Berlin, July 18.
"If a plebiscite were held in France and Germany to decide whether the two peoples were prepared th conclude a permanent alliance to maintain peace and when ther the two peoples were prepared to exchange guarantees that this peace should never again be broken, the result would be a unanimous "yes". declared the regional leader of the Saar-Palatinate, Herr Josef Buerkel, in a speech at Ludwigshafen in which he emphasized strongly Germany's desire to live in peace with France. Herr Buerkel himself described the party demonstration in this Palatinate town as itself a great avowal in favour of peace with Germany's neighbour but also an avowal of determination to proceed against every attempt to disturb peace.
"A war is ended when neither side can any longer win, that is when from the very outset it is self-evident that both will lose. Since, however, instead of the angel of peace with a palm leaf, soldiers with guns are drawn up as the guardian of the goddess of peace, we of the frontier zone under her protection desire to remain for ever good neighbours. Yes! we want to promise honestly to be the conscience of our nation in order that a conflict may never again break out between our two peoples because a conflict between us would mean annihilation of the lovely homelands of us both."
Herr Buerkel protested against "aggressive war cries" of certain English and French newspapers. In particular, he attacked the former French Air Minister, M. Pierre Cot who, declared Buerkel, openly pro-parated a "preventive war" against Germany. "What does M. Pierre Cot really want? We desire from France neither an inch of land nor a single Frenchman. Nor do we want to inflict any suffering on France. The Fuehrer himself has declared most solemnly that with the re-incorporation of the Saar into the Reich all territorial questions between. us and France had been settled once and for all. All that M.
Pierre Cot can be aiming at is doing Soviet Russia a service. That is to say to help Bolshevism in its aim of setting the world afire. We cannot believe that the French people want to be a party to world revolution."—Trans-Ocean.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.