere and everywhere. Yet the 
 outbreaks were only sporadic and spasmodic. 
 Blood did flow, but not in rivers, and the 
 number of the military class, of those who had 
 promised such wonderful things and had per- 
 formed so few, who suffered the extreme 
 penalty for their optimism, their criminal 
 optimism, was few. It was as though this 
 great people were first of all dazed and then 
 sat down to think. 
 
 They are in that stage to-day, but are grad- 
 ually getting into tune with circumstances as 
 they are, and therein — in their attitude towards 
 the new life, to which they must become accus- 
 tomed — I find much food for reflection and all 
 the necessary elements which speak of hope 
 
POST-WAR GERMANY 225 
 
 for the future. In such a complex situation, 
 with such a temperamental confederation of 
 peoples, differing each from the other in ideals 
 and aspirations, one must expect to discover 
 that the stress of emotion has brought about 
 varied results in different quarters, often very 
 unexpected results in unexpected places. And 
 it is upon these that I propose lightly to touch. 
 Banish once and for all from the mind that 
 the German pictured in fiction has any rela- 
 tion to the German of fact. He is a totally 
 different being. He is emotional to a fault. 
 Nothing sways him like music; art, flowers, 
 Nature, the forest, the wind in the trees, the 
 lap of water on a pebbly beach, all speak to 
 him of something intangible, something in- 
 finitely beautiful, something not of this world 
 and not understood by it. Of course there are 
 the fat, heavy, gross, beer-drinking material- 
 ists, but they are not so common as enemies 
 ! would have us believe. Why is it, I would 
 ask, that in all the art magazines published in 
 Germany — and their number is legion — the 
 pictures which appear are nearly all land- or 
 sea-scapes, flowers or children? As I write I 
 have two of the best known before me : one 
 Westermann's Monatshefte, and the other 
 Welhagen und Klasings Monatshefte, and 
 
226 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 their illustrations, admirable reproductions, are 
 mostly drawn from the categories I mention, 
 except one outstanding from the brush of 
 Franz von Stuck, " The Redeemer on the 
 Cross." On the whole, probably Germany is 
 less materialistic than any country in Europe, 
 if we except patent and unpractical dreamers 
 like the Poles. 
 
 Then what has been the result of the War, its 
 catastrophic defeat and its attendant hardships, 
 upon this sensitive material, which responds to 
 certain demands as the strings of a violin do to 
 the bow of the skilled player? In the first 
 place, art and music, if anything, seem to have 
 gained. There must be a subtle relief in 
 creation. I remember asking a man who was 
 in the detention cells of a police station, await- 
 ing trial for a charge upon which bail had been 
 refused, how he passed his time. He told me, 
 in drawing. And I suppose that there is a great 
 deal in that answer. When the mind is ill at 
 ease and the morrow must be faced with a large 
 query mark, to be able to piece together some- 
 thing into a harmony of expression spells to 
 some extent salvation to an overloaded soul. 
 And so in their poor little attics, bereft of food, 
 heat and ofttimes of sufficient clothing, works 
 of art are being born and their executors become 
 
POST-WAR GERMANY 227 
 
 constructive in contradiction to the destruction 
 of war. Germany is experiencing a renaissance 
 of art, and it would surprise me sorely were not 
 some wonderful operatic scores evolved during 
 this period of sturm und drang. That we shall 
 see. But the sign-post points to the awaken- 
 ing of a new spirituality in the nation, trying 
 to force an outlet into the great universe through 
 the channels most usual to it, through the media 
 of music, poetry, pen and the brush. That 
 financial reward buoys up these efforts is doubt- 
 ful; when did it ever? In pre-war England 
 many of the best masters of craft with the pen 
 suffered for their temerity in thinking as other 
 people do not, and paid therefor. One has 
 only to recall Francis Thompson and George 
 Gissing. Neither had any bitterness in his 
 system, but they suffered all the same. Simi- 
 larly, the artistic section of Germany, striving 
 to put upon paper or into paint or through 
 the medium of the orchestra the thoughts 
 and dreams of New Germany, is untainted 
 with aught of gall, though it may feel poignant 
 regret when it surveys the ruins which surround 
 it, the lost hopes which desolate it and hears 
 the strident laughter of those who have survived 
 the holocaust of dreams at the expense of their 
 fellow- citizens. There are plenty of the latter 
 
228 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 to-day in Germany, a band whose extermination 
 would make for a cleaner, and without doubt a 
 saner world. A few words as to the latter. 
 
 All countries possess citizens whom they 
 could well spare. In Germany they comprise 
 the remnants of the old vicious nobility and 
 the equally repellent nouveaux riches, alias 
 profiteers. That they will endure long is open 
 to doubt ; they will not if sober commonsense 
 has any sway. They are distinguished by 
 having lost their control of affairs, or, alter- 
 natively, by having financial greatness thrust 
 upon them, whichever way it be, and thereby 
 imagining that all moral restraint is at an end 
 and that the decencies of civilisation are in 
 abeyance. As Max Nordau would say, " Away 
 with the conventional lies of our civilisation," 
 only Nordau was a profound thinker who hated 
 cant and loathed the finicking appearance of 
 respectability which habitually covers the sins 
 of the ultra-respectable. But that is quite 
 distinct with doing away with the conventional 
 precepts of any society, primitive or up-to- 
 date, which that section of the German people 
 under review proclaim. They will be pointed 
 out to one as the last thing in eroticism. If 
 that be so then it is sufficiently hideous to 
 create a pure Germany almost with a wave of 
 
POST-WAR GERMANY 229 
 
 the hand. We must all face the fact that as 
 long as there are two sexes there will always 
 be a certain proportion of promiscuous union 
 between them. That is quite understand- 
 able, and under certain moral codes is per- 
 missible, and indeed encouraged. But the 
 eroticism which I have in mind, and which has 
 caused the wrath of that well-known publica- 
 tion Si?nplicissimus, is quite otherwise. It is 
 well summed up in the number of that journal — 
 which has a habit of hitting hard — which has 
 as its frontispiece a pig dressed in specially 
 gaudy clothes in front of a bookstall, behind 
 which dangles the dead body of Cupid. The 
 bookstall is decorated with numerous weekly 
 journals with titles such as the following : 
 " Lesbos," showing a dreadful-looking woman 
 with staring eyes and a rose " Ein Lust Mord," 
 which might be translated, " A Sexual Murder " ; 
 " The Friend," a fair-haired, sly-looking little 
 boy clutching a flower to his chest, and 
 " Without a Shirt," a " stirring romance." It 
 does not require much imagination to scent in 
 which direction the paper is hitting, and it only 
 shows to what extent the peril is apparent to 
 the onlooker, that such a paper, with such a 
 reputation should devote the whole number to 
 the most scathing judgment upon those who are 
 
230 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 dragging struggling Germany down and down, 
 just at the moment when her friends are looking 
 for her salvation, to a realisation that salva- 
 tion must come from united, whole-hearted 
 and, above all, clean effort. Another picture 
 depicts an obviously prosperous merchant 
 dictating a letter to a youth of very effeminate 
 type. He has his hair brushed back, a large 
 ring on the engagement finger of his left hand, 
 and a gold bracelet dangles from his wrist. 
 The merchant complacently surveys him while 
 his hand rests on his shoulder, and remarks, 
 " Now, miss, please write as follows." And, 
 as a final example, two schoolchildren, girls 
 with dogs in their arms, are looking at some 
 young women at a dance who have not found 
 partners. One of them says to the other, 
 " Poor girls ! Their best chance is to start 
 again and come to our school." 
 
 These examples are quite sufficient to empha- 
 sise how far this disease has eaten, and is eating, 
 into certain classes of the people, but it must 
 be emphasised that they represent an unim- 
 portant numerical unit, were it not that they 
 appear to be possessed of unlimited funds. It 
 is so glaring that at one hotel I watched a 
 couple who had sat next to me at lunch, and 
 the hall porter, seeing the direction of my 
 
POST-WAR GERMANY 231 
 
 eyes, remarked, " Oh, there's lots of that about. 
 It makes me sick, and there are plenty of 
 pretty girls, one would have thought." But this 
 is a passing phase, I am certain, and one has 
 only to go back to the days of the Kaiser to 
 remember the incessant Court scandals which 
 were continuously cropping up over this very 
 question. 
 
 On the other hand, the increase of legitimate 
 prostitution, if the phrase may be used, is quite 
 a different matter. It has been much com- 
 mented upon in the foreign Press, and it is 
 undeniable that to-day there is more freedom 
 in this direction than there was hitherto, more 
 noticeable probably because the women and 
 girls concerned come from a good stratum of 
 society, and it would be next-door to impossible 
 to tell t'other from which, that is to say, who 
 was demi-mondaine and who not. The former 
 are to be found in all the great hotels at about 
 tea-time, and so, for that matter, are the latter. 
 The most unlikely people turn out to be ready 
 to accommodate — women of refinement, intel- 
 lect and education. How then account for this 
 phenomenon ? Excitement plays a large part 
 in the role, and coupled with that the fact that 
 since the revolution some of the decent families, 
 formerly moderately well off, have lost most 
 
232 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 of all they possessed. It is easy to moralise 
 seated in a comfortable room, with visions of a 
 good dinner to come, and a stall at the theatre, 
 and congenial company thereafter at a supper- 
 party or a dance. Quite a different matter is 
 it when all that awaits is a comfortless room in 
 a comfortless flat with only memory for com- 
 panionship. Night after night of that will 
 break the compunction of all but the most 
 strong, and while young blood courses through 
 the veins and lights and music beckon, together 
 with release — at any rate temporarily — from the 
 dull, grinding monotony of care — well, those 
 who do not understand badly need to be led 
 into similar temptation themselves, and then 
 give witness as to whether they feel stones 
 ought to be thrown. It is a horribly tragic 
 situation, relieved occasionally by the news 
 that so and so is going to be married. Good 
 wives they make — that I always heard. It is 
 a crushingly impossible position for them to 
 face. 
 
 I had long talks on many occasions with 
 one so situated, and she asked me, with a shrug 
 of her shoulders, " What on earth am I to do ? 
 I was ruined by the War and the revolution, 
 and my accomplishments are useless from a 
 marketable point of view. I can cook and 
 
POST-WAR GERMANY 233 
 
 sew, like all decently brought up German girls, 
 and I sing a little, and I'm a good dancer, but 
 not up to theatre form. I can't live alone at 
 home in one room, my people are in South 
 Germany, and, as you know, by the municipal 
 regulations I may not have more than one room, 
 if I am single. So I am nominally married, 
 and have a jolly little etage, where I can enter- 
 tain the few friends I have left over from the 
 old days. Do you blame me ? " 
 
 Now that is the type of case which would 
 puzzle any rescue worker in the world. Obvi- 
 ously the old preconceived ideas of pre-war 
 rescue work would not be of the least avail here. 
 It is a new problem, a war problem, and a tragic 
 problem, for when I asked my friend what she 
 proposed to do in the future, when she grew old, 
 and if she did not marry, she merely smiled 
 and said, " I'm going to see that I don't grow 
 old." What a destiny for a gently nurtured 
 girl ! And yet there are narrow-minded bigots 
 who have never faced an angry cook, much less 
 an angry and threatening crowd, who have 
 never known what it was to lose all and every- 
 thing in one night, and who can find it in their 
 hearts and in their consciences to pass along 
 the comment that Germany must be approach- 
 ing rack and ruin, because of the wicked 
 
234 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 flaunting of vice and the appalling increase 
 of prostitution which is taking place. The 
 remarkable thing to me rather is that in 
 the circumstances one virtuous woman still 
 remains. 
 
 Unfortunately, as might be expected, with 
 this moral latitudinarianism has come a great 
 increase in venereal disease, which, unless 
 promptly checked, promises to be more deadly 
 than the bullets of the enemy. I was told by 
 a worker in the Carpathians that over 80 per 
 cent, of the entire population was infected. A 
 Frauen arzt, a woman's doctor in South Ger- 
 many, whose practice lay chiefly with the well- 
 to-do, assured me that it was uncommon for 
 him to examine women, married or single, who 
 had not some type of the disease, and he further 
 told me that he believed the percentage of 
 syphilis in Germany was higher than it was 
 even in Russia, where it is the rule rather than 
 the exception. Undoubtedly the infection 
 came largely from abroad with the returning 
 troops, and so the only conclusion one can draw 
 is that it must have been fearfully prevalent 
 previously both in France and Belgium. 
 
 It is a curious fact that this plague always 
 appears after a great war, only on this occasion 
 it bids fair to ravage whole countries. In the 
 
POST-WAR GERMANY 235 
 
 Neckar valley I saw entire families in the streets, 
 all horribly stricken, and none, as far as I could 
 ascertain, receiving much treatment, owing to 
 shortage of doctors, medical supplies, hospital 
 accommodation and attendants. It is a shock- 
 ing state of affairs, and unless grappled with 
 will spell desperate losses of human material. 
 One almost thinks this deserves international 
 consideration and help. True, the bookshops 
 teem with volumes dealing with this and similar 
 questions, sexual psychopathy and the like. 
 Whether the purchasers buy them sincerely for 
 serious study, I know not, but I have no doubt 
 that members of the already erotic class affect 
 them in order to assuage a thirst for a deal of 
 unhealthy knowledge. It would not be unwise 
 were a ban put upon such works, unless released 
 by authority of a doctor, or the Rector of a 
 University, or some equally well-balanced 
 individual. The output of these books to-day 
 must be enormous, though whether they add 
 in the least to the knowledge and study of the 
 matter dealt with, remains to be seen. I think 
 it must be accepted as a somewhat unhealthy 
 sign, only it bears no comparison with the 
 pornography especially printed in Paris for the 
 entertainment of the gullible English tourist, 
 who thinks that in bringing home such stuff 
 
236 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 he is bringing with him a scalp a la Red Indian 
 or the " head " of the hunter. So much for 
 the erotic side of modern post-war Germany. 
 
