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Press, Volume LV, Issue 16411, 3 January 1919, Page 6

The report of tho kidnapping of the eldest son of tho ex-Crown Prince of Germany, though not confirmed, bears at least the impress of probability. If the turmoil of events in Germany ever offers a chance to tho Monarchist Military Party to assert itself, tho production of the Prince might be a useful card to play. Such a plan would be impossible, however, without the knowledge and sanction of the ex-Kaiser and ex-C)[own Prince. Circumstances have no doubt convinced these two that neither of them has any chanco of being selected as the future ruler of Germany.

The collapse, early in December, of the plot to sccuro tho return of tho ox-Kaiser was complete. It was supported by largo sums of monoy, which are said to have been supplied by munition firms, and it was organised by several generals, and the whole of tho Prussian Court that was not in oxile, while Prince von Buolow and Dr. Michaolis were understood to be also behind tho plot, tho idea of which was to organiso a provisional Government under von Maekenscn, or some ofher military leader, and thon urge tho Holfenzollerns to return. But someone talked too much and too loudly, the Government took action at onco, and wholesale arrests killed tho conspiracy. Any schemo for restoring the monarchy by means of the ox-Kai-Ber's grandson would have tho advantage that the boy-princo would start with a clean sheet, except for the fact that he is a Hohenzollern, and that still appears, to some people in Germany, not to bo a fatal drawback. But that is not to say that any such plot would have tho least chance of,success. The present temper of Germany would doom a monarchical conspiracy touttor failure.

If President Wilson makes a tour of tho devastated regions of France, as it was stated he would, so as to gain some idea, from personal observation, of the enemy's methods, ho should be able to learn a good deal about them from a distant relative who has had painful experience of them. This lady, a Miss Mary Cunningham, who is over 70 years of age, is the grandchild of a sister of the President's great grandmother, and therefore his cousin in a somewhat remote degree of affinity. She has lived in Courtrai for twelve years, at first in well-to-do circumstances, her father being a flax-spinner, but afterwards earning her living by teaching Fronch and English to Flemish pupils.

But, when the war broke out, this, too, failed. "English and French," writes Mr Philip Gibbs, who made the old lady's acquaintance when ho visited Courtrai after the enemy had evacuated it, "did not seem much good to people surrounded by Germans," so she was living in po/erty, in a tiny house, "with a cooking stove in her parlour, and not much to cook on it." She received her visitor, however, "as a great lady of the old school, with most beautiful dignity." Courtrai was still being shelled by the Germans, but the only notice she took of the occasional crashing explosions, was to ask that the door should be shut, as she did not "like those bombs coming in." One shell, as a matter of fact, had damaged her room. She did not say much about the war, except to speak of the Germans as highway robbers; sho preferred to talk about her native Ireland. Yet, if she had chosen, she could have said much of German oppression and cruelty, for Courtrai suf-

fered as much during tho enemy s occupation as any town in France. The German officers were arrogant and brutal; thov robbed tho city of everything they wanted, down to the furniture and bedding from private houses, and such machinery for cloth-making as they did not send to Germany they smashed with hammers. If the President wants first-hand information about the Germans as conquerors, ho could hardlv go to a better authority than his cousin, who lived through four years of their iron rule. 9 Tho correspondent of the British naval wireless service has one particularly striking remark in his description of the surrender to Admiral Tyrwhitt of the second instalment of German submarines. Referring 10 the fact that most of the U-boats were commanded by sub-lieutenants, ho reports one of these saying that his senior officer did not come because he had been mentioned in the British Press as a marked man. The reference was, no doubt, to' that list, issued by the Admiralty giving the names of 150 submarine commanders who are to be held accountable for crimes committed against British merchant vessels, their crews and passengers. Whether it was quite good policy to publish that list and thereby give the criminals warning that they were known, is perhaps arguable; the men themselves appear to recognise quite clearly that the threat of punishment was no idle one and to foar it accordingly.

The correspondents who went to Bruges after the enemy had fled have something to tell of the submarine commanders who infested the place. Bruges, of course, was the chief base of the submarine campaign against the North Sea and British coastal traffic, and forty boats were often assembled there. Of all the German officers in Bruges the submarine commanders were the worst. At first they were "swaggering bullies," but gradually tLey lost some of their swagger, and latterly, when in one week ten submarines from Bruges went down, a U-boat officer could be distinguished by his haggard and slovenly appearance. "So many went out and never returned that they were like men under sentence of death." That was how they regarded themselves. "You cannot blame us for what we do on shore," said one officer making excuses for a drinking-bout of more than usual bestiality; "we all know we are doomed to a horrible death sooner or later." The authorities for the same reason let submarine crews when ashore do pretty much as they pleased, even to the point of insulting Army officors, without punishing thein. "What do you want me to do?" asked a police official of an Army captain who had been grossly insulted. "A fortnight's arrest means for these men a fortnight's respite. They are 'todesgeweiht' (consecrated to death). An Allied. depth bomb will soon wipe out the memory of the insult you are I forced to swallow."

There was a man in Bruges in those days who may yet make acquaintance with British justice. This is Admiral Schroder, the chief tyrant of the city, and the person responsible for the judicial murder of Captain Fryau. It is reported that a few days before the Germans evacuated Bruges the German military judgo who presided at Captain Fryatt's trial, said. "Tiie British will want my head in payment for Fryatt's life, but it is Schroder alone who was responsible. I simply obeyed his orders, which insisted on the death penalty." Schroder's shure in the crime was evidently known among the British, for when some officers and men who had been capturod at Nieuport were marched past the Admiral in the Grande Place of Bruges every officer ostentatiously turned his back on the man. Certainly Admiral Schroder must be brought to trial, if the British Government is to carry out its avowed intention of punishing the perpetrators of such offences against humanity and justice as that of which he was guilty.