ADVOCATE FOR KAISER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17230, 5 August 1919, Page 7

ADVOCATE FOR KAISER.

EX-CHANCELLOR'S DEFENCE. A. and N.Z. NEW YORK, July 29 (delayed). '. The Berlin correspondent .of the; New York Sun interviewed Herr | von Bethmann-Hollweg, ex-German i Chancellor, who said that under the German Constitution the Chancel--1 lor, not the Kaiser, was responsible , for the nation's acts' and policies. | "I accepted responsibility for what I was done when I was Chancellor," | he continued, " and I have not tried ,to avoid responsibility. If Holland ; surrenders the ex-Kaiser to the j Allies it will violate treaty stipulations between Germany and Holi land! The League of Nations was | ostensibly created to enforce higher i J regard for international treaties. | , Will the league begin by nullifying: I its aims by demanding that Holland j shall disregard her treaty obligations 'to Germany? The fact that Geri man signatories signed the. Ver- | sailles treaty merely means that the ! German Government has submitted to the most brutal compulsion of might. History has no parallel where cruelty was continued with such cold calculations as after the end of this war." Von Bethmann-Hollweg asked whether the League of Nations, avowedly created to make wars less possible, desired to perpetuate a • feeling of impracticable revenge. The German people would do everything in their power to recover their honour. Should the Entente Powers insist upon humiliating the German people they might in time react against those whose hatred had made them insensible to all principles of justice. The peace of Versailles had "Balkanised" Central ' Europe. It had placed Germany i and Austria in a condition of indus- ! trial slavery, but Germany would 1 rise again.