GERMANY AND ENGLAND.
WE are delighted that our German municipal visitors wore so much pleased with their visit to England, and we sincerely trust that when the editors come in June they will be equally well satisfied. But though we are delighted, we are not surprised. The friendly feeling towards the German people as a people which has always existed in this country, and which, we trust, always will exist, made it absolutely certain that our German visitors would meet with nothing but sympathy. It cannot be too often repeated that such distrust as exists here in regard to Germany and German policy is confined to the German Government and to the ruling caste in Germany. The British public are well aware that the German people wish us no ill, but are, on the contrary, as ready to be friendly as we are. Unfortunately, however, what the German people as a whole want and think matters very little. What matters in.Germa•ny is the will of the ruling caste. If they indulge aspirations or promote a policy hostile and dangerous to a neighbouring State, it is impossible to ignore that policy and those aspirations because of popular goodwill. While, therefore, we are extremely glad to find repre- sentatives of the German people reciprocating our own feeling of goodwill, it would be foolish to attach undue importance to that fact. What is wanted is either a change in the conduct and methods of the German Government as at present constituted, or a development of popular power and authority within the Empire. As to our ability to come to an understanding with a liberalised and democra- tised Germany we have no doubt whatever.
We note that some of our visitors, and also the Burger- meister of Hamburg in his speech at the banquet of the German Navy League last Saturday, used language which seemed to indicate that English people were of opinion that the Germans had no right to build a fleet. Very naturally, patriotic Germans resent this notion, and claim that they have as good a right to a fleet as we have. Unquestion- ably they have, and we do not believe that such a right has ever been denied by any sane Englishman. No doubt the building of the German Fleet has caused a certain amount of anxiety here; but that was not because we con- sidered that the Germans had no right to a fleet, and to as big a fleet as they liked, but solely because of the arguments and reasons which were given by German writers and speakers for the creation of German sea power. We are most anxious on the present. occasion to say nothing which may cause ill-feeling, and therefore we shall make no quotations from German polemical writings, but will only say in general terms that the creation of a powerful fleet has been again and again demanded by organs of German public opinion in order that Germany may be able to deal with England. The uses to which the German Fleet is to be put have never been concealed. For, example, German literature of what we may term the " Battle of Dorking " school always assumes a naval victory for Germany over • Britain, and the consequent invasion of England. With this it is worth while to contrast our own " Battle of Dorking" pamphlets and novels, which never assume an invasion of Germany or of any German possession, but merely a defensive war in this country. If the two literatures repre- sent national aspirations, one must be admitted to be that of conquest, the other of home defence. But though a German Fleet advocated on the grounds on which the increase of the German Fleet has been advocated must cause a certain sense of anxiety here, no one has ever denied the abstract right of the Germans to build such a Fleet and for such reasons. All that we have said in these columns, all that responsible people generally have said, is that we cannot be expected to like the prospect, and that we are bound to take the necessary precautions. To show that naval expansion unaccompanied with direct menaces does not annoy or alarm the British people, we may point to the expansion of the American Fleet. That Fleet has grown at a greater rate than the German Fleet, and yet no one here has ever made it a ground for distrust of the American Government.
Again, we must point out that it is most unfair to say that German colonial expansion has caused annoyance -or jealousy here. We have always felt, and we believe that the great bulk of the British people have felt, that the Germans have every right to a great oversee Empire, and that it is most natural that they should desire to build one up. There is plenty of room in the undeveloped parts of the world for both Germany and Britain. But though we have not resented German expansion in the slightest degree, but, on the contrary, were prepared to welcome it, we have naturally not found much pleasure in German expansion when it has had such consequences as the interference of Germany in- South Africa exemplified in the Kruger telegram and the subsequent official declarations as to German interests ; as the acts of diplomatic hostility con- cerned with East Africa, Samoa, the Yangtse Agreement ; or, most notable of all, as Germany's denial that we had a right to get on good terms with France without first asking her leave. If, however, the German Government can only be persuaded to turn over a new diplomatic leaf, that Government may be assured. that it will find no obstacles presented by Great Britain. As a people we have many bad points ; but one good one we can at least claim, and that is the power of forgetting injuries. We do not hesitate to say that no British statesman, or body of statesmen, would ever regard past differences as a bar to a good understanding with Germany, provided that in the future there was a, radical change in the spirit. of German diplomacy. As to the question of trade rivalry, we can assure the German people that there is ou this score no ill-feeling whatever among our people as a whole. Individual traders in fierce competition with German houses may no doubt occasionally show jealousy or annoyance, but, it is only the kind of jealousy; and annoyance that they feel for competitors of their own nationality, and is not in the least shared by the mass of the nation. The proof of this is to be found in our Free-trade policy, and in the fact that that policy has just received so overwhelming an endorsement by the. British democracy. Instead of being jealous as a nation, of German competition, we welcome it as highly beneficial., In the first place, it supplies us with cheap material of all kinds for our consumers and manufacturers ; and secondly, provides that competitive stimulus without which trade and commerce soon languish and decay.