 But there are other and more important 
 features. Religion is, of course, based upon 
 emotionalism, none more so than that of Roman 
 Catholicism. And within the last two years 
 the output of religious paintings and books 
 with a religious background has been con- 
 spicuous by its number and the purity of 
 its conception. Just as blatant immorality 
 is a species of vent for disordered nerves of the 
 eat-drink-for-to-morrow-we-die variety, so does 
 religion speak to some natures and provide 
 an anodyne for ever-present suffering. I have 
 no figures upon which to work, but I was told 
 by many priests that recruits to the Catholic 
 Church were actually pouring in, and this was 
 traced to the absolute necessity of many tem- 
 peraments to discover some supernatural belief 
 to which to cling and upon which to depend 
 during these days of growing uncertainty. 
 
 The opportunity, of course, has not been 
 missed by the spiritualists and clairvoyants, 
 who may be found by the score, and who are 
 reaping richer harvests than ever previously. 
 With time, however, the unhealthy elements of 
 this mental restlessness will pass and a better 
 
POST-WAR GERMANY 237 
 
 normality will take its place, which will play a 
 leading part in the new and reformed Germany. 
 It so chanced that I was in Germany during 
 Easter week, and never have I seen it observed 
 with more reverence and devotion. The shops 
 were full to overflowing with veils, prayer- 
 books and devotional tapers for first com- 
 municants, and it was obvious that the Festival 
 was being taken seriously and solemnly, as 
 though it were, in some manner, symbolic of 
 the rising from the tomb of a Germany dead 
 once and for all to the old influences of the 
 past, and now inspired with new ideals and 
 aspirations. 
 
 I think, were I asked what would be the best 
 motto for the average German working-man, I 
 should suggest " Get on with the job.' : In 
 certain industrial districts, notably Halle and 
 portions of Saxony, there is a Bolshevik element 
 which causes alarm and perplexity to local and 
 central administration alike. The depth of the 
 intensity of this feeling it is as nearly impos- 
 sible to estimate as it is to trace definitely its 
 source of origin. On dit that the headquarters 
 of the Bolshevik organisation is Berlin, or 
 alternatively Hamburg or Dantzig — this seems 
 reasonable, and so on and so on, to suit the 
 argument of the respective speakers or writers, 
 
238 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 That there is a leaven of Bolshevik unrest, there 
 can be no doubt, but my distinct impression 
 is that it has not gained much grip of the 
 working masses even in the most favourable 
 soil. There will always be the disgruntled who 
 will find satisfaction in waging war against 
 existing society, irrespective of what they can 
 find to offer in its place. And with hunger 
 staring in at the door the sway of the agitator 
 is easy enough. But the best safeguard against 
 a permanent infiltration of Bolshevism into 
 Germany lies in the fact that the working-man 
 there is educated. In the Russia that was, 
 where over 50 per cent, of the population could 
 neither read nor write, it was simple to point 
 to the landlords and merchants and say, " Look 
 at those men. Why should they have all the 
 money and you all the work ? : Such an argu- 
 ment told upon them, but with the German 
 proletariat the case is different. They are all 
 for co-operation, but bye and large they accept 
 as axiomatic that the organisation must 
 possess a head, and that head must be specially 
 trained for the position, as also the lieutenants 
 working under him. So much have they 
 absorbed through their education. 
 
 Further, many of the most successful busi- 
 ness organisers have been through hard times 
 
 
POST-WAR GERMANY 239 
 
 themselves, have worked at some trade or 
 another in their student days to enable them to 
 command just that knowledge which has been 
 the means of their occupying their present 
 positions and allows them to appreciate the 
 predicaments in which their own workmen find 
 themselves from time to time. That is the 
 secret of real co-operation. What is the result ? 
 In many factories the rank and file are volun- 
 tarily working overtime in order to increase 
 the output, this being nominally even against 
 the existing factory laws. But they have 
 grasped the emergency and are standing up 
 to it. When one reads of labour troubles in 
 various places one must always remember that 
 —though not perhaps glaringly apparent — there 
 may always be some political motive to be 
 found if carefully looked for, some strings being 
 pulled by intention. A friend of mine told me 
 something recently which interested me greatly, 
 as it showed me what industry properly applied 
 may accomplish. This friend, an officer in the 
 Royal Navy, wanted to buy a doll as a birthday 
 present for his little girl. Naturally he wished 
 to avoid German so-called " dumped goods,' 1 
 and so searched high and low for an English- 
 made doll at a reasonable price. The cheapest 
 he could find cost in the neighbourhood of 
 
240 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 thirty-five shillings, whilst a doll of German 
 origin, better finished, was obtainable for twelve 
 shillings and sixpence. I need not say which he 
 bought. And so it is in all directions. Scientific 
 apparatus, lenses, cameras, the Germans can 
 produce them more cheaply and better finished 
 than we can, because the workman has realised 
 that he is a potent cog in the machine politic, 
 and, having accepted his defeat, realises that the 
 only chance for a rejuvenated Germany lies in 
 his hands. That the Anti-dumping Bill as 
 introduced into this country is good policy, is 
 open at least to argument. Few will deny that 
 in many directions of manufacture Germany 
 leads the world, and it appears rather doubtful 
 wisdom to make it almost impossible for the 
 British to buy the best, owing to stinging 
 taxation, thus foisting upon him an inferior 
 article of British make at a price below that of 
 the imported one. It is a system which cannot 
 long endure, and if its sponsors really suppose 
 that it will cripple German trade they make a 
 serious error, for, as an optician said to me with 
 a smile, " The world is wide." 
 
 It is for the right goods ! Moreover, if we 
 want Germany to pay her debts, why start in 
 and attempt by this taxation to cripple her 
 exports, which are her assets ? Truly the course 
 
POST-WAR GERMANY 241 
 
 of international financial policy is hard to 
 follow. Sometimes one might almost suppose 
 it was haphazard by nature, and merely de- 
 signed to injure the opponent momentarily, 
 without any consideration for the future. 
 Kipling in " If " talks about " building up 
 with worn-out tools." This is an unpleasant 
 experience for individual or country alike, but 
 it is what Germany is doing, and means to do 
 thoroughly. It will take time, but she will 
 win through because she has perseverance and 
 the will behind. Ask the German arbeiter — the 
 worker — " Are you down-hearted ? " and the 
 answer will be flung back at you, "No. Why 
 should I be ? " 
 
 As Paul D. Cravath, of the Philadelphia Public 
 Ledger, truly observes in his little book : " Why 
 should Germany lose heart ? Her chief assets 
 are unimpaired. They are the energy, enter- 
 prise, high technical skill, organising ability 
 and patience of her people." I think I would 
 go further, and add that under the old regime, 
 even though, had it been successful in its world- 
 wide ambitions, the very vastness of its con- 
 ceptions would have rendered it unwieldy of 
 handling, and would have tended to make of it 
 a top-heavy body liable to be undermined by 
 minor influences which a smaller and more 
 
 Q 
 
242 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 solidly cemented structure could easily resist. 
 Hence, to those who, in a new, prosperous, happy 
 Germany, living in concord with her neighbours, 
 trading with all and hurting none, see a stabilis- 
 ing feature in the complex politics of Mittel 
 Europa, I would say Sursum cor da. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE YOUNGER GENERATION 
 
 A prolonged period of hostilities must 
 bring in its train a complete dislocation of the 
 ordinary educational methods of any country. 
 In the first place, masters and professors are 
 needed for the fighting services, and are drafted 
 into the branches where their special knowledge 
 will make them most useful. In the second 
 place, the very fact that war is taking place, a 
 war which intermittently affects family life, 
 must have a considerable influence upon the 
 young, especially as it comes into their lives 
 at a moment when they are temperamentally 
 peculiarly liable to be swayed one way or the 
 other. By this I mean that the probabilities 
 are that from the war will arise two sharply 
 differentiated points of view : either will be 
 bred a certain spirit of aggressiveness amongst 
 the young, which, suitably fostered, will 
 gradually emerge into full-blooded militarism; 
 or, on the other hand, war and its attendant 
 horrors may so impress the imaginative or 
 
 243 
 
244 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 the individual with a tendency towards 
 socialism, that a spirit of pacifism may be 
 planted which in due course will develop 
 into a well-defined hatred of anything to do 
 with war. Then there is the class midway 
 between the two, which accepts war as one of 
 the inevitable crises to which nations are liable, 
 and at the time of life of which I am speaking 
 does not bother its head any more about it. 
 
 Beyond this, however, come the feelings of 
 the victors and vanquished. From the victors 
 one would scarcely expect to find a large body 
 of pacifist thought ; while from the vanquished 
 it would not be unreasonable were there a 
 section which, smarting under the stigma of 
 defeat, was determined to retrieve its position 
 as soon as possible, and thus became in its 
 turn ultra-militarists. This war, however, 
 has been dissimilar from all other wars in that 
 weapons have been employed the existence of 
 which was never dreamed of, and the results 
 of which are so staggering to any one with the 
 least grain of humanity that by common 
 consent every effort must be made to prevent 
 a repetition of such a ghastly state of affairs. 
 One has only to call to mind poison gas, flame 
 projectors and the like. 
 
 As I have attempted to show in the preceding 
 
THE YOUNGER GENERATION 245 
 
 pages, while before the War Germany was 
 frankly militaristic because her sovereign and 
 rulers belonged to the military caste, which for 
 so long had been accepted as the keynote of 
 German life, and against which public opinion, 
 the opinion of the masses, was powerless, still, 
 had those masses been in a position to give their 
 opinion, there is not the slightest doubt that a 
 very great proportion would have been against 
 the constant multiplication of armaments. 
 But they were voiceless ! The War came, the 
 dynasty was swept away, the military caste 
 retired hastily into the background, regiments 
 mutinied, officers were murdered, disillusion 
 overcame discipline and the sway of the military 
 came to an abrupt end. Therefore to-day, 
 except in certain areas — Bavaria may be men- 
 tioned because of her desire to keep up some 
 remnants of her former military prestige — 
 Germany is pacifist along commonsense lines. 
 That is to say, she realises that, to maintain 
 her position as the balancing power in Central 
 Europe, she must have a standing army of 
 sorts to uphold her prestige. But more than 
 that does she not want. 
 
 With her children, however, things are 
 somewhat different. By children I mean the 
 young from the age of understanding to, let 
 
246 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 us say, eighteen. Of the younger ones it may 
 be said that they can remember scarcely aught 
 else but war and its resultant discords upon 
 the national life. The elder can recall the 
 piping times of peace, and, having seen some- 
 thing of war's actualities, have framed very 
 definite views. United with a whole-hearted 
 love for the German " Reich " is a very real 
 distaste for war itself, and a feeling is growing 
 up that at all hazards this ultimate arbitrament 
 must somehow be avoided. It must be clearly 
 understood that this sentiment in no way 
 bespeaks lack of patriotism. There probably 
 never was a time when young Germany was 
 more patriotic, for the very reason that, in 
 ordinary prosaic everyday life, if the son sees 
 his parents in trouble he is the first to come to 
 their succour. One point, however, stands out, 
 and that is that the youth of Germany is 
 thinking, thinking deeply, introspectively, 
 delving into the realms of thought unusual for 
 such untutored minds. 
 
 The average English boy thinks of his school, 
 his lessons, his games, his hobbies, his parents, 
 his holidays, his friends and the like. He does 
 not trouble to ask himself the why and where- 
 fore of life's problems. The average school 
 debating society is a poor thing and the 
 
THE YOUNGER GENERATION 247 
 
 matters put up for debate are often hopelessly 
 out of place. What schoolboy can really 
 answer such questions as whether the divorce 
 law should be reformed, or whether Mr. 
 Gladstone's Near Eastern policy was wise or 
 not? Interesting them in the life of England 
 that was, reviving old traditions and institu- 
 tions, that would be in the nature of practical 
 politics, and that is in some slight degree of 
 what young Germany is imperceptibly imbibing. 
 Generality is not easy, but there is a multi- 
 tudinous volume of groups who express the 
 central thought of this " young people's move- 
 ment," as it is known, though they may 
 violently disagree as to the directions in which 
 they should move. Roughly speaking, how- 
 ever, the central thought is the embodiment 
 of personality, of freedom as applied to the 
 individual units, the breaking away from the 
 crippling confines of school environment and 
 usage. 
 
 Of these movements, perhaps the best known 
 central organisation is that of the " Wander- 
 vogel " (birds of passage). Like the boy scouts 
 in England, its members must number many 
 thousands amongst the boys and girls of the 
 German schools and training colleges. This 
 curious movement was initiated some fifteen 
 
248 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 years before the War, and was in the nature 
 of a protest against the cramping tyranny of 
 school, home and Church. And it soon founded 
 its own sturdy convictions. It threw over- 
 board the traditional conventions, and naturally 
 turned to Nature and the open country as a 
 remedy for the stiffness of the towns. Now 
 consider for a moment first of all the mentality 
 of those young pioneers. They objected to 
 the cramping tyranny of school ! Without 
 entering upon a long argument as to the school 
 system in England, there have been signs 
 lately that the arbitrary customs, for instance, 
 of our public school life have begun to exercise 
 the more thoughtful of the school population. 
 A case in point of this is that curious book, 
 The Loom of Youth, written by Alec Waugh, in 
 which he jettisons the almost hallowed rever- 
 ence instilled into school youth for those who 
 happen to be abnormally good at games. 
 There can be no argument that there is a certain 
 atmosphere of being cribbed, cabined and 
 confined in the average English school. Every- 
 thing is cut out of a mould, everything is 
 arranged to plan, and initiative is actively 
 discouraged. 
 
