New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915: April-September, 1915Various
History
New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915: April-September, 1915
Various
World War, 1914-1918
(6) Germany is a country smaller in size than California, but populated
thirty-five times as thickly as that State. She loves and fosters family
life, and sees her future in the raising of large families of healthy
children under the home roof and under the national flag. German parents
have no desire to expatriate every year a considerable number of their
children. This implies that her industrial development, which would
alone give occupation to the yearly increase of pretty nearly a million
people, should go on unhampered.
The activity of her people should have an outlet in the development of
such foreign parts as need or wish for development. Great Britain has
shown very little foresight in constantly opposing such efforts,
playing Morocco into the hands of France, a nation that remained
stationary for forty-four years, with little more than half of the
population of Germany, and with a system equally undermining religion
and morality in keeping families small for the sake of worldly comforts.
England, furthermore, constantly obstructed the German endeavor to
reclaim for the benefit of all of the world the granary in Mesopotamia.
A permanent peace will mean that this German activity must get a wide
scope without infringement upon the rights of others. Germany should be
encouraged to continue her activities in Africa and Asia Minor, which
can only result in permanent benefit to all the world. Americans have a
saying "that it will never do good to sit on a safety valve."
There is nothing in the program of my country which would not be
beneficial to the rest of the world, especially the United States. That
this is so the events of the last months have conclusively shown, and a
better appreciation of what Germany really stands for has recently
taken place. So, if I plead the cause of my country, I am not pleading
as a German alone, but as a citizen of a country who wishes to be a
useful and true member of the universality of nations, contributing by
humanitarian aims and by the enhancement of personal freedom to the
happiness of even the lowliest members of the great world community.
I am proud to say that I cannot only give this assurance, but produce
facts, and I beg to refer to the modern system of social reforms which
Germany inaugurated and carries through at an expense which is every
year larger by half than the expense of the military system.
The brunt of this war has not been borne by the men who fight, but by
the women who suffer, and it will be one of the proudest and most
coveted achievements that Germany will gain in rewarding in a dignified
and permanently beneficial way the enormous sacrifices of womanhood, to
alleviate to the extent of the possible the hardships and sorrows that
this war has brought upon them.
[Illustration]
The Allies' Conditions of Peace
By Sir Edward Grey
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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