The Wanganui Chronicle. “NULLA DIES SINE LINEA.” THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 1924. WHAT OF GERMANY?

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19035, 12 June 1924, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. “NULLA DIES SINE LINEA.” THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 1924. WHAT OF GERMANY?

Recent cable advices reveal the existence of serious suspicions in Great Britain regarding alleged warlike preparations on the part of Germany, while France explicitly claims that these preparations are actually in progress. Brigadier-General J. H. Morgan has spent four years as Deputy-Adjutant-General in unoccupied Germany, on the Military Disarmament Commission, as the British representative on the inter-Allied Council of the Commission, and his knowledge and experience ought to qualify him to

speak with authority as to the actual state of affairs. In his recently published book, "The Present State of Germany,” Brigadier-General Morgan dcvbtes considerable attention to the German atttiude regarding a war of revenge. He proclaims that he is neither a pro-German nor an anti-German, but it is the facts which he records that are most interesting at this juncture. The contents of this volume consist of a lecture delivered before the Senate of the University of London, in November, 1923, with an introduction by the author. The information given is, therefore, modern, as well as authoritative. The author himself declares: "If, therefore, I do not know modern Germany, my ignorance is incorrigible, for I have spared no pains, and been conceded every opportunity to understand her.” On account of his official I position, there is a limitation to the (disclosures which the author was able to make. But to the question whether Germany is disarmed, he answers, "What do you mean by disarmed? We destroyed German guns', some thirty-five thousand of them; we smashed up rifles—some millions of them; we blew up fortresses; we dynamited powder factories; we dismantled Krupps. But there were three things we never succeeded in destroying, nor could destroy—men, industry, science.” With regard to effectives, the four years’ experience of the author convinced him that these could not be limited by anything short of military occupation of the whole country. "As to industry,” he explains, "there is only one way of disarming a great industrial nation —it is by destroying her industries. War has come to be so technical, indeed so mechanical, that every great engineering shop is a potential arsenal, and the plant that makes a compressed air cylinder, or a propeller shaft, is equally susceptible of making a gun-tube. A year ago we circularised our offices in the industrial districts of Germany, with a series of interrogatories as to how long it would take Germany, from the date of the departure of the commission, to attain her maximum war production of arms and munitions. I am not going to give you the answers—they arc secret —but if I did I think they would astonish you.” His remark with regard to science is that "no country is disarmed if, after all the destruction of material that can be effected, and the demobilisation of armed forces, it has still got lethal secrets up its sleeve.” With a remarkable degree of simplicity the Military Disarmament Commission asked the German Government to explain the secrets of explosives, propellants, and toxic gas used by them in the war. This interrogatory was handed over to a committee of German savants, whose answer was an ingenious evasion. The author remarks significantly, "Of what is going on in these laboratories at the present moment we know, and can know, nothing.” The widespread breakdown of social morality throughout Germany, as described by this impartial witness, is appalling. "As for morality,” he says, "in the narrower sense ef the word in Berlin, and most of the large towns, the cities of the Plain were not more vile.” With German cultivation wiped out, he exclaims, "What a field you have left for exploitation by some great military adventurer of German blood, who, calling in the dark forces of Russia, will appeal to sixty millions of German people, so desperate that they have nothing left to lose, and sweep like an avalanche across the west.” The Brigadier-General’s conclusion is that the best treatment of Germany is by way of compromise and conciliation.