APOLOGY FROM GERMANY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16670, 15 October 1917, Page 5

APOLOGY FROM GERMANY.

THE- LUXBURG INCIDENT. REPLY TO SWEDISH PROTEST. (Received 5.5 p.m.) Reuter. STOCKHOLM. Oct. 13. The Government has received a reply from 'Germany to the Swedish protest against the misuse of the Swedish Legation, in the Argentine, by Count Luxburg. The reply admits that the Government had received Count Luxburg's telegrams. It says one was mutilated in publication in an essential point, but docs not specify in which part. It asserts that the telegrams had no effect upon the submarine policy, nevertheless it deplores the fact that Count Luxburg illegitimately used the assistance of the Swedish authorities. Such incidents, which are calculated to disturb the friendship between Sweden and Germany, will not recur. The State Department at Washington made public, at the beginning of September, despatches sent to the German Foreign Office by Count Luxburg, German Charge D'Affaires at Buenos Aires, the capital of the Argentine Republic. Ihe despatches were sent in cypher through the Swedish Legation as its own communications. No information was given as to how the messages fell into the hands of the United States Government. In addition to revealing the means by which Germany used Sweden the despatches showed how the German Charge D'Affaires, at the time the Argentine was having a critical diplomatic controversy with Germany over the sinking of ships, was sending, through the Swedish Legation, information as to the sailings of certain vessels with recommendations that they be sunk without leaving any trace. Other despatches informed the German Government how to regard the Argentine's protests against the destruction of her shipping. On May 19 Count Luxburg cabled from Buenos Aires: "This Government has released German and Austrian ships hitherto guarded. There has been a great change in public feeling." Count Luxburg asked that the. steamers Oran and Guzo, then nearing Bordeaux, be spared, if possible, or sunk without leaving a trace. Cabling on July 3 he said: "I have learned that the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who is a notorious ass and an Anglophile, declared at a secret session of the Senate that the Argentine will demand from Berlin a promise to sink no more Argentine ships, and if the demand is not acceded to, relations will be broken off." Count Luxburg recommended a refusal, or, if necessary, mediation by Spain.