 It is not so long ago that initiative in English 
 family life was discouraged, and that also is 
 
THE YOUNGER GENERATION 249 
 
 what the German youth were protesting 
 against even before the War. The world is 
 advancing, times are changing, but the rigid 
 conservatism of most families remains. If any 
 member breaks away from the time-honoured 
 precepts of the house, then he or she is labelled, 
 " very peculiar," or " not quite respectable," 
 or else the comment is made, " Oh, we never 
 see him now," or else, " There are certain 
 things one really cannot do." Such was the 
 insular priggishness of the later Victorian era, 
 and unfortunately it is still firmly rooted in 
 many English families, though the War gave 
 it a most unpleasant shock by its emancipation 
 of the young of both sexes and by the general 
 camaraderie engendered by both working 
 towards a common end. Against that state 
 of things, that cloistered life of family, the 
 German youth had kicked long ago, and, as 
 will be shown, to some good purpose. 
 
 Finally, there is religion. In many of its forms 
 its effect is peculiarly cramping, because it 
 has become a species of fetish which is accepted 
 without the slightest inquiry on the part of 
 those who profess it. Going to church on a 
 Sunday morning has become a habit, an 
 essential thing to do on a certain day in the 
 week, just as much as having a bath, shaving 
 
250 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 or dressing for dinner. It is the most wonderful 
 power in the world if those who use it under- 
 stand it, ponder over it and act up to it in their 
 daily lives because they realise the wonder of 
 its truth. Otherwise it becomes merely a 
 cramping conventionality, not to say a hypo- 
 critical one, if those who profess it merely do 
 so in order that they may be thought respect- 
 able and suitable to enter within the sacred 
 domains of society. 
 
 In other words, convention is generally the 
 enemy of progress, at least so these youths 
 protested, and it will be interesting to study 
 how far they have advanced in their search 
 after freedom, and what the influence of their 
 theories has been upon those who have followed 
 and are following in their footsteps. I have 
 a shrewd suspicion that in England a precisely 
 similar conclusion is being reached, though 
 through different methods. 
 
 Freiheit (freedom) is the motto of the 
 " Wandervogel. 5: Boys and girls, when the 
 week-end comes, throw away the restraint of 
 the classes which they have been attending, 
 and together go off for week-end tramps. 
 Friendly farmers allow them the use of their 
 barns, and they live a life in the open, in all 
 weathers, in touch with Nature, in touch with 
 
THE YOUNGER GENERATION 251 
 
 the infinite, and, perhaps most important of 
 all, learning every minute and every hour what 
 a perfect comradeship can exist between boy 
 and girl, a comradeship far removed from the 
 sordidness of conventional sex motive and 
 bringing out all the best which underlies decent 
 natures. For let it never be forgotten that a 
 woman is the natural companion of a man and 
 vice versa. On these trips they collect old 
 folk-songs, they learn country dances and they 
 provide their own accompaniment with singing 
 and music. You can always tell a " Wander- 
 vogel " by his guitar slung over his shoulder, 
 though they may use violins, fifes, clarionettes 
 or other of the softer wind instruments. Brass, 
 personally, I have never seen. The lads wear 
 a coloured jumper, belts and shorts, and the 
 girls simple one-piece dresses. Imagine a day's 
 pilgrimage with six boys and six girls. They 
 will be up and away at dawn ; the girls striding 
 along, limber and supple like young forest 
 deer; the lads sturdy and freckled, with packs 
 on their shoulders containing the necessaries 
 for the next sixty hours. If the sun shines, 
 so much the better; if it rains, what does it 
 matter? To the music of the guitars and of 
 their fresh young voices they will tramp along 
 up hill and down dale, through the darkened 
 
252 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 forests, over the brink of yonder hill which 
 warmly beckons them to inspect the beyond. 
 
 Always the beyond— that fascinating be- 
 yond. That " beyond " with its inexplicable 
 call to the wayfarer, the tramp and the vaga- 
 bond. In life there are all sorts of " beyonds," 
 and assuredly, should we ever reach to the top 
 of that hill whence the beyond can be visualised, 
 has not the weary tramp visioned something 
 not to be met with in the garish everyday 
 life of society — a species of adventurous senti- 
 ment which can never be satisfied ? 
 
 The midday meal is eaten by the roadside, 
 as likely as not, even in these hard times, 
 shared with some peasant less better off. The 
 evening meal will be munched in the farmer's 
 barn before these healthy young folk snuggle 
 down for the night amongst the clean, warm 
 straw and drift without effort into that wonder- 
 ful land of dreams. Daylight ; a cold splash in 
 the neighbouring stream, a hunch of bread and 
 a cup of hot coffee from the friendly farmer and 
 again the twang of the guitar, while one of the 
 number strikes up that favourite air with its 
 touch of melancholy, " Ich hat ein gute 
 Kamerad, ein besserer findst du nicht." There 
 is always a touch of melancholy in these semi- 
 folksongs. The touch here is supplied by the 
 
THE YOUNGER GENERATION 253 
 
 past tense, " Ich hat" instead of the present, 
 " Ich habe." And so they tramp on again for 
 another eight hours, and is it surprising that 
 after a number of these wandering journeys, 
 with no particular route, through the odd 
 corners of the countryside, these boys grow 
 to understand the attitude, the mentality, the 
 hopes and the aspirations of the peasantry, 
 too little visited by the sojourners in the great 
 cities, too little understood by those of the 
 modern world ? And though they live lonely 
 and apart, let it not be forgotten that they are 
 the core of the nation. 
 
 Some of the ceremonies or rites of this 
 " Wandervogel ' must have their origin from 
 very ancient times, and are therefore of extreme 
 interest. For instance, the " Sonnenwend- 
 feuer," or Summer Solstice Firr; is held in 
 great veneration. They build an enormous 
 bonfire, around which they dance, dedicating 
 themselves to purity and to the service of 
 others. The latter is something similar to 
 that of the dedication of the boy scout. The 
 former, however, is more far-reaching, and 
 must be looked at in the light of common 
 sense. Here are virile young men and maidens 
 certainly who have every opportunity, should 
 they so desire, of indulging in their natural sexual 
 
254 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 passions. And this they certainly do not do, 
 and they exhibit their self-control to prove 
 the earnestness of their belief in the possibility 
 of companionship, friendship and a complete 
 understanding between the two sexes. Dr. 
 Helmoldt in his History of the World cites a 
 rather similar instance in the pages on early 
 Christendom, where novitiates of both sexes, 
 to show the strength of their belief, and the 
 powers which came to them through these 
 beliefs, habitually slept together. Whatever 
 may be said about the " Wandervogel," immor- 
 ality can never be charged against them. As 
 above stated also, the season of the year makes 
 no difference to the pilgrimages, and they are 
 just as happy tramping through the highways 
 and byways of the countryside in July as they 
 are in December. 
 
 But it is the atmosphere inculcated by these 
 outings which makes them of supreme interest. 
 In the evening over their scanty meal they 
 discuss weighty questions, and no matter 
 how immature the attempt to solve social 
 problems, such as the dissemination of wealth, 
 the lot of the working-man, the problem of child- 
 birth as applied to present-day conditions, 
 when every child becomes an additional living 
 tax upon admittedly insufficient resources and 
 
THE YOUNGER GENERATION 255 
 
 the like, it is not so much the results which are 
 arrived at, as the mental exercises which 
 are undertaken in order to arrive at those 
 conclusions. 
 
 We, in England, are great believers in physical 
 exercise. We play football, cricket, golf, 
 tennis; we swim, we box, we sail boats, we 
 shoot pheasants — in fact there is no known 
 form of physical activity which the youth of 
 England is not taught to take up and admire. 
 This is absolutely as it should be. But I do 
 contend, however, that the average youth is 
 not taught to use his mind except for the passing 
 of examinations, after which he forgets as 
 speedily as possible. Naturally in an enormous 
 and congested population such as exists in the 
 British Isles it would be ridiculous were there 
 not a large stratum of deep-thinking people, 
 a stratum which is becoming enlarged year by 
 year. But, generally speaking, the percentage 
 is not high. The best proof of this is to be 
 found in the circulation of the popular Press. 
 I am not referring, of course, to news sheets, 
 
 i but to the popular weekly paper with its circu- 
 lation running into hundreds of thousands and 
 
 j its pages full of nothing but " hints to house- 
 wives," " competitions for the million," and 
 articles certainly of no educational value. In 
 
256 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 fact they are lacking in thought and useless 
 altogether as regards encouraging patriotism, 
 self-determination or imbuing the reader with 
 that spirit of self-confidence which is the back- 
 bone of any country. 
 
 In 1913 a number of students and others 
 connected with the " Wandervogel " met on 
 a hill near Cassel and founded what they called 
 the " Freideutsche Jugend," a name which 
 practically explains itself, and which is supposed 
 to show both love of freedom and love of true 
 patriotism, which is something quite apart 
 from the modern sabre-rattling vulgarity. The 
 formula enunciated ran something like this : 
 " The Freideutsche Jugend desires to shape its 
 corporate life on the basis of inner truthfulness. 
 All its meetings shall be free from alcohol and 
 nicotine " — which was taken to mean that 
 alcohol and tobacco were regarded as part and 
 parcel of bourgeois tradition and were in 
 consequence banned. When the War came it 
 was noteworthy that the " Wandervogel " and 
 the " Freideutsche " nearly all joined up as 
 volunteers. There was no question of calling 
 upon them, because they were absolutely 
 convinced that they were fighting a war of 
 defence, and over their camp-fires they had 
 learnt the lesson that patriotism, together with 
 
 
THE YOUNGER GENERATION 257 
 
 truth and purity, form a sound working basis 
 for travellers through life. And for those 
 ideals they were ready to live, to suffer and to 
 die. The survivors, and they were few, after 
 their experiences in war began to be doubtful 
 as to their tenets regarding the taking of life. 
 They were young and impressionable, and 
 naturally they had witnessed all the blood and 
 horror which probably emphasised this conflict 
 more than any other. Some became pacifists 
 and some were casting about for a new plank 
 upon which to base their credo when the 
 revolution of 1918 forced them into a corner and 
 made them face infinitely difficult political 
 issues. 
 
 As was only to be expected, the war brought 
 a split between the " Wandervogel " and the 
 " Freideutsche." The " Wandervogel " be- 
 came a national party. By this it must not 
 be understood that they wanted to rattle their 
 | swords and their scabbards, nor that their eyes 
 looked longingly towards Krupps' for guns and 
 war material, nor that they regarded the Crown 
 Prince as aught else but a braggart cockscomb. 
 But they thought that they saw the need of 
 the hour in a purified patriotism, a mystical 
 growth of all that was clean and beautiful in 
 the national being, A better word for them 
 
258 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 would be practical idealists. They visualised 
 the future for Germany free from the vulgar 
 intrigues which render politics in any country 
 to-day unclean. They wanted justice and 
 equity. Their dream was of a Utopia where 
 man was as pure as Nature and honesty of 
 purpose stood for the backbone of the State. 
 The other section became internationalists, 
 many becoming Communists. Some of them 
 were wildly impractical and sought to escape 
 from the world and live a life of seclusion from 
 things mundane, earning for themselves the 
 absolute necessities of existence. Many started 
 small farm settlements in out-of-the-way 
 districts; others sought satisfaction in the 
 practice of oriental religion, whilst another 
 section, breaking away altogether from the 
 tenets of their belief, preached the freedom of 
 the individual to the extent of free love. Some 
 of these were, of course, poseurs and should 
 never have been accepted into the brotherhood, 
 but in an enormous organisation such as this 
 it was but natural that undesirables should 
 creep in, and in any intellectual movement 
 there are always bound to be a certain number 
 of extremists. Another portion, quite an inter- 
 esting portion, arrived at the conclusion that 
 Christianity was perfectly sound if it was 
 
THE YOUNGER GENERATION 259 
 
 relieved of tradition. In other words, they 
 demanded simplicity in their intercourse with 
 the Almighty, and thus came more or less into 
 line with Quaker thought. But common to 
 them all is this curious spirit of restless research, 
 a profound hatred of the conventional civilisa- 
 tion of the past and a profound conviction 
 that the world must be reconstructed, if it is 
 to continue, on totally different lines. And 
 here comes a hitch. It is very well to hate 
 the existing conditions under which we live. 
 Many of us do, and we passionately yearn for 
 a completely different atmosphere in which 
 to live, breathe and have our being. With this 
 yearning, however, there must be a positive 
 constructive side. As in Germany, there may 
 be endless talk and discussion, overpoweringly 
 brilliant in theory and analysis, but there is 
 little action. It puzzles them, these demands 
 for constructive formation, " We do not want 
 merely to talk, we want to get to deeds, ' ! they 
 say in effect. They are only too prone to see 
 their faults and to face their difficulties, and 
 the delay in concrete action makes them very 
 miserable. This, however, proves the honesty 
 of their idealism. 
 
