NATURALIZED ALIENS AND OTHERS.
(To THE EDITOR or rue " Betel...MC."1 S112,—If "Fair Play" will re-read the clause from the Act of Settlement, quoted in my letter, he will see-that the restrictions apply only to naturalized subjects, not to their British-horn children; consequently had the Act been in force the country would still have enjoyed the services of Lord Goschen and of any sons of the naturalized serving in our Army, or elsewhere. As to Sir E. Cassel, I suppose "Fair Play" wonld hardly suggest that his absence from the Privy Council would seriously deplete the statesmanship of that body. Whether any restric- tions should be placed on the children of naturalized subjects is, I quite agree, a much more difficult question. As a matter of fact, of the present time men entering the Navy must be not only British-born themselves, but the sons of British-born parents. But the English nation is naturally so generous, and so tolerant, that the question of restrictions on the children of the naturalized would probably never arise in an acute form, unless the people are driven to the conviction that only by some drastic measure of this kind can they hope to eliminate Sir A. Mond from the superintendence of the memorials of our dead.
I regret that "Fair Play " should have raised the ease of the Marquess of Milford Haven, but as he has done so, I must say frankly that that painful incident at the outset of the war furnishes in my view a remarkable proof of the wisdom of our forefathers in forbidding in peace a laxity which they realised could never be maintained in war. No one acquainted with the facts doubted the devotion of Lord Milford Haven to his adopted country, but it remains true that men ought not to, and cannot, be asked to lay down their lives except at the command of those who are, as it were, "flesh of their flesh, and bone of their bone" in the struggle. Had a disaster to the Navy occurred when Lord Milford Haven was First Sea Lord, such an outburst of popular suspicion might have followed as might have endangered the Throne itself. Lord Milford Haven, with a patriotic self-abnegation that did him the highest honour, recognized the truth himself and resigned. If "Fair Play" desires more light on this danger, he cannot do better than study the atmosphere of whirling suspicion and distrust owing to the presence of persons of German connexion in high places in which the Russian Revolution had its origin.
"Fair Play" regards a belief in deliberate German permea- tion as on a level with a belief in the Popish Plot. As I con- clude he is sincere in this statement, I can only suppose he lives in some cloistered retreat into which hooka, newspapers, Blue Books, and White Papers do not penetrate. The permeation of Belgium, Rumania, Russia, Italy, and even to some extent France, by Germany, before the war, hes passed out of the region of report and suspicion into that of indisputable fact. As to the United States, has " Fair Play " read the Von Popen papers ?
With regard to our country, owing, as I wrote in my last letter, to the fact that we have fortunately escaped invasion, the full extent of German permeation will probably never be known; but a good deal is known. Does "Fair Play" imagine that the Garman banks, of which the branches here have only been closed after- four years' strenuous agitation—in itself a proof of the strength of German influence—are purely financial institutions P If so, I can only refer him to their own pub. lished reports.
Does he fancy that it was accidental that the speller of Australia was at the outbreak of the war entirely controlled by the Frankfort metal. octopus? Has he read the Report of our own Enemy Trading Committees, by no means strongly anti-German, pointing out how naturalization was used as a cloak to get businesses into German hands; how British busi- nesses were deliberately - destroyed by German-subsidized competition, so that Germans might get the monopoly; how restrictions were placed on the supply of such essentials as iron ore to British firms ? Has he ever traced out the world-wide ramifications of the German electrical monopoly known as the A.E.G.P Or followed the intrigues of the Doutsche-Aaiatisehe Bank in Hong Kong and China ? He refers to the action of the London Stock Exchange; does he know that it was openly stated in the Reichstag. when the infamous Delbriick Low was discussed, that one reason for its adoption was that as Germans must naturalize before they could be admitted to the Stock Exchange, it was necessary to provide that they should retain their nationality by an act of treachery to the country whose hospitality they were enjoying ? And yet lie is surprised that the Stock Exchange is taking precautions against the admission of such secret traitors! The truth that German commercial enterprise has been used deliberately as a political weapon to procure German predominance has been fully recognized es-en by statesmen so moderate as Viscount Grey. It is based on a system, backed financially by the (Icemen banks and in the last resort by the German Government.
This letter is already too long, but I hope you will permit me to add one word on the argument as constantly brought forward that as this country has generally benefited by immi- gration in the past, no restrictions are now necessary, regardless of the Qualify of the immigration. Such a view flies in the face of facts. A nation is generally enriched by the immigration of persons of similar standards of life and cultivation and of such races slush religions as permit them within two or three generations to merge in the native population. The Huguenot immigration to this country is a striking exemplification of this rule. A nation is not strengthened but weakened by the extensive immigration of persons of a wholly different standard of living, and of suds races and religions as cannot or will not merge in the general population, and tend therefore to form an imperiam in imperio. For proof " Fair Play " should study the Jewish problem as it exists in every country of Europe, even our own; the negro problem in America ; the Chinese problem; and the difficulties arising in connexion will; Indian emigration to South Africa. Further, he may do well to examine the general question of the existence of large bodies of " hyphenated citizens " in the United States.
I believe firmly that the pre-war invasion of this country by Germans and German Jews seriously weakened her in the life- and-death struggles from which she has barely emerged; and. further, that no nation with the German record of brutality and treachery before its eyes can instantly condone thosa crimes and welcome the criminals without injuring in a very serious degree its own standards of righteousness and bonen,
[We cannot continue this correspondence.—En. Sprefafor.]
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