PROVOKED BY BRITAIN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 148, 17 November 1914, Page 2

PROVOKED BY BRITAIN.

WHY BELGIUM FOUGHT. ANOTHER GERMAN CANARD. In an interview granted to tiie correspondent of a Copenhagen paper, Mr Dyke Acland,- Parliamentary secretary for Foreign '.Affairs, refutes certain statements made by the German Secretary of State, Ilerr von Jagow, in an interview recently issued at Berlin—one "that England has provoked poor Belgium to make resistance."

"This leaves it to bo inferred," saya Mr Acland, "that Belgium, if unprovoked, would really have allowed herself to I be trampled upon. It might have been thought that the nature of infi resistance offered by Belgium will be enough , to prevent such a libel on a gallant foe. . "An official statement recently issued by the Belgian Government conclusively proves\ that no provocation fronr England or anybody else was necessary to make. Belgium maintain her rights. The Belgian Government at the time of the Agadir incident did not hesitate to warn the foreign ambassadors in terms , which could not be misunderstood of its intention to protect the neutrality of Belgium by every means at its disposal." j

The Under-Secretary calls attention to full support of the British Fleet if the German Fleet attacked the French coast. Her von Jagow's statement that Germany did not violate Belgium's neutrality until the night of August 3-4. But on August 2, he says Sir Edward Grey promised the French Ambassador the ''The German Minister," comments Mr Ackiml, "suppresses the facts that already on July 31 Sir Edward Grey had asked the French and German Governments if they were prepared to engage to respect the neutrality of Belgium; that France immediately gave the reguired engagement and that Iler von •Tagow said he .could not answer, and that the answer ultimately received was 'Xo. ! "