Omaha daily bee., 1918-09-04

willing to meet Germany half way, but he
was even disposed to accord to Germany,
NOTABLY as regards the Congo, opportunities
and expectancies which, to the German am
|bassador's surprise, Berlin hesitated to grasp.
The African and the Bagdad treaties which
Lichnowsky negotiated gave substantial ad-
vantages, as he points out. to German COM
merce, industry and finance. They also gave
the German empire important colonial expec-
tatons. Why were these treaties not well
coined in Berlins Why was the Bagdad
treaty not concluded? Why was the African
treaty accepted only after long delay, and
only on the eve of war, when its ratification
was no longer possible? 1ichnowsky's ex-
PLANTATION, that his rivals in German govern
mental circles grudged him successes so con-
spicuous, is equally characteristic and un-
convincing, .,
The chief point in controversy, he tells
US, was (at least as regards the African
treaty. that of publication Sir Edward
Grey insisted that the treaty should be pub
lished; Berlin insisted that it should be kept
secret. The most. plausible argument for
secrecy advanced by Berlin, namely, that the
partition of the Portuguese colonies into
spheres of influence and of pre-enption
would so offend Portuguese feeling that Ger
man entrepreneurs would be unable to obtain
concessions, is rightly characterized by Lich-
lnowsky as pretext. England, as he points
out, held Portugal in the hollow of its hand.
He might have added that, under the circum-
stances, any Portuguese resentment would
probably direct itself primarily against Great
Britain, and that. if Great Britain could take
the risk, Germany surely could. Even more
absurd (although von Jagow still endorses iD
is the pretext that, if the German people had
learned that Great Britain was conceding
rights of pre-empton in the colonies Of Por-
tugal there would have been an outcry
against British "perhdy" which would have
embarrassed the German government and
(as Won Jagow now suggests) would have
vitiated the good atmosphere" which the
Berlin foreign Office desired to create in An
glo-German relations. 1t is, however, not
easy to believe that in the Germany of the
10th century there would have been general
ethical revolt against any British action that
was advantageous to Germany.
The probable explanation, the probable
reason why Berlin was willing to ratify the
treaty but unwilling to publish it, was that
its publication would have shaken, and might
even have destroyed, the fiction of encircle-
ment. If the German people had been per-
mitted in 1918 or in 1914, to read treaties by
which Great Britain accorded to Germany
the economic control Of Mesopotamia and Of
important parts of Africa, the belief in Ger
many's encirclement which the German gov
ernment had created, and which it needed
for the coming war, would have been seri-
ously undermined.
Won Jagow's reply to Lichnowsky shows
that the opposition on which the African and
Bagdad treaties were wrecked was neither
made nor supported in the Berlin foreign
Office. The Berlin foreign SECRETARY also de-
sired rapprochement with Great Britain
and favored the ratification of the Grey
Lichnowsky treaties. This leaves but one
possible conclusion. The opposition was
higher up. in the militarist- Junker encourage
of the emperor. That in these circles there
could be little enthusiasm for arrangements
which would primarily subserve the interests
of German commerce is quite ineligible. For
decades the Junkers had witnessed with
growing distaste and apprehension the rap
idly increasing wealth Of the middle classes.
This new wealth was lessening the relative
power and the prestige of their own order.
Least of all were they disposed to welcome
arrangements which would further enrich
German merchants, manufacturers and bank
ess, il, these arrangements tended to avert or
even to postpone, war; for it was to war they
looked to re-establish their threatened pres
tige and to assure their dominant influence in
Prussia and in the empire.
Ito Be Continued. Tomorrow