It depends largely upon us whether the gentleman in the picture will get his money back.
The grand total of the fatherland’s indebtedness, were war to go on until last April, has been calculated in Germany to represent £4,500,000,000, which would demand in annual interest a sum near £800,000,000.
One does not desire to be vindictive, but let no man forget the barefaced villainy and devilish brutality with which the Central Nations prosecuted war. It is not for us to forward the peaceful penetration of such a people through the length and breadth of our empire if we desire to preserve that empire as an entity.
Let Germany redeem her pledges if she can; it will be no part of our post-war activities to assist her task.
“Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?
Dass ist der Vater mit seinem Kind” (Erlkönig)
NOT only the father and his sick child ride storm-foundered and lost through night, with the phantom king steadily gaining upon both: the frantic, over-driven brute they ride should also be conscious of approaching doom. But is it?
We may take their steed to be the nation of the royal fugitives, and wonder when Germany—a kingdom whose native qualities had won such ample recognition among her elder sisters on the road to civilization—will awaken into consciousness of her accursed load and perceive that the Hohenzollerns ride only to death. They started on their gallop when Bismarck fell, and now the end is in sight.