 Throughout the whole movement is an 
 intense longing for fellowship. Everywhere 
 
260 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 one finds this taking shape in experiments along 
 Communistic lines, mostly on the land. The 
 surge and hurry of the big towns kills so fragile 
 a growth ; it must be independent of them, and 
 free from their morbid materialistic outlook on 
 life. So they go away and build up a small 
 colony in some out-of-the-way nook where 
 they can grow all their own food and spin the 
 yarn with which to make their own clothes. 
 And there one sees, developed at its best, the 
 wonderful spirit of comradeship which really 
 ought to exist between man and woman the 
 world over, but has been betrayed by the foibles 
 and excesses of society so called. It stands to 
 reason that simplicity must be the basis of 
 any such understanding, and assuredly sim- 
 plicity dies as soon as the bastard type of 
 modern civilisation makes itself evident. 
 
 Experimental schools following these new 
 lines are growing up in Germany on the prin- 
 ciple of complete fellowship between teachers 
 and taught. It really is not such a bad idea. 
 It does not seem so many years ago, though 
 truth to tell it is many, when the sight of the 
 Head Master filled me with unreasoning, inex- 
 plicable awe. When I say that that Head 
 Master was the late Canon Westcott, Dean of 
 Norwich Cathedral, and one of the gentlest 
 
 
THE YOUNGER GENERATION 261 
 
 and kindest men imaginable, it shows that 
 I must have been inoculated very generously 
 with the traditional fear of Head Masters. 
 Then followed the House Masters, with whom 
 one did not stand in such dread, for though 
 with the boys in their own Houses they repre- 
 sented everything which was unpleasant and 
 irksome, as a member of the School House one 
 always felt that there was an appeal. Then, 
 further down in the scale still, came the Form 
 Masters. Of some of these we were very fright- 
 ened, but on those of foreign extraction, the 
 French and the German, as well as the " stinks " 
 (chemistry) master, the tables were turned, and 
 I am afraid we must have blighted their lives ! 
 But comradeship, the studied endeavour to 
 understand the boys' point of view, the effort 
 to make of all boys something more than 
 automatic machines which every term had 
 their machinery investigated for the benefit 
 of their parents and the satisfaction of the 
 engineers in charge, nothing was done except 
 on the very rarest occasions. Now, a school is 
 being tried by a circle of Freideutsche teachers 
 called the " Wendekreis," who, true to their 
 belief, have organised a boys' elementary 
 school which is bereft of organisation and rigid 
 discipline. Each class has been made into a 
 
262 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 species of friendly society between teacher and 
 taught, where there is absolutely no cramming — 
 oh, how wonderful ! — but the work is rather 
 one of creation. 
 
 Any schoolmaster who takes his task seriously 
 will agree that the great thing in teaching is 
 to render the mind of the taught creative. 
 Thus any one can learn Euclid in the same way 
 that an actor learns a part in a play. A boy 
 will be able to write out the whole of a proposi- 
 tion, but how much of it he really understands 
 is a totally different question. This was brought 
 before me rather lucidly by a deep-sea pilot, 
 who said he had a schoolmaster on the bridge 
 who wanted to learn the use of a sextant. 
 He showed him the ropes, and then said, " Now 
 you have got the two sides of the triangle, and 
 of course you can easily find out the third." 
 That schoolmaster was puzzled momentarily 
 until the pilot said, " Why, that is what you 
 teach your class every day," which was correct, 
 only he had never learnt to apply the know- 
 ledge he possessed to practical purpose. 
 
 Now, particularly in the post-war courses for 
 students in Germany, a very important fact 
 in the educational regime has been realised. 
 It is the fact that manual labour is not only the 
 basis of true education, but possesses in itself 
 
THE YOUNGER GENERATION 263 
 
 all those features which make for co-operation 
 and comradeship, as well as supplying a certain 
 body stimulus to mental energy. " Mens sana 
 in corpore sano,' : is an excellent motto, fre- 
 quently quoted in England, but its true inward- 
 ness is not thoroughly appreciated. It is 
 perfectly possible to have magnificent physique 
 kept up to the " nth ' degree by sport and 
 exercises, and yet to have a mentality which is 
 lazy and lacking in concentration. And if the 
 brain is sluggish initiative will usually be lacking, 
 studied intuition will be non-existent, and as 
 for creation — that looking beyond through the 
 smoke-glass of the future, that groping to find 
 a way out of the interminable tangle into 
 which the last hundred years of historical 
 practice has brought us — that will be absolutely 
 nil. 
 
 Administrative genius is rarely the offspring 
 of a comfortable home. Administrative genius 
 springs from a comprehension of mankind 
 learnt in a University the diploma of which an 
 American once told me was more valuable 
 than any other. The name of that University 
 is " hard knocks." Germany has received 
 plenty of these and her graduates must be 
 numerous. But wisely the younger generation 
 has grasped the fact that initiative, perse ver- 
 
264 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 ance, the acceptance of whatever the day 
 brings forth, irrespective of the morning after, 
 the conscientious application of every ounce of 
 talent possessed towards constructive ends, the 
 getting out of the groove which has enmeshed 
 nearly the whole world — therein lies the promise 
 of the future and the hope of the generations 
 to come. It belongs to no political party. It 
 will never allow itself to be led by the plea of 
 age, for, brutally speaking, age can be just 
 as inexperienced, ineffective and futile as youth. 
 Therefore it is jettisoned, but treated with a 
 respect one must have for those who, according 
 to the rules of the game, will in the course of 
 things pass on. It demands an absolute 
 independence of thought, it refuses to accept 
 any dicta which cripple its radius of mental 
 vision. It obeys the laws of the State. It pays 
 its taxes, it does not commit burglary, murder 
 or rape. It is therefore composed of law- 
 abiding citizens de facto, but it insists, and 
 rightly, that God gave it its individuality, 
 its brains, its thoughts, its soul, and when He 
 gave them He made no sort of conditions as 
 to the application of its mental strength with 
 the exception of the words, " Render unto 
 Caesar the things that are Caesar's." In that 
 it has not failed even to the extent of giving 
 
THE YOUNGER GENERATION 265 
 
 its life on the field of battle. From a fairly 
 good authority I learnt that over 60 per 
 cent, of the " Wandervogel ' lie buried on the 
 battlefields of the Great War. 
 
 It is easy to criticise, it is easy to laugh at 
 idealism, it is the essence of cheap vulgarity 
 to jeer because the mind of the jeerer is incap- 
 able of absorbing the intenseness of righteous 
 conviction. I suppose there are people who 
 have laughed at the sufferings of Savonarola. 
 I suppose there are some people who doubt 
 the historical accuracy of Joan of Arc. There 
 i are doubtless many people who regard Luther 
 as a misguided man. There was opposition 
 and hatred against Wilberforce because he took 
 up the cudgels against slavery. Elizabeth 
 Fry, of almost sacred memory, was regarded 
 as a crank because she pitied the poor, the 
 powerless and the imprisoned. In fact, where- 
 ever one looks one seems to be brought 
 face to face with the extremely unpleasant 
 suggestion that anything which savours of 
 reform and speaks of a betterment of humanity 
 is looked at askance and passed by on the other 
 I side. There is much which applies to-day in 
 | the parable of the Good Samaritan. No great 
 i movement, in spite of wireless telegraphy, 
 electricity and other such aids to speed, has 
 
266 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 ever been accomplished in a day, and curiously 
 enough there are people in the world who, 
 playing upon the strings of circumstance, find 
 the audience too busy to listen, but they play 
 on, because they are determined that their 
 melodies shall be heard later if not sooner. 
 And so it its with this intensely Teuton idea of 
 education along new lines tending towards 
 the construction of a new Germany upon an 
 intensely humanistic basis. True, life is short, 
 but then the offspring of these lovers of 
 independence and freedom will in their turn 
 become budding apostles of idealism, and will 
 exercise a powerful influence upon the thought 
 of their generation. 
 
 Now it must be emphasised that, though 
 the " Wander vogel ' consists mostly of the 
 bourgeoisie, their tenets have been eagerly 
 clutched at by the Socialists. They too have 
 learnt the spell of the country, the music of 
 the Avind in the trees, the lisping of the fallen 
 leaves as the breeze gently carries them along 
 on their haphazard journey. They too have 
 learnt to appreciate the silence of the night, 
 broken only by the restless flitting of an owl or 
 the strange rustling which breaks a midnight 
 calm and which leads the listener to picture 
 visions of elfs and dwarfs and fairies, elemental 
 
THE YOUNGER GENERATION 267 
 
 beings of another world. And these youthful 
 Socialists have also discovered the hollowness 
 of the old-fashioned Social Democratic Party 
 life, with its demand upon discipline and its 
 orders to attack even when the individual may 
 be opposed to its policy. " Away with these 
 bonds,' : is their cry — " away with the shackles 
 of the Political Trade Unionism. Combination 
 may spell strength, but let us be free, let us 
 be free." Such a movement, I imagine, will 
 not receive the benediction of the Trade Union 
 leaders in this country, but if they have done 
 10 per cent, of good for the working classes 
 they have accomplished 50 per cent, of harm. 
 This, however, is free England, and the unfortu- 
 nate Trade Unionists must bow the knee to 
 their leaders and acknowledge an iron rule even 
 as despotic, cruel and overpowering as was that 
 of Kaiser Wilhelm. Truly the individual Trade 
 Unionists can no longer boast of a genuinely 
 free England. 
 
 As might be expected, it has not been easy 
 to consolidate these young social democrats 
 with their colleagues of the " Wandervogel," 
 but each have similar claims, similar con- 
 ceptions of life and similar sincerity and honesty 
 of purpose, and have discovered a via media 
 known as the " Jugendring," which is springing 
 
268 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 up in many places and is uniting the various 
 parts into one composite whole. What that 
 will mean for the nation in the future and for 
 generations to come it is almost impossible 
 to exaggerate. Here is the working combina- 
 tion of the tinker, the tailor, the soldier, the 
 sailor, the parson's daughter and the doctor's 
 son, the squire's daughter and the blacksmith's 
 son, meeting on terms of perfect equity, pre- 
 pared to discuss questions affecting the public 
 will, and looking serenely forward to a happy 
 world wherein social distinctions shall be cut 
 away to the minimum, where the right to live 
 will never be denied to those who wish to 
 work, and where love, the supreme essence of 
 humanity, the key of human happiness and the 
 most stabilising influence in the community, 
 shall be free from all the pettifogging restric- 
 tions of society and social status which have 
 crippled and clogged it for centuries. Not 
 so long ago there was a meeting of the Jugend- 
 ring in Frankfort which embraced every 
 political group in existence. After laying 
 wreaths on the plinths of the Goethe and 
 Schiller monuments, they went into the great 
 Paulskirche, where the national assembly sat 
 in 1848, and listened to an address from Dr. 
 Karl Wilker, who up to 1920 was the head of 
 
THE YOUNGER GENERATION 269 
 
 a reformatory in Berlin, managed on the same 
 lines as the Wendeschule in Hamburg. The 
 burden of his address was, " Wir mussen 
 menschen sein " — we must be true human 
 individualities. 
 
 In other words, we must not accept the 
 doctrines and theories of others, but we must 
 study them ourselves, estimate their value and 
 make up our own minds as to the rights and 
 wrongs of any given problem. Away with the 
 hypocrisy and humbug of party Government, 
 away with the nonsensical cant which sends a 
 man into the lobby of a Parliament House 
 merely because he belongs to such and such a 
 Party — in fact away with anything which 
 crushes independent thought and action, which 
 are the godfather and the godmother of healthy 
 idealism. Whatever it may become, the 
 Independent Party in the House of Commons 
 has struck the right note, at least it has 
 plumbed the chicanery which envelops that 
 I august institution, and against which there is a 
 growing tide of popular opinion. 
 
 To return to the Jugendring. After the 
 address there was a great procession to the 
 ancient square near by, in which stands the 
 palace in which the Holy Roman Emperors 
 were wont to be crowned. Here the " Wan- 
 
270 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 dervogel " began to dance in swaying rings, 
 throwing their torches, which had been lighted 
 for the procession, into the centre, and making 
 a wonderful Rembrandtesque effect, as in the 
 darkness the flames lit up their faces. They 
 sang their old songs and threw into the flames 
 quantities of that erotic literature of which I 
 made mention in the last chapter, thus actively 
 dissociating themselves from that canker which 
 all observers confidently believe will be speedily 
 eradicated from the German " Reich, ' : and 
 which will in no small measure be due to my 
 friends the " Wandervogel." 
 
