THEN AND NOW.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1590, 22 July 1916, Page 4

THEN AND NOW.

A letter to the Spectator quotes a. despatch sent during the FrancoRussian war by Count Bismarck, as Prussian Foreign Minister, to the German Ambassador, London, for communication to the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, which is especially interesting now in view of the fact that the Germans have ever since war broke out been doing precisely what they then condemned. The letter states: “In the naval warfare the French have likewise scouted international Jaw. The French war-steamer Desaix has destroyed, by burning or sinking, on the high seas, three German merchantmen which it bad captured, the Ludwig, (he Vorwaerts, and the Charlotte, instead of f aking them to a French port and obtaining the sentence of a prize court. The German ships will therefore he directed to make reprisals on French ships. It cannot lie a. matter of surprise that rulers who pay so little respect to laws and treaties should have still less scruple in casting aside the customs of modern nations, and in goinghack to modes of proceeding of long past periods of civilisation; even sanctioning things which at all

times, and in all nations that have any notion, however peculiar, of honour, have been deemed especially disgraceful.” — British and Foreign Slate Papers, LXL, 980.