England has without doubt been Germany’s favourite bug-a-boo for the
war. Once she threatened to exalt France to pride of place, but her
allegiance soon returned to John Bull, and she has left no trick of
hate untried to place him in the pillory before her own subjects and
neutral nations.
“Let shame,” said Herr Maximilian Harden, who, as a German-Jew, may
perhaps view the wider issues with some detachment and plead to his
adopted people for philosophy and self-control--“let shame spread a
thick veil over self-deification and enemy-bedevilment.” A futile
appeal must this be to a nation that knows no shame, from its Emperor
to his humblest slave. Self-deification is the marrow in German bones,
the oil in German joints; while as to bedevilment of the enemy, in this
they naturally excel, since supreme power of detraction is a complement
of envy and jealousy: the one involves the others.
Michael’s dummy “John Bull” was, however, very clearly made in Germany,
and Holland is not deceived. She adjoins Belgium--a circumstance
the man behind the scarecrow perhaps forgot--and they who have been
watching Germany at work in their neighbour’s country are not going
to be alarmed at this silly German “John Bull.” They know the real
John Bull at first hand, and his methods of conducting commerce and
practising war. It was not John Bull who torpedoed the _Tubantia_ and
committed a thousand other pirate and brigand acts against this neutral
power. It was not John Bull who in August of last year wrote to the
Burgomaster of little Wavre and demanded £120,000, failing which Wavre
would be set on fire and destroyed “without distinction of persons, the
innocent to suffer with the guilty.”
Holland is staunch, for she knows that Germany’s care for the weak
nations is the good wife’s love for the chickens and the butcher’s for
the lamb. Michael would like to thrust his revolver into John’s hand
and pretend afterwards that he had pulled the trigger; but the smiling
Dutch frontier guard is in no danger of being deceived.