In all probability we shall immediately be asked to prove the sincerity of our desire to be on • good terms with Germany, and to establish a better understanding with her Government. The test proposed will be our assent to the Baghdad Railway. In our opinion, our Government should most certainly do nothing to oppose the making of that railway. We say now in the most absolute' terms, as we said when the scheme was mooted some four years ago, that no railway can be laid on any part of the world's surface without benefit to Britain. Extended railways mean extended trade, and since trade, whatever the Pro4 tectionists may say, is bound to be an international benefit, Britain, as the greatest of trading nations, must be the better for more railways. Most foolishly, we attempted to prevent the cutting of the Suez Canal ; but the Suez Canal was cut, and proved of immense material benefit to Britain. In the same way, if the Baghdad Railway is made, it is certain to carry large quantities of British goods, and so to benefit British trade. Clearly, then, no . obstacles should be placed by us—and we are con- vinced that none will be placed by us—in the way of the Baghdad Railway. When, however, as we expect will prove to be the case, we are not merely asked to refrain from throwing obstacles in the way of the railway, but are asked as a Government to sanction and patronise that railway officially, a very different question arises. What we objected to on. the former occasion, and what we feel obliged to object to now, is the proposition that the name of the British Government should be placed, as it were, upon the prospectus of the Baghdad Railway, and that British investors should be asked to put their money into the scheme under the encouragement or moral guarantee of our Government. That proposition is a very different matter, and seems to us one open to the very gravest objection. Foreign Governments, no doubt, are in the habit of authorising or of disallowing proposals to investors ; but hitherto the British Government have always declared, and, in our opinion, rightly declared, that they have nothing whatever to do with the way in which the British people invest their money. That is their affair, and must be managed by them without reference to the State. Now, however, we are in effect told that we shall be guilty of an unfriendly act towards Germany if we do not change our practice in this respect, and, as we have said, allow the, name of the British Government to be placed upon the prospectus of the Baghdad Railway. In our view, the most that the British Government can say is that the Baghdad Railway shall come before British investors exactly like any railway in Canada, Australia, or South America, and that the public shall be allowed to judge of its commercial merits unbiassed by any Govern- ment direction either way. We cannot give the investor the right, if the railway fails as a speculation, to turn upon the British Government and say : " You gave us a moral guarantee for the investment of our money." Again, if the question of the Indian mail subsidies is raised, we do not think that the British Government ought to go further than to say that if, when the railway is built, it can be shown that three or four days can be saved by sending the mails by the Baghdad Railway, then no doubt we shall send them by that route, provided, of course, that the railway will give us reasonable terms. British mails must travel by the quickest route, granted that those who control the quickest route do not make their terms too onerous.
One more point must be dealt with. Suppose that we are asked, as was proposed on the last occasion, to consent to an increase in the Turkish Customs, which are regulated by international Treaty, in order to afford a guarantee for the railway. What is to be our answer? In our opinion, it is not reasonable that trade in the Turkish Empire should bepenalised by an increase of Custom-duties so as to facilitate the building of what is, after all, in its origin a strategic rail- way. We quite admit that the Turkish consumer will be the person chiefly injured by a rise in the Custom-duties, as is always the case when there is an increase in a tariff ; but the consequent impoverishment of that consumer and the reduction of his purchasing power are bound also to injure our trade. The foreigner, of course, does not pay the tax ; but he may nevertheless be injured, and is injured, by a reduction in the volume of trade. Just as increased trade owing to Free-trade or a lowering of duties is a double blessing—i.e., a blessing to both parties to the exchange— so an increase of duties is a double injury—i.e., an injury to both parties to the exchange. As, then, we have the power to prevent an increase of the Turkish Customs, and so to prevent an injury both to the Turkish consumer and to the British trader, we do not see that we are called. upon to assent to an increase, or that our failure to give such assent can fairly be regarded as an act of hostility towards Germany. By all means let the Baghdad Railway be built, if it can be built on a sound commercial basis—that is, because the experts believe that it will pay— but not, first, by pledging the credit of the British Govern- ment ; secondly, by mortgaging in advance the Indian mail subsidy ; and lastly, by the imposition of a general tax on Turkish external commerce. Remember, also, that if we agree to an increase in the Turkish Customs, and so enable the Turkish Government to give a kilometric guarantee for the rajlwAy, the railway, will be built under -the worst possible system,—a system under which it is nobody's business to see that the line is made economically, but rather one under which there is a positive inducement to wasteful construction and bad engineering.
To sum up, the, promoters of the Baghdad Railway should carry out their railway by an honest and straight.. forward appeal to the investors of the world, and not by any elaborate diplomatic or financial hocus-pocus. There is plenty of money in Germany, in England, and in France for any and every sound commercial project. If a project is not reasonably sound commercially, it is better that the world should hear no more of it. Our hope, however, is that the promoters of the Baghdad Railway, abandoning all diplomatic and financial finesse, will be able to get their money in the open market and build their railway. If they do, we have no doubt that British trade and commerce, in conjunction with the trade and com- merce of the rest of the world, will immensely benefit thereby.
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