 I have talked with some of these young 
 men who fought against England, some of 
 whom have been wounded. In their conver- 
 sation there was no trace of bitterness; on 
 the contrary, they somewhat wistfully inquired 
 whether in time there could not be some sort 
 of understanding between the youth of the two 
 countries. They are very anxious to learn 
 what young England can teach them, and there 
 is no manner of doubt that they can teach 
 young England a very great deal. They can 
 show that it is possible to break down the 
 hitherto snug convention which embarrasses 
 the England of to-day. They can show that 
 comradeship between boy and girl or man and 
 
THE YOUNGER GENERATION 271 
 
 woman need not necessarily, in fact does not 
 with justness, necessitate the ever-ready arrows 
 of scandal which are always poised for the 
 attack by those who ought to know better, and 
 they can point the way to a happier conception 
 of life, a life of freedom and unrestraint, a life 
 of genuine hard work with its compensations, 
 a life which promises, as the days become 
 shorter and the nights draw in, when the span 
 allotted is nearly ended, a happy and contented 
 termination. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE SECRET SERVICE AND ITS OPERATIONS 
 
 For some reason or other Secret Service 
 seems to possess a fatal attraction for every- 
 body, except those who are actively employed 
 in it. For them there is no attraction, but, I 
 imagine, a considerable amount of humour. 
 Fiction paints the Secret Service man or 
 woman, as the case may be, as being a sort of 
 melodramatic personage, armed to the teeth 
 and always ready to pounce at the first oppor- 
 tunity. As a matter of fact the most successful 
 Secret Service individual I ever met during 
 the War was an inoffensive, fair-haired little 
 man, with a face rather like a rabbit, who 
 seemed to spend most of his time in a nervous 
 attempt to keep out of everybody's way. 
 Perhaps that is why he was so successful. 
 Anyhow he was possessed of a sense of humour, 
 for we both laughed heartily at Tilbury railway 
 station, when tw T o obvious Scotland Yard 
 detectives had allowed a notorious spy to 
 pass without let or hindrance, the detectives 
 
 272 
 
THE SECRET SERVICE 278 
 
 having found no fault in him. My little 
 friend, however, had, and, though the suspect 
 travelled to London, he did not travel alone, 
 and later met his fate, like the brave man he 
 was, without complaint in that little shooting 
 gallery in the Tower the walls of which could 
 tell many stories, painful and otherwise. 
 
 There is no doubt about it that the Germans 
 are adepts at the game. There are moments 
 when one wonders whether this amusement, 
 which is of rather a costly nature, is quite 
 worth while. However, they think so; and 
 that is the main point. Thanks to my secre- 
 tary, I was enabled to be present at the trial 
 of the American Secret Service men, Neave 
 and Zimmer, at the little town of Mosbach 
 on the river Neckar. The charge against 
 them was the rather unpleasant one of 
 attempted murder. That trial I shall not 
 easily forget. It was a strange medley of 
 comedy, some pathos and a goodly quantity 
 of grimness. My arrival at the Court House 
 in a motor caused some sensation. We had 
 come from Heidelberg like this because trains 
 were few and far between, and in this little 
 out-of-the-way tow T n the only two other cars 
 were those belonging to the senior judge, who 
 
 had come from Carlsruhe, and the prisoners, 
 
 s 
 
274 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 who had been wafted thither from some other 
 health resort. 
 
 From the very start there was no doubt 
 about it that the English were no' popular. 
 For once the German police forgot their 
 manners, and also, it seems, they forgot the 
 fact that it is possible even for an Englishman 
 to understand German. In the little hall 
 outside the court-room there must have been 
 twenty fully armed police, striding up and 
 down as though waiting to molest somebody 
 if they had the opportunity. We pushed our 
 way through them, and were, of course, 
 stopped. My secretary explained that I was 
 an English journalist interested in the case, 
 and as a reply was told that all Englishmen 
 were bound for an unpleasantly hot country 
 to which they might go as soon as they liked, 
 and as for journalists, why, hadn't they got 
 two already in there — pointing to the court- 
 room—and Americans at that ? Having heard 
 that there was an American officer representing 
 the American Army present, I applied to him 
 for a permit, to which he most courteously 
 answered that the judge was the only person 
 who could give permits, but he would per- 
 sonally recommend that my secretary and I 
 had one. A moment's delay, and I was told 
 
THE SECRET SERVICE 275 
 
 that I should be most welcome, much to the 
 chagrin of the police on duty, at whom I 
 could not help but smile. 
 
 Not only was I given a seat, but I was 
 given the best seat in the court, at least so I 
 imagine the judge thought. I was placed 
 directly next to one of the principals concerned, 
 a typical-looking bully, with the torso of a 
 Hercules and one of the ugliest wives I have 
 ever met, who spent her entire time in scowling 
 at me. If looks could have killed, I should 
 have been a dead man. 
 
 And now for the story of this episode. It is 
 interesting because it shows to some extent 
 the methods of the Secret Service in some 
 countries. Neave and Zimmer, the American 
 Secret Service agents, had crossed the Atlantic 
 with express instructions from their Govern- 
 ment, by hook or crook, to catch a man whom 
 we will call " H." They evidently anticipated 
 what is known in police circles as a " rough 
 house," for no sooner were they on German 
 soil than they enlisted the services of five 
 Germans, from their appearances respectable 
 enough people, but quite capable of taking 
 care of themselves. They traced their quarry 
 as far as the little town of Eberbach on the 
 Neckar, and, as luck would have it, they 
 
276 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 located him at the railway station, where he 
 was seeing off a newly-married couple on their 
 honeymoon. Now " H " was a man of con- 
 siderable wealth; how he had got it was 
 something of a mystery, and it may be that 
 the American Government had gone to all this 
 expense owing to something in connection 
 with that money. History does not relate. 
 All that Neave and Zimmer had to do was to 
 get him somehow or other to Coblentz, which 
 is the headquarters of the American Army of 
 Occupation. Seeing him on the platform, 
 everything looked very pleasant, and friends 
 Neave and Zimmer congratulated themselves 
 heartily upon an easy capture. But fact, 
 rather like fiction, does not often work out as 
 it should. " H ' proved himself more than a 
 match for the two Secret Service men, knocked 
 one on to the railway line and pushed the other 
 over a convenient luggage trolley and made a 
 bolt for his own fifty-horse-power car waiting 
 outside. What the German assistants accom- 
 plished no one seems to know. Apparently 
 all they did was to supply a chorus of squeaks, 
 wails and other forms of lamentation. By this 
 time " H " had got into his car with his women- 
 folk and started the engine. Neave and 
 Zimmer, being men of action, drew their 
 
THE SECRET SERVICE 277 
 
 450-colt automatics, though, Zimmer assured 
 me, they never meant to do any harm to any 
 one. All they wanted to accomplish was to 
 burst up the tyres of the runaway car. As 
 any one who has handled one of these auto- 
 matics will know, when once cocked they are 
 very tender. Some one in the crowd hit 
 Neave's arm, striking it upwards, and the 
 pistol went off, blowing away the hand of one 
 of " H's " lady friends. Then ensued pande- 
 monium. The town guards were called out, 
 the militia were called out, the whole of the 
 available police force of Eberbach hurried to 
 the scene, and Neave and Zimmer and their 
 assistants were deposited in the local jail. 
 
 This, then, was their trial. Feelings natur- 
 ally were running extremely high, and when 
 the representative of The Chicago Tribune 
 asked me whether I would shake hands with 
 Zimmer, I naturally accepted with pleasure, 
 since Zimmer had been a sergeant in the War 
 and had been decorated for gallantry. Now 
 comes the curious point about this episode. 
 I asked Zimmer point-blank for what they 
 wanted " H," and he told me equally frankly 
 that he didn't know, but said that there were 
 all sorts of stories about, some that H' had 
 avoided military service by bribery, or, again, 
 
278 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 that his hands were not clean from a political 
 point of view, but he added categorically, * ' I do 
 not think that it is anything of that sort myself ; 
 I don't know what it is. But I don't reckon 
 the American Government would spend all 
 this money to get a guy like that without 
 there being something pretty serious behind.' 1 
 He was an imperturbable, cheery optimist, 
 was Zimmer. He certainly looked the part. 
 A clean-shaven man, inclined to be stout, 
 with long black hair brushed straight back 
 over his head and a capacity for chewing gum 
 which fascinated me. I said that I hoped 
 that he would be acquitted, and that, in any 
 case, he would get out. He laughed heartily, 
 and said, " I value your good wishes all right, 
 but if it is up against me and they send me 
 to the c choke,' I guess I'll bite my way out." 
 Which strikes me as being a very excellent 
 expression. 
 
 When we came out of the courthouse there 
 was a surging mob of some six or seven hundred 
 excited Mosbachers. Neave was giving an 
 exhibition of how it happened that he shot 
 the lady, and I ventured to go as near to the 
 car as I could. It was then the turn of my 
 secretary to be busy. The Chicago Tribune 
 representative edged in along with me, and 
 
THE SECRET SERVICE 279 
 
 the crowd began to hustle us, and things 
 started to look ugly. However, we managed 
 to get out of it, and my secretary gave me a 
 severe wigging for being provocative. In the 
 end the Secret Service agents were sentenced, 
 one to fifteen months' hard labour, and the 
 other to a year, sentences which I was per- 
 fectly certain they would never serve. Neither 
 did they. The officer in command of the 
 American forces sent a polite intimation to 
 the Government of Baden to the effect that 
 these men were to be released and sent to 
 Coblentz, failing which there were plenty of 
 American troops available who could easily 
 and comfortably make their way to Mosbach 
 as temporary settlers. Needless to say, the 
 men were released. Their German accessories, 
 I understand, however, are still under lock 
 and key, which seems rather hard luck. But 
 the interesting thing would be to know why 
 " H ' was wanted. It is obvious that the 
 expense incurred in making all these prepara- 
 tions and in sending the men over must have 
 been very great, and the American Govern- 
 ment must have wanted him uncommonly 
 badly. And unless I under-rate the American 
 Secret Service very greatly, they will have 
 " H," perhaps not this year, perhaps not next 
 
280 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 year, but some day. On the whole I am glad 
 that I am not " H." 
 
 Speaking from personal experience, I assert 
 that being watched is a most unpleasant 
 sensation. Owing to the peculiar exigencies 
 of the situation, before I could get my permit 
 to travel through Germany the Consulate in 
 London was obliged to write to Berlin ex- 
 plaining the object of my journey in order to 
 receive the facilities which ultimately were 
 accorded to me. And hence it was but natural 
 that the Answartiges Amt, corresponding to 
 our Foreign Office, should take particular care 
 that I came to no harm, and equally, no doubt, 
 that I did not see any side of the picture 
 which they desired to conceal. And hence it 
 was that I grew to know perfectly well that 
 everything I did was being noticed; that if I 
 turned up a side street in order to dodge 
 somebody who I thought was following me 
 I should be perfectly certain to find some one 
 else who I instinctively knew recognised me 
 and took me metaphorically in charge. In 
 one sense I must say that I rather appreciated 
 the sensation, since I knew that I could not 
 very well come to any harm, and my mind 
 wandered back to days long ago in Constanti- 
 nople, where I was extremely suspect and 
 
THE SECRET SERVICE 281 
 
 was followed by a veritable battalion of 
 Secret Police. I did complain to Sir Nicholas 
 O'Connor, then Ambassador, and he laughed 
 over the luncheon-table and said, " You may 
 think yourself extremely lucky, because they 
 will see jolly well that nothing happens to 
 you," and I suppose there was something in 
 that. 
 
 At the same time, there is a certain nervous 
 strain about being watched and knowing that 
 you are being followed which makes one 
 restless. At Stuttgart, where I have already 
 mentioned I was unable to obtain an hotel, a 
 palpable spy accosted me and told me that 
 he could find me rooms and bright society, if 
 I would come with him. I quite understood 
 what he meant, and politely refused to have 
 anything to do with him. Whereon he re- 
 marked that he hoped that I should have 
 better luck at Ulm or Munich or wherever I 
 was going during my tour. In other words, 
 he was very well acquainted with my move- 
 ments. In Munich I really had a very amusing 
 experience. For a variety of reasons, women 
 are proverbially the best Secret Service agents 
 procurable. I saw it stated recently in the 
 daily papers that Sinn Feiners were using 
 female agents in order to guide them to the 
 
282 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 easiest places, where they could cause most 
 damage with least expense. I thoroughly 
 believe it. In Germany the agents employed 
 upon the work of shadowing visitors whose 
 intentions are not quite clear, are chosen from 
 those possessed of considerable charm, very 
 high education, and, of course, of necessity 
 complete familiarity with the most ordinary 
 foreign languages. Occasionally they make 
 mistakes, as my friend in Munich did, over 
 which we both laughed heartily as we drank 
 our coffee and liqueurs and hoped that we 
 should meet again. Frau Schneider, to give 
 her her nom de 'plume, was petite, dark, 
 vivacious and full of fun. In fact, I think 
 her sense of humour would have carried her 
 through the most difficult situations. We got 
 into conversation in the foyer of the hotel 
 through the medium of her dog, which, without 
 being bidden, jumped on to my knees. I 
 afterwards learnt that the dog was a very 
 valuable portion of the machinery. At any 
 rate, after a few casual remarks about pass- 
 ports, travelling in Germany, Englishmen and 
 the like, she turned to me and said, " So you 
 are a journalist, and nominally you represent 
 
 the " I answered, " How on earth did 
 
 you know that? " She saw that she had been 
 
THE SECRET SERVICE 283 
 
 a little over-hasty, and said, " Oh, I gathered 
 as much." I was not quite satisfied, however, 
 and so went up to my room, which looked 
 precisely as I had left it. Now, rightly or 
 wrongly, I never lock my attache case, and 
 since it is the small things in life which in- 
 variably give away the game, I noticed one 
 thing which satisfied me that some one had 
 been into my room and had made a pretty 
 thorough, exhaustive search of my kit. Lying 
 on my dressing-table was a reminder, a very 
 polite reminder from Brigg, the St, James' 
 Street umbrella-makers of world-wide fame, 
 that I owed them £3 10s. Now this was the 
 last paper in the world over which I should 
 worry, having known Brigg since I was a boy, 
 and, since it was under all the other docu- 
 ments in my case, for a moment I was exceed- 
 ingly puzzled. Then it occurred to me; 
 Frau Schneider ! Sauce for the goose being 
 sauce for the gander, I thought I would visit 
 her room and see what I could find among her 
 possessions. So I called the maid and was 
 told that Frau Schneider's room was No. 110 
 on the next floor. I reasoned that she could 
 not have possibly got into my room without 
 the assistance of a pass key. So, therefore, 
 I went to No. 110, interviewed the chamber- 
 
