CENTRAL • EUROPE JHHI F.NAUMANN CENTRAL EUROPE IASC. J. -DoP ¿33 CENTRAL EUROPE RAvje>13544» BY FRIEDRICH NAUMANN Member of the Reichstag WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY W. J. ASHLEY Professor of Commcrc« and Dean of the Faculty of Commerce in the University of Birmingham TRANSLATED BY CHRISTABEL M. MEREDITH LONDON : P. S. KING & SON, LIMITED ORCHARD HOUSE, WESTMINSTER 1916 N.roINVENTARIO m INTRODUCTION BY PROFESSOR W. J. ASHLEY FRIEDRICH NAUMANN is probably the most widely read political writer in Germany. " He has his readers "—wrote a competent and not too sympathetic reviewer before the war—" in the workman's cottage and the undergraduate's sitting-room, in the boudoir of the millionaire's wife and in the offices of high officials." And the war gave him an opportunity he was quick to seize. His work on Mittel- europa, here translated, is far and away the most important book that has appeared in Germany since the world-conflict began. It expresses, with a contagious enthusiasm, aspira- tions already deeply rooted in many German minds: it makes out of them a systematic scheme, commended by eloquence and buttressed by historical and economic learning. If, as I believe to be the case, the idea of an organised and close-knit Central Europe as one of the world-Powers of the future has by this time come to be the dominating thought in German politics, Naumann's book has undoubtedly done much for its diffusion. Some light is thrown upon it by its author's career. Naumann began life as a Lutheran pastor ; and his first enterprise, as soon as he had found out his gifts of writing and speaking, was an attempt to convert the association for evangelistic work among the masses, known as the Innere Mission, into an instrument for practical social v vi INTRODUCTION reform. This failing, he gave up clerical work, and set himself to create, by means of his journal Die Hilfe, a National-Social party in the country and in the Reichstag. This was to combine all the practicable objects of Social Democracy with the contemporary enthusiasm in middle- class circles for naval and colonial expansion ; and for this movement he wrote in 1900 his first considerable political book : Demokratie und Kaisertum (" Democracy and the Functions of the Emperor "). The purpose of this book was to induce Social Democracy to come to terms with the existing political system. Henceforth Naumann was a convinced monarchist—though his conception of the monarch's functions has gone through more than one phase. The book is called on its title-page " a handbook for domestic politics," and one need only look at the synopsis of contents to discover that gift for symmetrically plotting out the field of inquiry, that ability to compel even the most recalcitrant material to fit into a prearranged scheme, which has charac- terised his subsequent writings. The National-Social party secured a few thousand adherents but never succeeded in capturing a seat in the Reichstag. Unable to make headway on the working-class side, Naumann's political pilgrimage took a new direction. He turned towards the middle classes, and came in touch with the bourgeois Radicalism of South Germany, organised as the Volkspartei. About this time Naumann was very much under the influence of Professor Brentano of Munich, who enjoyed the distinction of being one of the very few free-trade economists then left in Germany, and at the same time an ardent advocate of trade unionism of the English type. The Volkspartei had been Radical, in the continental sense : that is, it had impartially opposed all forms of State action. It now became Naumann's programme to secure influence in this party by his vigorous INTRODUCTION vii advocacy of Free Trade, and to use the influence thus gained to convert it to social legislation. He was successful in getting into the Reichstag, and did something towards bringing about the amalgamation of various radical groups into a " fraction " rather less negligible from a parliamentary point of view. To this period belongs (1906) his second political book, Neudeutsche Wirtschaftspolitik (" Modern German Economic Policy") ; which pictures a glorious future for Germany and the realisation of all its ideals, imperial and social, on the basis of free trade and vastly expanded foreign markets. Nine years later—as the reader of the present work will at once discern—the economic philosophy of his earlier books was rapidly thrown overboard. Rapidly and almost silently : for the few pages in which Naumann here explains how it comes about that he can now be in favour of customs duties when formerly he was one of their most strenuous opponents, can hardly be regarded as an adequate explana- tion of what is in fact a pretty complete change in mental attitude. Naumann is one of those men who are peculiarly sensitive to the movement of contemporary feeling, and easily convinced of the wisdom of every cause