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must never forget that. These little bull-frogs who are trying to blow themselves up to look like oxen must never forget what they are.'

A week later, at Somerset Strand, Mr Merriman referred to the same topic:

'We in South Africa,' he declared, 'had the privilege of being a nation set up by Great Britain, not in order to increase her Dominions, but so that we might grow to be a sister or daughter nation, be independent and manage our own affairs; and when the time came these new nations were free to choose whether they should part or keep together. We would have to make the decision very soon, and we should have to devise some method by which, while maintaining our own independence and retaining the gift we had of managing our own affairs, we would at the same time keep our connexion with some body which was powerful enough to defend us and to see that we were not snapped up by any Power which came along looking for a rich country. When the war was over we would have to face our future relations with Great Britain. That was one of the things which affected their future more than anything else in the whole world.'

We may be quite sure that had the 'little bull-frogs' not had something between 80,000 and 100,000 voters at their back, the most experienced Parliamentarian and the most brilliant orator in South Africa would have had something more explicit to say of a constructive character.

In short, all South Africans outside the Nationalists are agreed that self-interest and obligation alike bind the Union to the Empire; but they are also conscious that Nationalist antagonism is a formidable fact which must be taken into account in any scheme of closer union likely to prove a practical success. Such a scheme, for instance, as Mr Curtis has elaborated in his 'Problem of the Commonwealth' is logically unassailable. If the Dominions are to share in the control of the foreign policy of the Commonwealth, in the sense in which that control is now exercised by the British Cabinet and the British House of Commons, there is no way in which this participation can be secured except by the establishment of a Parliament with power to determine what each of the Dominions-the Dominion of the United

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Kingdom included-shall contribute to the support of the Commonwealth armies and navies; and, in the last resort, to distrain upon any defaulting Dominion. But absolute certainty in the working of such a mechanism is essential; and an indispensable requisite of certainty is the existence of a virtual unanimity in all the self-governing communities regarding the indissoluble identity of interests in all conceivable circumstances between the Commonwealth and the constituent Dominions.

The facts and opinions I have set out above show that, whatever may be the case in the other self-governing Dominions, no such unanimity exists in South Africa. Yet it is dangerous to 'leave well alone' in the Hertzogian sense. Unless something can be done to get rid of a disability which vexes statesmen who, like Sir Robert Borden, desire to give loyalty its due, the failure will certainly be turned to account by the lukewarm or the disaffected in South Africa for their own purposes. Is there any need-the question thus suggests itself-to tie us fast between the horns of a constitutional dilemma, a dilemma which seems to leave no alternative between keeping the Dominions in a nervous fright about being dragged willy-nilly into a war, and setting up a new machinery which, as things are at present, at all events in South Africa, might generate friction and so tend to frustrate the very purpose of its builders? Grant that only such a scheme as that of Mr Curtis can secure to the Dominions a control of foreign policy in the sense in which the control is now exercised by the British Cabinet and the British House of Commons, there may be other ways in which the views of the Dominions may be so voiced as to influence this control, and at the same time to promote a temper which will ultimately ensure perfect concert. Such a temper once ensured, the Curtisian Commonwealth in all its rounded symmetry would follow in the fulness of time.

Four years ago it was suggested in the columns of The Cape Times' that, if in each Dominion Cabinet the Minister of Defence were also made a Minister of External Affairs, and possibly of Commerce, he might well be deputed to visit London once a year, in order to attend meetings of the Committee of Imperial Defence, and to discuss in Cabinet with the British Ministry any

topic, including, of course, foreign policy, of interest or importance to the Dominions. He would then be able to present to the Dominion Ministry, and-to the extent to which the arcana imperii are discussed in the House of Commons-to the Dominion Parliament, the full case for cooperation in any particular matter, with a knowledge and authority which are now practically impossible. The result, one might reasonably hope, would be to foster a disposition to concerted action, based on the confidence that the Dominion Parliaments were as much 'in the know' on foreign politics as the House of Commons. Given that disposition, the various Parliaments would be less likely to boggle at contributions to Commonwealth Defence, which might be proportioned in accordance with some more popular standard than a taxable capacity estimated by a Board of Assessors, let them be never so expert, such as Mr Curtis proposes. The most easily understood standard of all, under existing conditions, must be associated directly with the protection afforded by the Navy, and also with the desirability of developing trade-interdependence within the Empire. This result might be achieved by combining the late John Hofmeyr's proposal for a uniform all-round Commonwealth superCustoms tax with a uniform all-round levy, in the nature of an insurance premium, calculated at so much per cent. either on the freight tonnage which enters and leaves the ports of each of the five nations, or on the value of the goods carried, or on both. The proceeds from both sources would be pooled for the purposes of Commonwealth defence, the cost of local defence, of course, being in each case deducted. I see no reason why proposals such as these should not meet with acceptance by an Imperial Convention. Certainly their introduction and adoption in the Union Parliament would be much easier, and attended with far less risk of subsequent friction, than a more ambitious scheme, however logical in its conception and outlines and just in its consequences such a scheme might be.

