"ROUND TABLE SCANDAL."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 28 August 1907, Page 4

"ROUND TABLE SCANDAL."

What lias come to be known as tho Eulenburg scandal has claimed another victim in the person of M Lecomte, First Secretary of the French Embassy to Berlin, who, recalled from his post, has left Berlin. Prince Philip von Eulenberg had admitted this young diplomat to the "Round Table" conferences, by which M. Lecomte was brought into close personal touch with the Einperor, and associated on terms of intimacy with Prince Eulenburg's particular friends. The Kaiser, relying on Prince Philip's assurance that the discretion of those whom he met could be trusted, and that none would abuse the confluence placed in them, was wont, when at Liebenbe.'g Castle, to express himself with perfect freedom. M. Lecomte, however, placing the interests of his country übovc his obligation to his host, frequently transmitted the Emperor's words to Paris, where his confidential communications were read with far greater interest and more profit than the official reports of his chief, the ambassador, M. Bihourd, himself, who retired from the Embassy last March. The French Government, on more than one occasion, based its treatment of delicate international questions on Information which the First Secretary of the Berlin Emoassy was able to supply by reason of his connection with Prince Philip von Eulenburg and the latter's Round Table.

Thus it came about that this young

member of the French Diplomatic Service was able to play an important part In the Moorish affair. It happened on one memorable occasion that M. Bihourd, visiting the German Foreign Office, found that Herr Tschirsehky, the Secretary of State for' Foreign Affairs, expressed - an opinion on an important point in the Moorish controversy different from tha"; which, thanks to SI. Lecomte, the ambassador knew was held by the Emperor. This being conveyed delicately to the Foreign Secretary, the latter found on inquiry that the ambassador of France was more correctly informed of the Emperor's mind than the ! Minister himself.

There is little doubt that Prince Eulenburg must have seriously endangered German interests on more than one occasion by thus admitting the. First Secretary of 'the French Embassy to the meetings of the Round Table. This latest exposure gives to the Eulenburg scandal an international interest.