A MINOR EVASION.

Evening Star, Issue 18033, 29 July 1922, Page 4

A MINOR EVASION.

Ik ono respect, which touches-national sentiment more than national well-being, the Treaty of Versailles has been undeniably evaded. The flags which were captured from Prance in the war of 1870 have net been returned. They were placed in three chests, it is stated, ready for shipment, but when a final inspection was made the chests were found empty. The German Government is unlikely to have connived at this piece of fraud. It was not'likely to desire any trouble about the return of mere flags while by hook and crook it is striving to persuade the Allies to agree to a reduction of financial indemnities. Only junkers could say, probably, where these colors are, and they are not likely to tell. Their loss would not warrant the marching of a French army to the Ruhr. There will still be more than a sufficiency of French flags in Prance, and more German ones than German junkers will care to think about. It will be fortunate if there are no worse evasions of the treaty. One wonders, however, if various other articles, whose enumeration made one section of that tremendous document like a page out of some old curio dealer’s catalogue, have gone the samp way as the flags. Trophies, archives, hislari cal and, art were

included in tho loot, of 1870 ordered to bo returned to France. To Belgium were due “leaves of the triptych, of tho Mystic Lamb "—painted by tho Van Eyck brothers, with other treasures of a like description, plundered characteristically from two churches. Great Britain had a claim for “ the skull of the Sultan Mkwawa, taken from German East Africa to Germany." That was the strangest object of tire Teutons’ loot. The Maoris behoved that even to touch tho head of a chief involved tho greatest outrage, and King Mkwawa'B subjects may have had a like belief, though tho veneration of Mohammedans is moro apt to attach to the beard, and that was removed probably before this sacrilege was committed. It would bo interesting to know whether the skull has been returned, or if its absence still causes sorrow to East Africans. The universities of Europe have been doing their best to restock the Louvain Library, without waiting for Germany to fulfil her obligations in that respect, as prescribed by tho treaty, and Louvain may be thankful that they have not waited.