BRITAIN'S GERMAN OFFICIALS.

Marlborough Express, Volume LII, Issue 169, 20 July 1918, Page 4

BRITAIN'S GERMAN OFFICIALS.

Tho .isrifcation for purging the ranks of British officiildorn of roch and every person of German birth or extraction has reached tho House of Commons, and has taken tho form of a demand that certain very liighlypjacod people must bo summoned to give reasons wliv they should not ho ruthlessly "weeded out." It is cor-ta-inly vory oxtraordinary, to the mind, of any senejblo oversea, Briton, that Viscount Milnor, who was born and educated in Germany, should n^t-uallv bo a nomW of +lio Wnr

Cabinet: that Sir Alfred Mond, son of tho fnmons Gorman chemist, Dr r,ndwig Mond. who was born in Prussia., should be First Commissioner of Works, nnd that other gentlemen of direct Hun extraction should bo otrmlovod in Govornment positions of

high honor and trust. Tho closing up of tho Gorman banks in London, so long and so mysteriously' delayed, find tho now and more drastic reguln- , tions as _ to the liberty granted to . enemy aliens residing in England,

may bo regarded as signs that a wiser and more prudent course is being adopted with regard to these people. It is to be hoped that no "society" or other inffuenes will bo successfully exercised to prevent a. clean sweep being made of every Gorman, or son of a Germnu being employed in any official or semi-official position, not only in Great Britain but right through the Empire. Theso people may ho loyal enough, but German blood and all that German blood stands for has had a nasty trick, in America, and elsewhere, of exhibiting its sinister traces and influences in tho second and even ,tho third generation; and, as tho American popular phrase goes, we should "take no chances."