OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19981, 24 December 1926, Page 13

OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS.

THE QUESTION OF PROVOCATION. LONDON, December 22. (Received Dec. 23, at 9 p.m.) The Paris correspondent of The Times says that when a general known as “Hocseh” -had been ordered to remonstrate against the Germcrshcim verdict this knowledge was expected to cause almost as much indignation throughout France as the verdict appears to have caused in Germany. A majority of the newspapers support the judges’ thesis that the incidents at Germersheim were the result of German Nationalist provocation, and that Lieutenant Rouzicr had the right'of ‘•he benefit of extenuating circumstances. The French Commissioner’s remarks that the incidents culminating in the affray dated from the introduction of a more lenient policy in the Rhineland after the Licarno Pact has attracted wide attention. Both the French and the Germans agreed that the incidents were the result of provocation, but whereas the Germans consider that the French occupation was the root cause, the French maintain that the nervous state of the town which made the incidents possible was deliberately created artificially by Gorman agitators in an attempt to hasten the withdrawal of the garrison.—A. and N.Z. Cable. PROTEST BY JOURNALISTS. PARIS, December 22. (Received Dec. 23, at 9 p.m.) The German journalists who daily reported the Rouzier case sent M. Briand a protest against the Council of War's extraordinary judgment, which is classed as a serious attack on the German people and the civilised world’s conception of justice.—A. and N.Z. Cable.