BERLIN REVISITED.
[COMMUNICATED.]
COMING in through Cologne and Westphalia, even though it was Sunday, one could not help seeing how much work the Germans are doing, in industry and, as one got further east, in agriculture. The latter is a picture which speaks for itself even as seen from the windows of a railway train, and there was everywhere evidence of hard and thorough work. I should think that both industry and agriculture, so far as organization is concerned, must have received a tremendous impetus in the wonderful all-round mobilization of forces to meet the difficulties of the blockade ; and after defeat thia impulse can hardly have slackened.
In old days, when thinking of politics, one lost sight of the importance of the industrial West of Germany under the bias of the pervading militarism centred in Berlin. In Berlin of to-day much the most powerful impression comes from the complete disappearance of all the outward signs of this militarism ; and one is naturally thrown back on the growing importance of the west and the degree to which it may modify or even transform future German policy. One feels this the more as one travels from Berlin to the new eastern frontier, which is now nearer to the capital even than Hanover. I found it hard to get used to a Berlin with only a few casual soldiers, and those few more free and easy when off duty than our own. And yet the clean sweep has been made, and the Brandenburger Gate, the Palace, and the Pillar and Boulevard of Victory seem, in the light of all their present surroundings, relics of a remote past. We found everyone particularly polite. Friends living in Berlin come upon patches of bearish sullenness ; but a Russian writer who has been here for several months tells me his own German friends are almost unrecognizable because, as he put it, they are wonder- fully simplified. This was my own impression : now that the monstrous pretensions of Prussian militarism have collapsed, people seem to find it wonderfully simple to be without it.
Of course, for one thing, life has now a new and pressing task which overrides everything else—the struggle with prices and the practical bankruptcy of the country. There is really no way of making ends meet, and Germans cannot yet take any stook of how they stand, so that a movement for economy such as ours would hardly yet be possible. All this presses hardest on the professional class It has become almost an economic law that manual work counts above intellectual ; in fact, a workman, on being told that he was better off than a doctor of high standing, replied : " But, sir, yours is only head-work. ' Thus a workman just out of his apprenticeship receives more than a professor ; and inside the academic world a simple language lesson which can be given offhand is paid at practically the same rate as class work with higher students demanding many hours of preparation. Students at the university have to make the greatest sacrifices for their studies ; the University statistics show that only a very small proportion are independent of supplementary paid work. When the course is over there is a great dearth of paid posts. For all that there are now over 15,000 students at Berlin University (London has 20,000 and Cambridge 6,000), and they possess the most complete organization for the supply of food and of medical help. A sturdy and honourable struggle is being made against this financial pressure, and one cannot doubt' that Germany' will win through it But with the daily fluctuation of the mark it' is difficult to see how any steady business can be done, and there is every encouragement to those who are content to live from day to day and from hand to month. We saw and heard of no disorder, and, all things considered, the streets were very clean.
We spent several hours in the Reichstag. It, too, seemed to' me very much simplified, the more so as we happened to be guests of one of the most Conservative members. In a • strange way it suggested to me the Russian Duma—a comparison which could hardly have occurred to one in the days' of Prussian stiffness. It seemed somehow as if the Reiohstag had only just begun to really exist. It was one of the debates caused by the murder of Rathenau, and both a 'Communist (who made some five speeches) and a Bavarian Nationalist who spoke' at great length found themselves engaged in sharp personal dialogue with- their keenest opponents ; but the Com- munist only seemed to bore every one and the Nationalist, perhaps, did not fare much better. We had a- good deal of detailed talk with representatives of the old Germany. Of this the University seems to be one of the chief fortresses ; in fact, the number of Socialist students is counted as negligible. Here it was frankly put to us more than once that though students as a professional class must have much in common, the Englishman and the German have got to recognize that' they have quite different tasks in the world. The real defence (at least in public) of the old Germany seems to have passed into more reasonable and intelligent hands than the Junkers', and is conducted with a much better respect for the opinions of others. On the other side, we met prominent Social Democrats who seemed very like the best of our own Labour men, more so, perhaps, than we should be likely to find in any other country, but with two differences—first, that they were only now feeling their way wisely and carefully into the actual conduct of affairs, and, second, that they had an infinitely clearer idea of the business of education as the groundwork of any democratic State. To make men is the object in view. Marxism is at a discount, though it is an object of serious study and objective know- ledge drawn from all sources is what is desired. German Labour has very clear ideas as to what knowledge it seeks. Philosophy, art and letters hold the first place, together with technical knowledge of all kinds ; general economics come next and history, that is, the history of States, monarchies and armies, comes last ; but the various parties of the Left have their own organizations for teaching their own history. The Communists are unlike all the rest in wishing to teach political theory, even to children. The history of the German people, as a subject of objective study, may be a long time in coming into its own.
It seems to me that there is no more important issue in Europe than the question : What will happen in the internal development of Germany ? If Germany reverts to the old ideals of policy, there must sooner or later be another and a greater war. If Germany is able to create a truly democratic State, I think she will find her satisfaction on other lines than those of conquest, though even then one cannot regard present frontiers as a , permanently successful Einkreisung (encirclement). In foreign policy the touchstone of this question must for every reason be Germany's future relations with Russia— a subject on which I was able to hear different views. I should say that there are two more or less dearly marked tendencies. If there were new monarchies in Germany and in Russia there could be little doubt of the result for Europe and, in particular, for Poland. But this seems at present to be a dream of incompetent con- spirators. There are those who would work for a political revanche through an economic domination over Russia. The more tentative would ask for a co-operation with the Allies in the work of Russian reconstruction, we supplying the capital and they the workers and the direction. This would amount to the same thing, and is only the old Bagdad project applied to a new and vaster field. But there are others who only seek, as they have every right to do, a free and competitive co-operation in the task, from which Russia itself can only stand to gain. Germany's policy in this matter must be ruled by the prevalence or the failure of the democratic spirit within
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