To the Editor of the "Norrg-Cuina Dairy News."
Sir,—Certain statements in Mr. de Verneaux's letter in your issue of the 22nd instant should not be allowed to pass unchallenged. It appears, according to this learned gentleman, that the principal criminal of the Great War, and the only man responsible for the deplorable conditions which have since resulted, is not the Kaiser and his camarilla—as a few imbeciles still continue to think—but the French Premier, M. Poincaré.
Will Mr. de Verneaux kindly answer the following questions:—
1.—Is it not a fact that Great Britain and the United States solemnly pledged themselves at Versailles to come to the assistance of France if the latter should be attacked by Germany. And is 1t not a fact that, subsequently, neither country has been willing to ratify the pledges then. made? Is it not, therefore, justifiable for France, as the only possible means of adequate protection, to maintain a standing army, not of a million bayonets, as Mr. de Vertieaux incorrectly asserts, but of less than six hundred thousand men—that is to say considerably less than the number of soldiers composing the French army in 1913?
2.—Is it not a fact that Mr. Lloyd George's favourite "leit motly,"' after the war was over, used to be "Hang the Kaiser'? And did not he himself propose the occupation of the Ruhr if Germany did not fulfil her obligations? Will Mr. de Verneaux explain why Mr. Lloyd George and his political supporters dance now to a different tune?
it surprising that most Frenchmen consider Mr. Lloyd George a political weather-cock M. Poincaré knows, as every Frenchman does, that Germany is now fighting an economic post war, more wonderfully organized than has been the Great War itself. If the German menace to our national security and the peace of Europe had been really destroyed, and had Germany genuinely admitted defeat, France would have had no altter-native but to agree to some modification of the Peace Terms. But this is very far from being the case.. As the result of the machinations of a group of un-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.