CRUSHING REPLY TO TEE GERMAN CHANCELLOR.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 88, 12 April 1916, Page 5

CRUSHING REPLY TO TEE GERMAN CHANCELLOR.

FRENCH PARLIAMENTARIANS IN ENGLAND. FRANCO-BRTITSH FAMILY’S SOLEMN COMPACT. CLEAN HANDS AND CLEAR CONSCIENCES. LONDON, April 11. Mr. Asquith presided at a dinner tendered to the French Parliamentarians. There was a representative gahtering of politicians.

Mr. Asquith in proposing “The Guests,” said the relations of France and Britain had been for many years past established on an unshakeble foundation. They had now become relations of intimacy and affection. Count von Bethmann Hoilweg (the German Chancellor) declared that on December 9th he expressed readiness to enter into peace negotiations wherein wo were to assume the attitude of the defeated to a victorious adversary, but w e arc not defeated and we are not going to be defeated. The Allies’ bond is a solemn fact that they will not accept separate peace. The terms whereon we will ccnclu e peace are the accomplishment of the purposes icr which we took up arms.

The Allies intend to. pave the w y to an international system securing the rights of all civilised states. They intend to establish the. principle that international problems must be handled by free negotiations on equal „erms between free peoples unhampered and unswayed by the overmastering dictation of a Government controlled by a military caste. That is what I mean by the instruction of Prussian militarism, nothing more and nothing less. We are in the struggle as the champions not only of treaty rights but of independent status and the free development of weaker countries. Cynicism could hardly go further than Count von Hollweg’s jlaim Icr Germany, of all Powers, to insist, when peace comes, on giving the various races a chance of free evolution along lines of national individuality. Count von Hoilweg says Belgium is not to become a France-Eng-dsh vassal but to become Germany’s neighbour—a new development, indeed, of the theory of the rights and duties of neighbourhood. My answer is very simple. The Allies desire, and are determined to see, that old Belgium must not be allowed to suffer wanton wicked invasion of her freedom. What has been broken down must be repaired and restored. * The attempt to Germanise Prussian Poland for the last twenty years has been both strenuous in purpose and a colossal failure on Prussian policy. No one knows this better than Count von Hoilweg. The wholesale strike of Polish children, their barbarous floggings and the arrest and imprisonment of their mothers, form black chapters even in the annals of Prussian culture. With this record, Count von Hoilweg sheds tears over what he terms the long suppressed Flemish race. j

“I will not dwell on Count von Hollweg’s attempt to justify submarine policy, continued Mr. Asquith. We have carried out our naval policy in the spirit of international law. I need not dwell on Germany’s flagrant violations of the law, and, dictated by the claims of humanity, we are fightingside by side with our Allies in a great cause, with clean hands and a clean conscience, confident, that we have the will and the power to vindicate the liberties of Europe.

M. Pichon, in replying, said Bri ain and France had entered the war together. They had fought togethc r and together they would win. France admired Englishmen’s nobility under arms.