THAT "SCRAP OF PAPER"

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2371, 29 January 1915, Page 5

THAT "SCRAP OF PAPER"

REPLY TO THE GERMAN CHANCELLOR SIR EDWARD GREY'S STATEMENT London, January 27. Sir Edward Grey's statement dealing with Herr Bethmann-Hollweg's explanation of "the scrap of paper," traverses that and other statements seriatim. The newspapers are widely discussing this last-exposure of Germany's misrepresentation, which is now nailed to tbe . counter. t BR.TAWS REPLY TO AMERICAN NOTE GERMAN CHANCELLOR'S COMMENT. ' N9W York, January 27. Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, interviewed at German headquarters in tho North of Franco on Sir Edward Grey's reply to the American Note, declared that Sir Edward' Grey intended that his reply should stand as a record of England's magnanimity. He had inserted a paragraph wherein the question of permitting shipments of foodstuffs not intended for the armies of the enemy was left open. While condemning others for the abandonment of the rules of oivilisation and humanity, Britain, he said, had set out to starve sixty-five millions of people directly by cutting off food supplies, and indirectly by closing the arteries of commerce. English diplomacy sought to mould a precedent that might serve her on the day when her control of the sea might not be absolute. Ho assailed the nicety of British scruples in regard to the Hague Convention, affirming that under, the Hague rulings a blockade should be declared against neutrals, which, howover, was not done because England was powerless to enforce it. Tho coast of Belgium had been bombardedand civilians' homes wrecked by the British Fleet, yet by some, mastery over public opinion the world shook with horror when a hostile fleet successfully bombarded English towns equipped with defences, and dirigibles threw bombs on tho fortified town of Yarmouth and warded off an attack from below.