284 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 maid in charge of the corridor and asked her 
 to open the Gnadiger Frau's room, as she had 
 asked me to get something for her. It did 
 not work, however. The maid told me that 
 it was directly against the orders of the hotel 
 to use the pass key for anybody without the 
 direct instructions of the owner of the room. 
 So, beaten, I returned to the foyer, and with 
 my charming companion discussed the relative 
 merits of Irish terriers, dachshunds, wolf- 
 hounds, Airedales, St. Bernards and blood- 
 hounds. For was she not an enthusiast her- 
 self, and did she not know about everything 
 in the canine world ? Then she excused herself, 
 said she was going to get a cigarette and would 
 see me in ten minutes. When she came back 
 she was rippling with laughter, and so I asked 
 her if she had found my attache case locked 
 on this occasion. To which she promptly 
 replied that once was sufficient, and she hoped 
 that the door of 110 had not worried me too 
 much. She then added, between gusts of 
 merriment, that 110 was a sort of technical 
 number to which any one was directed who 
 was in any way interested in the work of the 
 Secret Service agents, and that, in point of 
 fact, her room was only two doors from mine. 
 Then she laughed again heartily, said she was 
 
THE SECRET SERVICE 285 
 
 going on to Salzburg next day, and that if I 
 was sensible I should make friends with a 
 very agreeable and capable woman who would 
 look after me during my sojourn in Germany 
 and who would put me in the way, if I so 
 desired, of seeing a great many things which 
 I could not possibly see for myself. And 
 then she spoke seriously and said, " You 
 quite realise the position, don't you? If you 
 were a German wandering around the industrial 
 cities of England, dodging in and out of the 
 rough quarters, in order to see how the poor 
 live, and, in fact, trying to see exactly what 
 is going on in the humbler strata of society, 
 you would be running a very great risk of ill- 
 treatment, let alone severe bodily harm. You 
 can take it from me, we want to give you all 
 the information we can, and we will assist you 
 to that end. Only, do not try to go out 
 alone in the low districts, for, though you 
 speak German all right, you are an obvious 
 Englishman, and there is nothing particularly 
 brave in getting messed up in a street brawl." 
 And when I said good-bye, and added, " I 
 hope, Frau Schneider, we shall meet again," 
 with a twinkle and a slight grimace, she 
 remarked, ; Somehow I fancy we shall; yes, 
 I fancy we shall." 
 
286 GERMANY AS IT IS TODAY 
 
 Without in any way intending carping criti- 
 cism, it does seem to me that our Secret 
 Service requires overhauling and alteration. 
 I am under promise not to mention the names 
 of the two gentlemen with whom I talked, 
 one in Berlin and the other in Silesia, both 
 very important British officials. They both 
 advanced, however, precisely similar opinions. 
 They both complained with some acerbity that 
 they were working against tremendous odds, 
 because they lacked information as to what 
 was going on, because very often, in fact 
 usually, their staff spoke no German, and, 
 finally, because how was information to be 
 obtained when the sources through which it 
 must travel were of a kind which could only 
 be described as untrustworthy? It was 
 pointed out to me forcibly that as soon as the 
 vote for Secret Service came up in the House 
 of Commons, inquisitive members were always 
 on the qui vive to ask, How was the money 
 to be spent? Well, the answer to that is 
 that, upon a vote of this nature, the nation 
 as a whole, and as represented by its members 
 of Parliament, must have some confidence in 
 the spending department of those who control 
 it. To state baldly, in the House, that of 
 £100,000 voted for the Secret Service, for 
 
 ! 
 
THE SECRET SERVICE 287 
 
 example, £20,000 would be allocated to Ger- 
 many, £20,000 to Russia, £20,000 to France, 
 £20,000 to America and the rest divided up 
 among the smaller States of Europe, would be 
 the most childish procedure imaginable, certain 
 to invoke indignation amongst the nations 
 named, and, in fact, completely incompatible 
 with the needs and demands of that particular 
 vote. Every other nation, except Great 
 Britain, employs its Secret Service agents in 
 peace and war, and the Minister controlling 
 them is responsible for the expenses incurred 
 and must judge himself whether these expenses 
 are wise or not. 
 
 The English system is something like the 
 following. An account is handed in for £5 10s., 
 the price of three dinners at the Carlton Hotel, 
 plus cigars, wine and coffee. The English 
 system goes further and wants to know whom 
 
 Mr. X dined with; whether the lady was 
 
 his wife, which, of course, she was not, and 
 whose connection with the business on hand 
 could not be made public. If the thing is to 
 be done at all, and if the country is to benefit 
 by the services of these people, then they 
 must be given a free hand, and, as long as the 
 expenditure is within the vote, whether the 
 dinner cost ten shillings or £100, it matters not 
 
288 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 one whit so long as it was worth while. Which 
 brings me to another point made by both 
 these gentlemen, who certainly ought to know 
 something about the business. This is that in 
 our Secret Service we should employ ladies 
 and gentlemen. Scotland Yard is an excellent 
 institution. In the past I have had many 
 friends there, amongst whom I will mention 
 Superintendent Gough. But Scotland Yard 
 remains Scotland Yard wherever it is, and the 
 unmistakable stamp of detective is liberally 
 plastered over its personality from its trilby 
 hat to its rubber-heeled boots. They are 
 adepts at their own calling, which is the dis- 
 covery of crime or the perpetrators thereof. 
 But let it not be forgotten that the members 
 of the Secret Service are not dealing with 
 criminals; they should be, in fact, a very 
 select portion of the Foreign Office of the 
 country they are representing. Above all, 
 they should always be nationals of the country 
 they represent. Germany for one has tried 
 foreigners, i. e. not German subjects, such as 
 Americans and bastard Mexicans, and a sorry 
 mess they have made of it. Their selection 
 should be made with the most scrupulous care. 
 During this trip of mine in Germany I paid 
 more attention to this subject than is usually 
 
THE SECRET SERVICE 289 
 
 my wont, and I was struck by one thing. The 
 women, as I say, were drawn from all classes 
 of society, but were always clever, always 
 entertaining and always ready to discuss any 
 topic on the face of the earth with discrimina- 
 tion, and were very, very particular over the 
 question of drink. No teetotalers, by habit ! 
 When on a job they rarely, if ever, took any- 
 thing stronger than one glass of light Moselle. 
 Smoke they did, but never more than a couple 
 of cigarettes. Careful abstemiousness was the 
 keynote of their lives, and once one got to 
 know them, one appreciated that as a class 
 they were singularly expert and efficient. 
 
 A small story was related to me by one of 
 them, and I think it worth while relating, 
 because it shows that even a Prussian Chief of 
 the Police is not absolutely devoid of humour. 
 My friend related that she had been detached 
 temporarily to look after a notorious thief and 
 forger, a woman who spent most of her time, 
 and was at that moment, in Switzerland, 
 
 passing herself off as the Duchesse X . 
 
 Wasn't it Thackeray who said that all good 
 Englishmen loved a lord? And similarly this 
 good lady appears to have discovered that all 
 good Swiss, in spite of their republican leanings, 
 loved a Duchesse. Now at that time there 
 
 T 
 
290 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 was a young man in London who was writing 
 the most wonderful letters over to his family 
 in Berlin. He was passing a great many 
 cheques through Berlin banks which were 
 worthless, and he stated that he had been, or 
 was, private secretary to Lord Bryce. His 
 imagination carried him so far that, as the 
 head of the Berlin police said, " He really 
 must believe these tarradiddles himself.'' Be 
 that as it may, he was keeping police head- 
 quarters busy until the day dawned when he 
 was brought up on the check rein and was 
 found to be in no more regal position than that 
 of valet on the second floor of the Carlton 
 Hotel. They would never have fallen into 
 my raconteur's hands had they not both 
 been suspected of tampering with Embassy 
 bags and other such gentle irregularities. 
 However, striding up and down his office in 
 the police headquarters and reviewing the 
 cases, the Chief of the Police cynically re- 
 marked that the best thing that could pos- 
 sibly happen to that couple would be for them 
 to get married. They would make a pretty 
 pair. This amused my friend so much that 
 she purposely arranged a meeting for them in 
 the Chief's room, and, though it sounds too 
 good to be true, the lady came, saw and con- 
 
THE SECRET SERVICE 291 
 
 quered and to-day I am assured not only are 
 they the best-behaved couple in Berlin, but, 
 if such a thing existed in Germany, would be in 
 danger of capturing the Dunmow Flitch. 
 
 From time to time one reads articles in 
 various papers, complaining of the way in 
 which the Germans have overrun our country 
 and how they know more about its highways 
 and byways even than we do ourselves. 
 Now there is, no doubt, a great deal of truth in 
 this statement. The German commercial man, 
 traveller and such like, is taught to take 
 notice of what he sees in his journeying. The 
 English commercial traveller makes his way 
 through the country he is visiting, admires 
 the view and banishes from his thoughts 
 anything but the actual business upon which 
 he is engaged. Not so, however, with the 
 German. He takes the keenest interest, the 
 most critical interest, in every single feature 
 which could possibly be of concern to the 
 authorities at headquarters in Berlin, whether 
 it be the number of submarines he sees at a 
 certain port, the quantity or quality of a cargo 
 being discharged from a ship, the number of 
 men hanging about, apparently lacking employ- 
 ment, the articles offered for sale in the win- 
 dows, together with their prices. In fact, 
 
292 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 every little detail is made note of for future 
 reference. And, after all, there is nothing 
 dishonourable in all this. It is a perfectly 
 normal and natural action on the part of a 
 potior who feels that it is just possible he 
 may be doing his country some good. And 
 what is just as important, is the fact that the 
 Government Offices in Berlin are very glad to 
 be the recipients of all these various pieces of 
 information, which, taken together, constitute 
 sometimes valuable knowledge. I am afraid 
 that in England information not coming from 
 an official source is not regarded as being worthy 
 of much notice. I knew perfectly well that 
 the Korfanty business was coming on long 
 before it actually broke into flame. In fact, 
 I was told it was coming on by Korfanty 
 himself. But it did not seem to me worth 
 while to hand on the information to the Foreign 
 Office, for I am quite certain that the Missions 
 knew, and I fancy that they suffered rather 
 from the same attitude. And while on the 
 subject, it certainly is the sort of blunder 
 which should not be repeated for the War 
 Office to send out to the Missions officers who 
 are unable to speak German. 
 
 Presumably the approaches to the mouth 
 of the Thames are amongst the most important 
 
THE SECRET SERVICE 293 
 
 waterways which, in the event of war, we 
 have to guard. It may come as a slight shock 
 to the reader to know that the captains and 
 officers of the steamships trading from Ham- 
 burg and Bremen to London are all first-class 
 pilots as far as Gravesend, and, in the opinion 
 of a river pilot with whom I was talking, if 
 necessary they could easily run their ships 
 up to the Surrey Commercial or West India 
 Docks. This is not as it should be. The first 
 capture in the War was, I believe, a ship called 
 the Konigin Louise, which was laying mines 
 not far from Foulness, off the Essex coast. 
 Her captain was the master of a ship called 
 the Bremen, trading to London, and it was 
 his boast that he knew the Thames estuary 
 probably better than many of the deep-sea 
 pilots. That is a pity, and at the same time 
 was the cause of much anxiety to those respon- 
 sible for the defences of the Thames during 
 the War. These are the things which make one 
 think and make one wonder whether we shall 
 ever realise that, with all respect to Scotland 
 Yard and its detection of crime, which is 
 usually excellent, the time has arrived when 
 there should be a special branch formed, 
 composed of people of high education, un- 
 known to each other and only known to their 
 
294 
 
 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 immediate chiefs, who would spend their time 
 in watching the foreign influences which are 
 always at work and which lately have assumed 
 proportions which gravely disturb those who 
 have any grasp of international politics. 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 Writing a book based upon current events 
 always presents the difficulty of basic changes 
 having occurred before the word " conclusion ' 
 can be written. But on looking back over 
 the preceding chapters I find little which needs 
 alteration. I have been told, but I am not 
 certain that my informant was authoritative, 
 that the black troops sent by France to the 
 Rhine have been withdrawn. I hope this may 
 prove to be the fact, though, to be sure, the 
 harm has already been done and the seed 
 plentifully sown for trouble and enough of 
 it in the future. 
 
