HOLLAND AND PAN-GERMANISM.•
ONE of the favourite devices of pro-Germans in neutral countries is to pretend that the blockade and the action of the Allies in Greece show us to be hypocritical in our claim to represent the interests of small nationalities. It is doubtful whether any intelligent person is really deceived by this shallow misrepresentation of obvious facts ; and the pamphlet before us proves that in Holland, at any rate, people are under no illusion as to what a German victory would mean for them. Mr. van der Hoeven Leonhard has brought together a number of German utterances by well-known writers, from Treitschke onwards, which place it beyond dispute that the possession of the mouths of the Rhine :I one of the most persistent of German ambitions, and that the existence cf Holland, like that of Belgium, is considered a wrong to the great German nation, which must be set right with the least possible delay. All Germans, no doubt, are not Pan-Germans ; tut Mr. Leonhard knows very well that it is precisely the Pan-German spirit of conquest and ruthless oppression which a German victory would place in power. Therefore he does not regard as idle expressions of individual fanaticism such utterances as these :- " The German people is always right, because it is the German people and numbers eighty-seven million souls."—Otto Richard Tannenberg, Gross-Deutschland.
It is precisely our crating for expansion which drives us into the paths of conquest., and in view of which all chatter about peace and humanity can and must remain nothing but chatter."—J. L. Reimer, Ein Pangermanischea Deutschland.
It is true that the Dutch, as a Germanic people, might possibly be spared the forcible expropriation, and gradual extermination, reserved, on Pan-German principles, for non-German races ; but on the other hand there is not the slightest doubt that, if these principles triumphed, the German language would be forced upon the population of Holland. This is a prospect which has no allurements for Dutch patriotism, and
• Het Belong des Vaderlands in rerband nut het Pengerinaninne (The Interest of the Fatherland in relation to Pan-Germanism). Door J. van der Hoeven Leonhard. Amsterdam ; A, H. Hryyt. 115 cents.)
Mr. Leonhard's pamphlet is a timely reminder to his countrymen of the fate which would unquestionably await them if Germany were allowed to impose her will upon Europe. Ho does not enter at large upon the qbeition of the Dutch colonies, but they are obviously " places in the sun " which would be very- attractive to German cupidity.
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