they advocate, without being restrained by any very strong craving for intellectual consistency. But this makes his book all the more worthy of serious attention in this country ; because it is so largely the formulation of current German thought, and so little, in essence, original. The first question which English readers will ask as to Naumann's present political vision is its chances of realiza- tion. That vision may be described as a loosely federal combination for purposes of offence and defence, military and economic, consisting primarily of the German Empire and the Dual Monarchy, but also including the Balkan States viii INTRODUCTION and Turkey, together with all the neutral States—Roumania, Greece, the Scandinavian kingdoms, and Holland—that can be drawn within its embrace. He rightly feels that the one thing essential from his point of view is to bring about the permanent association of Austria-Hungary and Germany, and to that issue he devotes all his argumentative power. It is seldom that he lets himself go, so far as to remark that the Central Europe of his vision " obviously " needs, in order to make it self-contained, *' an extension of its northern and southern sea-coast—if possible," or, in another place, to reckon in the future population of the Central European Power " the oversea possessions of neighbouring States "— Holland is meant—" which have not yet joined us." As a rule he follows his own frankly expressed caution : not to say much at the present stage about neutral countries. One sometimes wonders, be it remarked in passing, whether German writers, even Naumann, do not sometimes forget that a good many people outside Germany can read German. In dealing with the primary problem, association with Austria-Hungary, Naumann exhausts all the resources of a large and adroit vocabulary, full of special coinages almost impossible to turn into English, in order to spare the sus- ceptibilities of the weaker partner. Sovereign rights, he declares, must be scrupulously safeguarded; the fresh governmental machinery which will have to be set up is to consist simply of Joint Commissions, which shall merely prepare the business for, and carry out the instruc- tions of, the several Governments. In spite of all his care, however, he constantly uses expressions such as " Super- State " and " Economic State "; and he frequently falls back on the analogy of the Zollverein in a way that shows that it is something like a federal State he really has in mind. And this State he conceives of as, in fact, under German INTRODUCTION ix guidance and permeated by German influence—of course for its own good. As it happens, in an earlier stage of his career Naumann had been quite unsympathetic towards the project of commercial union with Austria-Hungary, on the ground that German progress would be hampered by association with a backward partner. Such association, he thought, would so strengthen the agrarian element in Germany—which he then feared and even now does not love—that it would involve in German economic develop- ment a retrogression of twenty years. Now, on the con- trary, his argument is that German business method is to tone up Austrian administration, and German capital and cartels are to give new life to Austrian manufactures and agriculture. National languages are to be tenderly pre- served as quaint and sentimental survivals ; but, naturally German—it is casually remarked—will be the working language of the Joint Commissions. The shrewder heads among German politicians are well aware that, however attractive such a vision may be to German eyes, it may not be quite so pleasant to non- Germans. Accordingly there is a pretty general consensus, apparently, in political circles as to the desirability, for the present at any rate, of concentrating attention upon the one question of a customs union. And here one must remove a misapprehension not uncommon in England. The creation of " Central Europe " is often treated in this country as involving free trade between the partners. No doubt that is the ultimate ideal of many of its advocates. But as soon as they have come to close quarters with existing trade conditions they have all realized—and Naumann is very explicitly among them—that any large measure of internal free trade is for the present, and for an indefinite time to come, quite outside practical politics : all that is feasible xiv INTRODUCTION is a system of mutual preferences, specially devised to protect the interests of the industrially weaker countries, with, maybe, a free list for certain non-competing products, chiefly of the nature of raw materials. But it is believed that the preference may be so considerable and so perma- nent, and may be combined with so complete and constant an alliance in the work of commercial negotiation with other countries as to make of " Central Europe " a largely self-sufficing and an effectively united economic area.