 I also feel that I can now amplify my 
 remarks about French action in Silesia. From 
 an impression that perhaps it would serve no 
 good purpose to write too fully about the 
 acute differences agitating the French and 
 other Allied Commissions there, I left the 
 question as much alone as possible. Since then 
 water has flowed under the bridge and The 
 Times correspondent has commented upon the 
 
 295 
 
296 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 subject, while by way of protest some of the 
 British Staff have handed in their resignations. 
 It is really difficult to understand what precise 
 signification French policy has hitherto pos- 
 sessed. With the exception of the Poles they 
 have strained the temper of all the other 
 nations concerned. Obviously France fears 
 with a shrivelling dread the thought of a new 
 and rejuvenated Germany. Yet she deliber- 
 ately steps in and attempts to set up an 
 Eastern replica of Alsace and Lorraine. She 
 must assuredly realise that a Polish Silesia 
 would stir up the soul of the German to the 
 extent that he would unremittingly build 
 with that persistence, that dogged energy and 
 that wonderful constructive power for which 
 he is famous, till such time that he felt the 
 moment had arrived to repay with interest 
 his debt to France. Already, as I have shown, 
 Germany has suffered enough humiliation from 
 that quarter to make her writhe. French 
 cupidity, which has always been a national 
 characteristic, may urge her to occupy the 
 Ruhr coalfield, but here she meets with the 
 opposition of the other signatories of the 
 treaty, and if she acts on her own responsibility, 
 it is difficult to see how the Entente will ever 
 hang together. Already its edges are frayed, 
 
CONCLUSION 297 
 
 and it seems as though they will keep on 
 unravelling unless France can realise and 
 accept the fact that no one outside France 
 itself desires to see a broken Germany, 
 economically bankrupt, and at the mercy of 
 every passing international breeze. 
 
 As for the Silesian question, it is only 
 beginning. Two factors in the case appear 
 to have been missed by the politicians. The 
 one is that, although there may be a majority 
 on the Polish side in certain districts, it by 
 no means follows that the educated Germans 
 are going to accept Polish rule, which they 
 know to be futile. Either they will go away, 
 which will spell ruin to the districts, or they 
 will remain an active and organised element 
 of unrest. Secondly, if the Poles receive the 
 districts of Pless and Rybnik, which are the 
 richest portion of Upper Silesia, is it probable, 
 or even possible, that the output from the coal- 
 pits will remain as it was when the Germans 
 were doing the thinking and the Poles the 
 manual labour? Certainly not, and Europe 
 will be faced with the biggest economic set- 
 back that will have occurred for a century. 
 
 It must be allowed that the Polish question 
 is one of the thorniest ones diplomacy has 
 been called upon to decide since the downfall 
 
298 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 of Russia and her adoption of active Bol- 
 shevism. Assuredly after the agony of a war 
 fought for justice to small nations there can 
 be no suggestion of a new partition. There- 
 fore Poland must exist upon the standard 
 lines of any other respectable Power, and must 
 play her part in the European family system. 
 Unfortunately, however, her temperament is 
 distinctly mercurial and, like a fractious and 
 passionate child, she bitterly resents what she 
 considers unnecessary interference. She pities 
 herself as being the naughty child of the family, 
 recognising in her sister France her only 
 champion. Now France is not the sentiment- 
 alist her friends imagine, and only sees in 
 Poland yet another check upon a rejuvenated 
 Germany, the other arm of the nutcracker. 
 Bolshevism does not worry her in the same 
 way that Germany does, and while the rest 
 of Europe may see in a strong Poland some 
 guard against Bolshevik pretensions, it leaves 
 France practically unmoved. The next six 
 months will witness a deal of card-shuffling, 
 and unless the French Press can become a 
 little less exuberant in the mud-slinging at 
 Mr. Lloyd George, they will be doing their 
 country an active disservice. One of the 
 characteristics of the British is to be found 
 
CONCLUSION 299 
 
 in the fact that they will not mince their 
 words in outspoken contempt of their own 
 Ministers, but let a foreigner come in and rate 
 them, and the story is quite different. The 
 outburst against Mr. George over the Polish 
 question has probably doubled the number of 
 his supporters. 
 
 As for the Poles, one cannot but feel sorry 
 for their situation. Personally charming, intel- 
 ligent, artistic, musical, chivalrous, deeply 
 imbued with the poetry of their past, they 
 completely lack the common or garden rough- 
 hewn sense of the Westerner. The result is 
 the breakdown, constant and ever-recurrent, 
 of their political system. No one really doubts 
 their good intentions, but good intentions are 
 a drug in the market unless attached to 
 practical politics. And the financial slough 
 in which they are stuck may well puzzle the 
 astutest of financiers. Perhaps the advent of 
 a foreign President of the Polish Republic 
 might pull together its shattered finances, its 
 trembling trade and its seemingly insuperable 
 inertia towards practical improvement. With 
 such a long and historic record, it seems 
 peculiarly bitter that it should descend the 
 river of least resistance and degenerate into 
 a type made common by the small republics 
 
300 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 of South America, whose only business is 
 frothy politics, whose chief imports are gun- 
 powder and automatic pistols, and whose 
 exports are stamps for collectors and paper 
 money for redemption. A thoroughly sound 
 business man with a few technical advisers 
 could work wonders with Poland, naturally 
 rich and waiting patiently for the guidance of 
 a financial pilot. 
 
 As regards the relations of Germany with 
 the numerous smaller States contiguous to 
 her, time enough has not yet elapsed to show 
 whether their creation was a practical move 
 or the reverse. To-day is the era of big 
 enterprises, and it does seem a gamble to create 
 a lot of little nationalities who themselves are 
 not quite certain as to what they want. It 
 is bound to create unrest, and the fact that they 
 are no longer remote, but comparatively near 
 the confines of the Great Powers, renders them 
 a constant menace to national understanding. 
 Self-determination is an excellent catchword, 
 but can it be applied to all the varied people 
 of the world without completely wrecking the 
 whole framework of age-long tradition and 
 threatening the foundations of civilised organ- 
 isation? Time will show. But those who 
 know something of Russian history will recall 
 
CONCLUSION 301 
 
 the pains and woes which accompanied the 
 birth of Czarist Russia. That " Russ," which 
 earlier had been a loosely connected federation, 
 if so it may be called, consisting of numbers of 
 struggling little Republics and towns all squab- 
 bling and fighting for their own personal ends, 
 could not be accepted as offering a happy 
 solution to nationalistic difficulties. And the 
 question to-day is whether the creation of 
 a quantity of small nations, together with the 
 inauguration of the so-called " League of 
 Nations," which operates without the sanction 
 or support of three of the largest Powers, is 
 likely to prove a lasting solution or a guarantee 
 of world peace. More probably is it likely to 
 act as a tinder-box to which some unscrupulous 
 politician will be the flint. 
 
 And what of Germany ? What of this great 
 central stretch of country, the home of a 
 hard-working, industrious people, imbued with 
 love of science, of art, of mechanical advance, 
 of industrialism, of perseverance and of con- 
 structive ingenuity? It goes without saying 
 that a people of this calibre can never really 
 sink into the void of useless indolence. They 
 must construct afresh, and they will. They 
 must, as before, steadily and with purpose 
 study and advance in the direction of scientific 
 
302 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 research, and they will. Their artists will 
 continue to paint, their composers to translate 
 musical thought, their writers to create and 
 their poets to dream and — let it not be for- 
 gotten — their men of action to act. Their 
 eclipse is merely temporary, and no power on 
 earth will ever prevent their ultimate regenera- 
 tion, though it may hinder it. The life of 
 the nation may be put back for a generation, 
 or bitter foes may extend that period even 
 longer, but the day of resurrection will arrive. 
 And its arrival need not speak to an awed or 
 agitated world of vengeance, of the tramp of 
 armed masses, of the rumble of cannon along 
 the flowering highways of peaceful countries. 
 Rather do I think that Germany, having learnt 
 her lesson and having suffered, will emerge 
 in the role of an apostle of freedom from 
 convention and as a harbinger of individual- 
 istic liberty. 
 
 At present that which gives most thought 
 to the international politician is how on earth 
 to stabilise the German exchange. Relatively 
 speaking, Poland and German Austria, where 
 the exchange is almost comic opera were it 
 not so ghastly in its effects on trade and com- 
 merce, are small financial excrescences in the 
 world economic which time will heal, providing 
 
CONCLUSION 303 
 
 time is given a chance and there is not another 
 revolutionary change which will prove worse 
 than the last. But with Germany it is 
 different. She is one of the greatest producing 
 countries in the world, and a state of collapse 
 on her part will cause a crisis of extreme mag- 
 nitude all over the world. I cull the following 
 from an American leaflet in my possession 
 because it shows the interrelation between 
 financial prosperity and the health of a nation : 
 " The importance of self-help should not 
 be lost sight of. The German exchequer is 
 bankrupt, and is only kept going by the issue 
 of more and more paper money. The position 
 of hospitals, sanatoria, orphanages and welfare 
 institutions is tragic. Many have already been 
 totally or partially closed for lack of funds, 
 with the result that many urgent cases have 
 to be refused. This has increased the risk of 
 infection of tuberculosis and other complaints 
 amongst the population to an alarming extent. 
 It has often been stated that Germany must 
 help herself. It must, however, be remembered 
 that a great deal has been, and indeed is being, 
 done by the Germans themselves, that prices 
 are very much higher in relation to wages than 
 in England, and that taxation weighs much 
 more heavily on the population than here. 
 
304 
 
 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 The Frankfurter Zeitung gives the following 
 figures of direct taxation, and let it be remem- 
 bered that these figures were arranged before 
 the new taxation which will necessarily be 
 imposed owing to the acceptance by the 
 German Government of the Allies' final 
 demands : 
 
 Total Income. 
 
 On Earned 
 In. 
 
 Tax 
 % 
 
 On Capital 
 In. 
 
 Tax 
 % 
 
 On Company 
 In. 
 
 Tax 
 
 % 
 
 Marks 20,000 
 
 M. 3,440 
 
 17-2 
 
 M. 4,925 
 
 24-6 
 
 M. 765-8 
 
 8-3 
 
 (£100) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 50,000 
 
 M. 13,060 
 
 26-1 
 
 M. 16,275 
 
 32-5 
 
 M. 22,205 
 
 44-4 
 
 (£250) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 „ 100,000 
 
 M. 33,625 
 
 33-6 
 
 M. 39,140 
 
 391 
 
 M. 49,505 
 
 49-5 
 
 (£500) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 „ 300,000 
 
 M. 137,175 
 
 45-7 
 
 M. 150,675 
 
 60-2 
 
 M. 175,585 
 
 58-6 
 
 (£1,500) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Then add to this Death Duties graduated up 
 to 90 per cent., and the possibility of a Capital 
 Levy up to 20 per cent, of all private property, 
 and it will be admitted that Germany for 
 some years to come will scarcely be a pleasant 
 environment for the average German of re- 
 stricted means. According to a British Official 
 Report, the total taxation of Germany amounts 
 to 43 per cent, of her earnings in wages, 
 profits and interest. This, please, before the 
 new taxation above mentioned. Relatively 
 the rises in wages have not increased nearly 
 
CONCLUSION 805 
 
 in the same ratio that they have in England 
 or France. Approximately wages have in- 
 creased from five to ten times, cost of food 
 materials from ten times to infinity ! Food 
 prices in Berlin in 1919 were 130 per cent, 
 lower than they are to-day. Bread and tea 
 are ten times higher than a year ago; sugar, 
 oatmeal, coffee, cocoa and milk, fifteen times 
 higher ; lard, meat, sausage and cheese, twenty 
 times higher; butter, bacon, flour, potatoes 
 and eggs, twenty-five times higher, and 
 macaroni thirty-four times higher. It might 
 be added that in pre-war days macaroni was 
 a very popular dish with the working people; 
 now it is a luxury for the well-to-do. In such 
 circumstances what can be expected from a 
 country ! " 
 
 Bearing these figures in mind, what can be 
 expected from Germany? Does she mean 
 what she says when through Dr. Wilms 
 she acknowledges the justness of the claims 
 made against her ? And what is the morale of 
 people faced with greater problems from a 
 financial standpoint than any which have 
 confronted a stricken Power since history was 
 written? In the first place, ask the simple 
 questions : Have the German people as a nation 
 lost heart? Have they become careless as 
 u 
 
306 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 to what may befall? Do they regard to- 
 morrow with the fatalism which may be 
 found in the case of a broken gambler who 
 determines that within twenty-four hours he 
 will have ceased to live through his own 
 agency ? Not a bit of it ! They are energy 
 personified, and if for no other reason deserve 
 to pull through. They are symbolic of 
 Kipling's " If," and they both mean, and are 
 determined, to build up again, even though 
 the tools be worn-out and blunted. Not that 
 alone : they are hopeful, and even as an invalid 
 possesses more chance of recovery if he meta- 
 phorically puts his back into recovery, even 
 so the nurses in attendance upon Germany, 
 who see in her recovery the promise of better 
 days industrially, can take heart. In the 
 papers only two days ago I read, with how 
 much truth I know not, that Caruso, when 
 near death, was visited by the Italian Ambas- 
 sador to the United States, and was told that 
 to Italy his life was of vital importance. 
 From that moment he steadily recovered. 
 Perhaps Lord d'Abernon whispered some such 
 encouragement into the ear of the German 
 Finance Minister. 
 
