32
MILITARISM
be known, that colonial policy which, pretending[1] to spread Christianity of civilization or to protect national honor, piously practises usury and fraud for the advantage of capitalists interested in colonies; which murders and violates defenceless human beings, burns down the possessions of the defenceless, robbing and pillaging them, mocking and disgracing Christianity and civiliza-
- ↑ This hypocritical and, at the same time, shamefaced excuse is now being dropped with frank cynicism; see the article, signed by G. B., in the monthly magazine, Die deutschen Kolonien (October, 1906), and the remark made by Strantz at the pan-German convention (September, 1906), where he said: "In the colonies we don't want to convert people into Christians; they are to work for us. This humanitarian soft-headedness is downright ridiculous. German sentimentality has deprived us of a man like Peters." Again, Heinrich Hartert wrote in the Tag, December 21, 1906, that it is "the duty of the missions … to adapt themselves to given circumstances"; but they had succeeded "in frequently becoming a nuisance to the commercial man." It is at this point that the principal friction arises between the German Clerical Party and the Government in regard to colonial policy; this alone explains the furious fight entered upon in December, 1906, by the merchant Dernburg against the so-called collateral government of the Clerical Party.—For America the Kreuzzeitung (September 29, 1906) preaches: "The simple extermination of whole tribes of Indians is so inhuman and unchristian that it cannot be defended under any circumstances, especially as it is in no way a question of existence for the Americans." But where it is such a question whole tribes may be "exterminated" even by the believer in Christian charity according to the views of the colonial Christian.