Art. 8.-GERMAN WAR LITERATURE ON THE NEAR AND MIDDLE EAST.

1. The Pangerman Plan unmasked. By André Cheradame. Murray, 1916.

2. Der Kampf um deutsche Kulturarbeit im nahen Orient (The struggle for German culture and its work in the Near East). By Dr F. Mohr. Berlin, 1915.

3. Eine Aegyptische Expedition als Kampfmittel gegen England (An Egyptian expedition as a weapon against England). By Prof. Gustav Roloff. Giessen, 1915. 4. Die Ziele unsere Weltpolitik (The aims of our worldpolicy). By Prof. Alfred Hettner. Berlin, 1915.

5. Deutschland und der Osten (Germany and the East). By Prof. Haller. Tübingen, 1915.

6. Der Vierbund und das neue europäisch-orientalische
Weltbild (The Quadruple Alliance and the world-
significance of the new connexion between Europe and
the East). By Dr Freiherr v. Mackay. Stuttgart, 1916.
7. Der Kampf um Arabien zwischen der Türkei und Eng-
land (The struggle over Arabia between Turkey and
England). By Franz Stuhlmann. Hamburg, 1916.
8. Central Europe (Mitteleuropa). By Friedrich Nau-
mann. With an introduction by Prof. Ashley. King
and Son, 1916.

And other works, by Véla, Erich Meyer, von Staden,
Trampe, Hennig, Oncken, Rifat, Grobba, etc.

At this moment it is of the highest importance, not only for Great Britain but also for her Allies, to grasp the true inwardness of the efforts made by Germany to obtain control of the Balkan States and the road to Constantinople. Peace made now, on the basis of the status quo, would leave Germany, with Austria as subservient ally, in complete possession of these regions. The 'Drang nach Osten' would have triumphed. What does this mean, for us and for Germany?

Now, there are two main trends of thought running through German war literature dealing with the Near East. The first is occupied with the subject of a European agglomerate stretching from the Baltic and the North Sea to Constantinople, and thence dominating Asia to the Suez Canal and the Persian Gulf. This

plan first found definite expression in the writings of Friedrich List. The second dwells on the use of this agglomerate as a wedge to split the British Empire.

'The first and foremost direction for the blow to be struck by the new Quadruple Alliance is known and has been much discussed. Its point is defined in the phrase: "OstendBagdad!" It is directed against Britain's supremacy of the seas and the chain of naval stations connecting the North Sea with India. It counters the London blue-water school with the principle: Waves are broken by the land' (Mackay, op. cit.). 'Our principal war aim is to secure Germany's future; and that end can only be attained by a certain solution of the Oriental problem. When speaking on the Kaiser's birthday in 1913, the German Ambassador von Wangenheim said: "He who lays a finger on Anatolia touches the vital interests of the German people." . . . What is the Oriental question? At one time it meant the relations of the Christian peoples to Turkey; at another the supremacy of the Black Sea, or the Dardanelles question. At one time or other it has turned on Armenia, Syria, or Persia, but since the Congress of Berlin the far-reaching nature of the question has gradually become apparent. To-day it may be expressed in the formula: Is there to be a great Mohammedan Power or not? If not, then who shall be the heir of Islam?' (Mohr, op. cit.).

The Germans are not blind to the fact that an alternative to the Teutonic would be a Slavonic wedge. Indeed, the present war is declared to be Germany's most favourable opportunity for cutting off Russia from the Balkans, above all from Constantinople, for ever. It is more than probable that the desire to settle this conflict between the aspirations of the two countries was one of the motives which induced the Berlin Government to precipitate war in 1914. The Pan-German party hopes to attain two principal ends by establishing German domination from the North Sea to the Indian Ocean. Firstly, Russia would be switched off (to employ the German idiom 'ausgeschaltet') from South-eastern Europe and Western Asia. Secondly, a huge land-wedge would be formed with its edge on Britain's neck, i.e. Egypt and the Suez Canal. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the Kaiser is credited with having become a convert to this conception and with having worked towards realising it.

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