THE WAR GUILTY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12711, 5 August 1919, Page 3

THE WAR GUILTY.

VIEWS OF BETHMANNHOLLWEG.

NEW YORK. July 29 (delayed). Interviewed in Berlin, Herr vou Bethmann-Hollweg said that under the old German Constitution the Chancellor, not the Kaiser, was responsible for the nation’s acts and politics. He (nethmann-Hollweg) accepted the responsibility when Chancellor, and had not tried to avoid it. If Holland surrendered the ex-Kaiser to the Allies it would violate treaty stipulations between Germany and Holland. The League of Nations was ostensibly created to enforce a higher regard for international treaties. Would the League begin by nullifying its aims and demanding that Holland should disregard rpu l " a^y obligations with Germany? The German signatures to the Versailles Treaty merely meant that the German Government submitted to the most brutal compulsion of might in history. History had no parallel where cruelty was continued with such cold calculation as after this war. He added: “Does the League of Nations, which was avowedly created to make wars less possible, desire a perpetma feeling of desire for revenge? the German people will do everything in their power to recover their should the Entente insist upon humiliating the German people thev may m time rise against those whose hatred has made them insensible to all principles of justice. The Pence of Versailles has Balkanised Central. Europe and placed German-Austria in a condition of -industrial slavery, hut Germany will rise again.”