Part 17

"They had an unfortunate psychological effect."

"Well, you don't forgive us."

"On the contrary, the generality of Englishmen forgive Germany now she is down."

My friend perceptibly winced at the word "down." I had used the wrong word. But it is true enough.

"We know the Quakers are our friends, and the pacifists," said he. "We are thankful for their friendship, but we need to win over the other people. Make the business people feel that the Versailles Peace is bad business, and the Imperialists that it is bad for Empire."

"They know that already, that it is not good for business and not very good for the Empire. What we have to get over is something psychological--the belief in 'the dirty Hun,' the belief in German trickery and spite."

He had never heard of that sentence which is a motto in Carmelite Street, "They'll cheat you yet, those Junkers," or "Once a German always a German."

There is a genuine belief among the English masses that the Germans are cheating us, that they are pretending to demobilize and keeping a large army in secret readiness, pretending to be unable to pay "reparations," not taxing themselves, faking their figures.

W---- and several others whom I met in Germany put it in the foreground of the work to be done for re-establishing Germany in the comity of nations, that it should be proved that Germany was not responsible for the beginning of the war. It is still the theme of innumerable articles in the Press. The German mind has not grasped the fact that no intelligent European blames Germany exclusively. Now that the hot mood of war is past we are all ready to recognize that we were all in part to blame. We all founded our security on armies and navies, the nation that produced the "Dreadnought" most of all. We were all living and picnicking and unfortunately quarrelling in the great cordite warehouse of European militarism, and one day it blew up. If we had not been so well prepared it could not have happened so. If the Kaiser pronounced the dreadful atheism of "Let the guns speak," he really did so after the event.

In debating this matter the German mentality disclosed itself in the Germans with whom I conversed in Berlin. I had a suspicion that one of them might have said England began it, if I had been other than an Englishman. Edward the Seventh who arranged the entente cordiale had evidently something to do with it. As I am a known warm friend of Russia he could not say Russia began it. His mind turned to a more obscure nation.

"To think that Europe should thus have been ruined and all those millions of lives lost," said he. "Just for stupid little Serbia."

I am afraid I could not agree to that. The devil began it. What does it matter now? Nobody cares. The present and the future hold the potentialities of happiness rather than the past. To discuss the past you'd have to raise the dead on both sides.

England is not interested in history, but she is interested in actuality.

Mr. Lloyd George has said that the German is not being taxed by his Government in the proportion that the British are taxed by theirs--far from it. Figures have been given in the Press. And they have not been refuted by Germans. The Germans hold that they are being taxed so heavily that a maximum has been reached. W----, who was well-off before the war, has lost his income now, has taken a staff-post at the Ministry of Trade and gets 20,000 marks a year. He ought to pay a heavy income-tax on that. Yes, but it is only eighty pounds a year in English money, and he has a wife and two children to keep on it. There are tens of thousands of professional men in the same plight. Some of the very rich arrange matters to avoid some of the heavy dues. And as regards the working-class, it is notoriously hard to raise money from them by direct taxation.

"Then it is said that you are running your railway and postal services at a loss. And that is obviously true. England has raised her rates and made her public pay. She thinks Germany should also."

To this it is replied that Germany does not believe in obstructing the ready movement of people and of intelligence in her country. She thinks it bad policy to charge highly for railway fares and letter postage. What is gained by extra charges is more than lost through business being hampered.

"These are points which you educated Germans should elucidate through the British Press," said I. "The idea that Germany escapes taxation is a very unfavourable one in England. It is much more important than the rights or wrongs of the old war."

W----, who receives the "Nation" regularly, nevertheless did not think any English paper would print what he might write on the theme.

I visited, among others, Herr Baumfelder, the editor of the "European Press," once dropped from aeroplanes among our lines under the title of the "European Times," but now under entirely new management, though still a propagandist sheet. It is nothing like so strong a propagandist for Germany as the "Continental Daily Mail" is for France. But it has the potentiality of a counterblast. It makes one blush to see English newspapers on German book-stalls with "HUNS' LATEST WHINE" in large letters staring at the Germans as they pass. Strangely enough, the Germans don't seem to mind these headlines; they don't tear the papers off the stalls and burn them in indignation. They've been drilled not to do such things. One would think, however, there would be considerable scope for a good German daily, printed in the English language, expounding European events from another point of view. The European Press has that possibility.

Here, however, you find little that is helpful yet. I am all for truth. It is the best type of propaganda--the only type that is not loathsome. And surely there is enough in the domain of the simple truth about Europe and Germany to touch men's hearts, whilst

There groans a world in anguish Just to teach us sympathy.

I hoped Herr Baumfelder would make his paper into a living journal which all would be glad to buy in order to know the facts of the hour in Germany. No use to continue working the familiar lines of German propaganda such as the "Menace to German Women of the Black Troops on the Rhine," now so much exploited in press and cinema in Germany--or the "Who was responsible for the war?" theme, alluded to above. It is sad to read the verbal violence of some president of "League of German Patriots" who does not believe the editor of the "Spectator" when he says "We for our part, can honestly say that ever since the Armistice we have wanted to create an atmosphere helpful to Germany."

"You the murderers of hundreds of thousands of innocent German children dare to publish such a deliberate falsehood," says "The president." "You are practically sodden with falsehood and hypocrisy."

No doubt the president of the L.G.P. has lost money in the war, and has an especial grudge against England, but that sort of writing makes potential friends into persistent enemies. And English readers of the paper will say, "After all, what fools the Germans are."

There is a cynical disbelief in England's idealism. Perhaps that cannot be wondered at. We have been, or seem to have been, very false to our idealism at times. We are judged by our public acts. But because of our professed idealism we are hailed as hypocrites, appalling hypocrites. And yet those public acts and that idealism are distinct. Both are authentic, and neither contradicts the other. We fastened on Germany a shameful treaty at Versailles. But the idealists never agreed to it, and do not do so now. Our idealism is genuine enough and it is, indeed, the germ of Europe's hope. But for that the outlook would be blacker still.

All that has been done to ease the application of the treaty has been done at England's instance. We stand as wardens against the infringement of the treaty, as for instance in the Silesian attack. Indeed, the general tendency of England's policy is to save the integrity of Germany and give her a chance to rehabilitate herself among the nations.

The sophisticated educated class in Germany smiles in superior knowledge, ascribing to us selfish motives of one kind or another. The contempt for Englishmen passing through the country is somewhat brutally expressed in the phrase valuta-Englander, the currency Englishman, who is probably a nobody at home but swaggers here on the difference of the exchange of the mark and the pound sterling. The new educated class has always found difficulty in being tolerant and in recognizing who were its potential enemies or friends. But I noticed that the working class had less pre-judgment and was more open-hearted. The working class grasped the truth of the situation. It was not merely a desire to flatter and curry favour that prompted their attitude.

"France is our real enemy--not England," was the frequent greeting of the ex-soldier working man who grinned and asked if I'd been a soldier, too, and on what front. Rank and file on both sides conceived a respect for one another in the war, which the educated class somehow missed. Perhaps the educated class in Germany would be more indulgent if they were not so hard hit financially. The working man still has money, has, indeed, a flattering number of marks in his pocket. When he has not so much money he is as morose as his educated brother.