HOW GERMANY TREATS SPIES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1468, 28 January 1887, Page 3

HOW GERMANY TREATS SPIES.

The Paris Matin gives its readers the following information respecting the treatment to whloh parsons arrested as pples are subjected m Germany :— " Sotne five or six years ago a 'Belgian subject was arreßted m Germany on Buspioion of being a Bpy m the way of the French Government. No trustworthy evidence against him waa forthcoming, and the charge was sustained merely by the testimony of an entirely irresponsible individual. Nevertheless the accused was condemned to ten years' Imprisonment, after having already suffered eight months' confinement on suspicion. He has since been to all iatents and purposes as one dead to h ; a family. It has only been with the greatest difficulty that he haß succeeded m obtaining permission from the authori ties to write a few lineß every quarter. In this epir tie, moreover, he is c mpelled, uader threats, to sing tho praises of the regime of which he is the innocent victim. He has to herd with thieves and aaaaasina, and although suffering from a moit piinful physical illnesß, is on no account permitted to see a physician. The Belgian Government has, it is sail, repeatedly made efforts to obtain, if nnt the release, at all eventa the bettor treatmeat of this unhappy man, but m vain." The writer of the article maintains that numerous other instances of a Blmilar kind could eaiily be quoted. THE ISLAND 3 OF NEW BRITAIN. At the ordinary moet'ng of the Rnyal Geographical Society recently m the hall of the London University, Burlington Gardens, a paper was read by Mr H. A, Romily, Deputy Commissioner for the Western Pacific, on the blinds of the New Britua Group. Me R, -mily dcßcriued the climate of tha group au being healthy, deßpite iha hoat, while the vegetation is an luxuriant as it ia possible for even tropical vegetation to be. The Natives, v\ho are generally cannibals, are excellent agriculturists and make fairly laborers when not taken away from their own homes, Their trade is at present oonfiaod to copra, tortoise, and pearl shell and becks demer, and is chief!/ m the hands of the Germans, who now own the country The islands he considered suitable for white colonisation, possessing the Holiest possible soil, a climate no worse than other groups, and belter than New Guinea, and a population which, though undoubtedly savage and euspiolou?, could be easily managed by firmness nnd con sideratlon for their habits acd traditions

In the discussion whioh followed, tho Rev. George Brown Raid he had been a missionary m the New Bo'^ain group alnoe 1875, having previously spent six* teen years m the South Seas. In remarking upon the nurriage la, /a of the natlvea Mr Brown stid thit m translating the Gospel of St. Mark into the Vernacular he had ocnaaion to inqulr lifter the moat aaored na h m vo^ue Among the natives ; avid found that a man Invoked upon himself for a breach of a sacred pledge the terrible f*te of having to shake haad» with bli mother-to-law.