GERMANY'S PROGRAM.
Professor Ernst Haeckel, the militant German zoologist, supplies, in an interview in the Berliner Tagesblatt, the following summary:
Freedom from the tyranny of England to be secured as follows:
1. The invasion of the British piratical State by the German Army and Navy and the occupation of London.
2. The partition of Belgium, the western portion as far as Ostend and Antwerp to become a German Federal State; the northern portion to fall to Holland, and the southeastern portion to be added to Luxemburg, which also should become a German Federal State.
3. Germany to obtain the greater part of the British colonies and of the Congo State.
4. France to give up a portion of her northeastern provinces.
5. Russia to be reduced to impotency by the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Poland, which should be united with Austria-Hungary.
6. The Baltic Provinces of Russia to be restored to Germany.
7. Finland to become an independent kingdom and be united with Sweden.
An article by Georges Clemenceau, in L'Homme Enchaîné, reports the following view of the German terms accredited to Count Bernstorff, German Ambassador at Washington:
One of my friends in America informs me of a curious conversation between an influential banker and the German Ambassador, Count Bernstorff. The banker, who had just handed over a substantial check for the German Red Cross, asked Count Bernstorff what the Kaiser would take from France after the victory.
The Ambassador did not seem the least surprised at this somewhat premature question. He answered it quite calmly, ticking off the various points on his fingers as follows:
1. All the French colonies, including the whole of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunis.
2. All the country northeast of a straight line from Saint-Valéry to Lyons, that is to say, more than one quarter of French territory, including 15,000,000 inhabitants.
3. An indemnity of 10,000,000,000 francs, ($2,000,000,000.)
4. A tariff allowing all German goods to enter France free during twenty-five years, without reciprocity for French goods entering Germany. After this period the Treaty of Frankfurt will again be applied.
5. The suppression of recruiting in France during twenty-five years.
6. The destruction of all French fortresses.
7. France to hand over 3,000,000 rifles, 2,000 cannon, and 40,000 horses.
8. The protection of all German patents without reciprocity.
9. France must abandon Russia and Great Britain.
10. A treaty of alliance with Germany for twenty-five years.
Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, late German Colonial Secretary of State, has published an article in The Independent, in which this forecast appears:
1. Germany will not consider it wise to take any European territory, but will make minor corrections of frontiers for military purposes by occupying such frontier territory as has proved a weak spot in the German armor.
2. Belgium belongs geographically to the German Empire. She commands the mouth of the biggest German stream; Antwerp is essentially a German port. That Antwerp should not belong to Germany is as much an anomaly as if New Orleans and the Mississippi delta had been excluded from Louisiana, or as if New York had remained English after the War of Independence. Moreover, Belgium's present plight was her own fault. She had become the vassal of England and France. Therefore, while "probably" no attempt would be made to place Belgium within the German Empire alongside Bavaria, Württemberg, and Saxony, because of her non-German population, she will be incorporated in the German Customs Union after the Luxemburg pattern.
3. Belgian neutrality, having been proved an impossibility, must be abolished. Therefore the harbors of Belgium must be secured for all time against British or French invasion.
4. Great Britain having bottled up the North Sea, a mare liberum must be established. England's theory that the sea is her boundary, and all the sea her territory down to the three-mile limit of other powers, cannot be tolerated. Consequently the Channel coasts of England, Holland, Belgium, and France must be neutralized even in times of war, and the American and German doctrine that private property on the high seas should enjoy the same freedom of seizure as private property does on land must be guaranteed by all nations. This condition Herr Dernburg accompanies by an appeal to the United States duly to note, and Britain is making commercial war upon Germany.
5. All cables must be neutralized.
6. All Germany's colonies are to be returned. Germany, in view of her growing population, must get extra territory capable of population by whites. The Monroe Doctrine bars her from America, therefore she must take Morocco, "if it is really fit for the purpose."
7. A free hand must be given to Germany in the development of her commercial and industrial relations with Turkey "without interference." This would mean a recognized sphere of German influence from the Persian Gulf to the Dardanelles.
8. There must be no further development of Japanese influence in Manchuria.
9. All small nations, such as Finland, Poland, and the Boers in South Africa, if they support Germany, must have the right to frame their own destinies, while Egypt is to be returned, if she desires it, to Turkey.
These conditions, Herr Dernburg concludes, would "fulfill the peaceful aims which Germany has had for the last forty-four years." They show, in his opinion, that Germany has no wish for world dominion or for any predominance in Europe incommensurate with the rights of the 122,000,000 Germans and Austrians.