 Again the question is sometimes asked, 
 " Will Germany remain together as a national 
 
CONCLUSION 307 
 
 unit?" My answer to that is that in the 
 interests of the Europe of the future she must. 
 Bavaria is unfortunate in that she is selfish, 
 and has always been selfish, where any clash 
 of material interests concerned with the rest 
 of Germany has occurred. At the very moment 
 when Germany was virtually starving and the 
 children were in very truth crying for milk, 
 it was Bavaria who made difficulty over 
 disposing of, not her surplus, for that admit- 
 tedly did not exist, but of sharing on equitable 
 terms with her more unfortunately placed 
 neighbours. And it was Bavaria again who 
 made most difficulty over the question of 
 disarmament. Few will disagree with me that 
 personally the South German is infinitely 
 preferable to the Prussian, but at the same 
 time one is reminded that there are plenty 
 of pleasant folk in the world who, when it 
 comes to their pockets being touched, or their 
 comfort interfered with, are not slow to show 
 their irritation. Thus it is with Bavaria. 
 But that Bavaria would be so short-sighted 
 as to sever connection with the German 
 " Reich " is unthinkable. There is no strong 
 Austria to-day which might assimilate her. 
 Her neighbours are all little people, and in no 
 conceivable circumstances could she better her 
 
308 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 position by any diplomatic move of such 
 significance. As for the other South German 
 States, they are too canny to make the attempt, 
 even though they saw some opportunity. 
 They hate the Prussian, but they will remain 
 with him. The Austrian Military Attache in 
 Berlin was not slow to notice this acute feeling, 
 and remarked of von Stein, von Moltke's 
 deputy, that " this gentleman combined in his 
 person all the qualities and characteristics 
 which make the Prussians so antipathetic to 
 us South Germans. A blatant, openly 
 exhibited conviction of his own superiority, 
 a certain contemptuous way of speaking, 
 combined with that grating tone so unpleasant 
 to the ear and known as the Berlin Guard 
 manner; " well, I need not quote more. It 
 merely emphasises what I wrote in my intro- 
 duction. But these States have grasped the 
 cardinal fact that united they stand and 
 divided they fall. Working upon that assump- 
 tion, they will pocket the snubs which are 
 not seldom their portion and will stand by the 
 ship of State until the wind materially changes, 
 which will not be for many years. 
 
 Further, could any condition of affairs such 
 as would be caused by a disintegrated Germany 
 more successfully embarrass the Allies? The 
 
CONCLUSION 309 
 
 answer is a plain negative. For could any- 
 thing lead to more chaos, more territorial 
 anarchy and the creation of more little aggres- 
 sive and quarrelling peoples? The answer is 
 again in the negative, and in spite of the feeling 
 of a certain section of the Rheinlanders, it 
 can once and for all be eliminated from 
 probable politics. 
 
 When it comes to a consideration of the 
 Bolshevik propaganda and its future, one is 
 faced with a different situation altogether. In 
 Russia, as I write, the condition of affairs is 
 extremely obscure. One reads that Lenin has 
 come to the conclusion that the extinction 
 of the capitalistic class is impossible, and that 
 the new Russia upon which he is trying his 
 now experienced hand will be run on the normal 
 lines of a capitalistic country. At the same time 
 money is being spent by some one to foment 
 labour trouble in every direction, and appar- 
 ently — according to Mrs. Sheridan — The Daily 
 Herald is always upon Trotsky's breakfast- 
 table. This scarcely looks as though the 
 capitalists were in full favour, or one might 
 expect The Morning Post, The Times or The 
 Daily Telegraph. The fact of the matter, as 
 it appears to me after some considerable 
 experience in Russia is, that a section of 
 
310 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 extremists have obtained power and are using 
 it like physicists in a laboratory. They are 
 not quite certain what they will discover, but 
 whatever it is they intend to administer it in 
 large doses to their people at the start, and 
 then hand it along to the rest of a waiting, 
 perplexed and rather irritable world. Their 
 plausibility is on a plane with the excellent 
 conception of the meaning of the word " propa- 
 ganda." Thus Mr. H. G. Wells visits Russia 
 for a fortnight and is able to return and 
 elucidate the tenets of Bolshevism to the entire 
 satisfaction of his adherents. I confess to 
 some disappointment, since I had always 
 imagined Mr. Wells as a steady-going, rightly 
 balanced genius, and I know many people 
 who, like myself, have spent years in Russia 
 and are quite convinced that Russia will 
 right herself by and by with the disappearance, 
 forcible or voluntary, of the Trotsky-Lenin 
 regime from the scenes. Meantime, however, 
 their little games need watching, and though 
 I regret to write it, I do not believe that they 
 will find the soil in ruined, shattered Germany 
 half as congenial to their plans as the soil of 
 England. Granted unemployment and justifi- 
 able dissatisfaction amongst discharged soldiers 
 over the tragedy of want of work, it certainly 
 
CONCLUSION 311 
 
 seems as though too much prosperity in many 
 English trades had turned the heads of the 
 employed and rendered them unemployable 
 and Bolsheviks such as would delight the 
 hearts of the Russian leaders. I fancy that 
 the German workman is too stout-hearted 
 ever to make satisfactory material upon which 
 to work. I noticed a case the other day of 
 a man who was for ever preaching Com- 
 munism and Bolshevism in the East End of 
 London and elsewhere, and who had never 
 been known to do a day's work unless it was 
 lifting his glass to his mouth. The magistrates 
 very wisely sent him on a holiday for three 
 months where he will experience a difficulty 
 in getting any beverage. But it is a fact that 
 examples of that type are not known in 
 Germany, and it is the exception, and not 
 the rule, to see a regular right-down royal 
 drunk. They may be stodgy and dull, 
 apathetic and listless, coarse in their manners 
 and rough in their ways; but they have 
 plenty of commonsense and a certain dogged- 
 ness of nature which stands them in good 
 stead when momentarily perplexed. They 
 possess no love for the Russians, whom they 
 cordially despise, and they hate the Jews, 
 and who shall say that the backbone of 
 
312 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 Bolshevik action and the bank of Bolshevik 
 money is not Jewish from beginning to end? 
 Of that the world will learn later. Of course 
 had France had her way, and drove Germany 
 into a very hell of despair, hunger, poverty and 
 privation with disease stalking the land — then, 
 and then only, might one expect a genuine 
 Bolshevik upheaval which would stagger 
 humanity, and from which — mark the words — 
 Christianity might never recover. That, how- 
 ever, is so remote a contingency that it need 
 not be considered. France will do precisely 
 what her colleagues consider she should do, 
 and if she chooses to embark upon expeditions 
 of her own, then of course she will neither 
 expect nor receive any assistance from her 
 one-time allies. 
 
 Now what line will Germany eventually 
 adopt as regards her form of Government? 
 Will she drift back to Monarchism? Against 
 the opinion of many capable observers I 
 incline to the view that she will. Virtual 
 autocracy is at an end for ever. So much is 
 assured. But under a constitutional monarch 
 I believe Germany would find an agreeable 
 and happy solution of some of her troubles. 
 I agree that the Hohenzollern regime is at an 
 end, but the election of one of the ruling 
 
CONCLUSION 313 
 
 families in South Germany might be received 
 with approval. The Crown Prince Rupprecht 
 of Bavaria is popular with all, and his nomina- 
 tion, though it might be canvassed, would 
 probably receive a good meed of support. 
 And a constitutional monarchy would stem 
 many of the dangerous political movements 
 in Germany, movements which, I submit, are 
 kept alive from outside by foreign money. 
 The Germans have for so long been accustomed 
 to regal display that the loss of it really 
 detracts a little from the romantic flavour 
 of life which your German is always ready to 
 discover. Thus it was the municipality of 
 Dresden who would not allow the removal of 
 the Royal hangings embroidered with the 
 Royal Crown from its Opera House. With 
 such a restoration there is no need to suppose 
 that the military party, a diminishing influence, 
 should choose the moment once again to 
 introduce blatant militarism into the arena of 
 the national life. Rather should it be other- 
 wise. The nation would settle down, and 
 wise legislation would speedily banish the 
 spectre of labour unrest and the fears of the 
 encircling and inimical Powers. 
 
 It appears to me, having seen what I have, 
 that the greatest problem Germany will be 
 
314 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 called upon to face is that of the coming 
 generation of her younger children. I touched 
 upon the " Wandervogel, " and found therein 
 promise for the future which is correct. But 
 with the war- children, those born in the 
 midst of the struggle, little, weak, puny mites 
 who under the best conditions of feeding and 
 housing would never make anything but poor 
 specimens of humanity, well, what of them, 
 when even to-day they are still under-nourished 
 and under-fed, ready victims to every complaint 
 from tuberculosis to rickets, from defective 
 vision to mental complaints ? These war rem- 
 nants will in due course grow up, and for a period 
 of years they will represent the coming youth 
 of a great industrial country, carrying on her 
 shoulders a load such as no country has carried 
 within the memory of man. Query, Can she 
 carry it under circumstances of such onus ? I 
 suppose that the answer will be that she must. 
 However that be, whether she has been foe 
 and is striving once again to be friend, I have 
 no hesitation in writing that a certain amount 
 of friendly sympathy should be her due under 
 those conditions. There comes a time when 
 we can afford to forgive and should do so. 
 And here again, from a practical standpoint, 
 it is apparent that every support should be 
 
CONCLUSION 315 
 
 accorded to such operations as child-feeding 
 and the like. 
 
 There are not wanting healthy signs speaking 
 of the gradual revival of German trade, the 
 best index to which is shipping. In 1920 the 
 arrivals in Hamburg totalled 4,537,331 tons as 
 against 1,543,714 in 1919. Compared with 
 1918, arrivals and departures have more than 
 trebled. The recovery of Bremen is even 
 greater, traffic during the whole of 1920 being 
 actually a third of what it was in the last years 
 of peace. The Transport and Travel Monthly 
 gives the following instructive figures, relative 
 to the recovery of German foreign trade. 
 Fifty-six steamship lines are now plying 
 regularly from Hamburg, though of course the 
 majority are foreign- owned, as by the terms 
 of the Treaty Germany may not possess any 
 steamers of over 1,600 tons until she has made 
 good the tonnage she must hand over to the 
 Allies. Fourteen of these lines run to India 
 and Eastern Asian ports, twelve go to Africa, 
 ten to Central America, seven to North 
 America, seven to South America and six to 
 Pacific Coast ports. These lines fly the follow- 
 ing flags : there are twelve Dutchmen, eleven 
 British, eight United States, eight German, 
 eight Scandinavian, five French, four Japanese, 
 
316 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 one Belgian, one Italian and one Portuguese. 
 This is waking up with a vengeance, and the 
 only circumstance which later on may cause 
 a trade slump is what I have above written 
 concerning the coming generation. The harm 
 which has been accomplished is beyond assess- 
 ment, and the worst of it is that by the time 
 it arrives at its fullest fruition it is quite 
 possible that we shall need German trade 
 and even possibly German assistance. Never 
 is a long day, and the changes on a political 
 nature which may be traced even in a genera- 
 tion are wonderful for the complete volte face 
 which may often be discerned. 
 
 Not less interesting is it to note that during, 
 and at the termination of any great wars, 
 there have always been the same mutual 
 recriminations. Quite by chance I picked up 
 a volume of the Naval Chronicles, and behold 
 I came upon a report of the manner in which the 
 French were treating our prisoners of war at 
 Toulon. Probably there were grounds for com- 
 plaint, but this report was penned in a vehement 
 style, stating that France had for ever tarnished 
 her fair name, and that never in future would 
 any European nation regard her with any- 
 thing but loathing and disgust. And there 
 was a good deal more besides. Well, what a 
 
CONCLUSION 317 
 
 change to-day. It would be incorrect to write 
 that France is as popular as she was a year 
 or more ago, but she certainly does not enter 
 into public esteem as such a vicious monster. 
 And similarly so it will be, I anticipate, with 
 Germany. The waves of anger, disgust and 
 prejudice will gradually fall away and the 
 calm will return till the next war comes. 
 
 There may be those who like to delude them- 
 selves with visions of world peace, with every 
 portion of the world swayed by some bene- 
 ficent power which shall bring in its train only 
 happiness. Not in this century, I fear. Well 
 do I remember General Korniloff, Commandant 
 of the Russian Savage Legion, with whom I 
 happened to be travelling at the time of the 
 Russian reverse in the battle of Tannenberg. 
 He was very thoughtful, and not unnaturally 
 I assumed he was thinking over the military 
 situation. 
 
 I ventured to comment to him upon his 
 quiet, and asked him what was on his mind. 
 With a twinkle in his eyes, he answered, " I 
 am just wondering, Alan Rothevitch (son of 
 Wroth), with whom the next war will be. 
 There are many very interesting possibilities,' 1 
 and he ticked them off upon his fingers. He 
 had a wonderful grasp of international politics, 
 
318 GERMANY AS IT IS TO-DAY 
 
 and when I look back at his little list of pos- 
 sibilities I must confess that I give up entirely 
 any hope of lasting peace, and regard it merely 
 as a desirable chimera. Poor Korniloff, the 
 sole possibility he did not foresee was that he 
 would die at the hands of his own soldiers, 
 or, to be more correct, at the hands of the 
 Lenin-Trotsky mercenaries. 
 
 The time has arrived when I must bring to 
 a conclusion the collection of impressions I 
 formed during my German tour. I turn back 
 to my preface and attempt to establish in my 
 own mind whether I have in any way accom- 
 plished the suggestion of my friend, the 
 Colonial Governor. I have certainly tried, 
 though I may have failed. No one can write 
 about a subject which from day to day is 
 occupying the public eye and which is con- 
 stantly varying its focus. To-day one boils 
 at unparalleled injustice, and to-morrow one 
 finds that the edge has been taken off the 
 knife, and that things, thanks to outside 
 influences, are not so bad as they had looked. 
 Most certainly have I not wished to hurt the 
 feelings of any one. But the actions of a 
 nation are collective and not personal, and 
 hence disparagement of a nation's actions does 
 not imply that for that reason one cannot 
 
CONCLUSION 319 
 
 admire the many good qualities that nation 
 individually may possess. But of one thing 
 I remain profoundly convinced : for the safety 
 and welfare of the new Europe, Germany must 
 survive and emerge from her trials revivified, 
 reformed and recreated. That should be the 
 policy of Great Britain. 
 
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