REICHSTAG STATEMENTS

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXII, Issue LXXII, 9 July 1917, Page 5

REICHSTAG STATEMENTS

REFORM PROPOSALS SHELVED

BELGIAN COAST TOO HOT TO

HOLD

PROBABILITY OF ABANDONMENT OPENLY ADMITTED.

(Reuter Service.)

AMSTERDAM, July 7. Speaking in v the Reichstag, the War Minister said the British had presumably planned greater actions north of Arras. He reasserted that the French were exhausted, but admitted that the Russian offensive was more energetic. He declared that the abandonment of the Salonika enterprise was improbable. Herr Zimmermann stated that .tne nullification of Brazil's neutrality did not mean a declaration of war. Herr Woeirgang Heine, a deputy of the Reichstag, in a speech at Cologne, said his recent conversations with Herr Hollweg enabled him to say that after bein^ prepared to conclude" peace without indemnity or annexation west or east, Herr Hollweg's failure to express himself publicly to this effect definitely was not du3 to lack of earnestness, but i because the fact of his holding the Chancellorship compelled him to have regard to the privileges of the people around him. In the Reichstag, Herr van Roedern announced ■ that the cost of the war from February to May averaged three j million marks monthly. A refugee from Ostend, who has leached Holland, says that German officers openly confess that the British are likely to force the Germans to quit the coast. Hindenburg has already taken precautions, and if compelled is prepared to enter Holland and establish a naval ■ base- on the Scheldt. Ostend Avas recently a veritable den of submarines, but the result of the British attacks on the naval workshops has completely destroyed them. Many Germans were killed, including eight mside the lighthouse. i . T xl „ BERNE, July 7. ? In the Reichstag the party leaders accepted Herr Hollweg's demand for shelving the Constitutional Committee's reform proposals, with the excep- '■ tion of the resolutions whereby the 24 constituencies which have a population exceeding 200,000 are to be allowed two deputies instead of one. This insignificant reform, which is not realisable this year, is granted as a sop to the agitato] s.