GERMANS BLUFFING.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXVI, Issue 17553, 24 April 1919, Page 7

GERMANS BLUFFING.

LONDON, April 22

The Daily Telegraph's Geneva correspondent karns reliably that the German Government is determined to continue its policy of blutf and intimida. tion.

A former Entente diplomat from Berlin, where he incerviewed the leading statesmen, is of opinion that the German delegates wiil eitliei refuse to sign or the Government will resign in consequence mi the military party's pressure. Either course would indefinitely postpone peace. The indemnities cause the most alarm.

Schiefl'er lias resigned because he refuses to consider the acceptance of the_ terms. Schieffer told the corresondent's informant that the Entente was powerless to force Germany by military or economic measures into financial slavery, therefore the- Germans do not see thatthey should sign away their wealth and liberty for. the next twenty or thirty j years. It appears that the Berlin Cabinet is divided on the question of the acceptance- of the terms. The younger Ministers urge the refusal of the terms, accompanied by an ironical invitation to 1 the Allies to occupy Germany. They argue that occupaitdou is impossible, and that the Allies dare not continue the blO'CkaoX fearing that it will spread Bolshevism, and they also calculate that the .Allied Socialists will support Germany's passive resitsance. On the' other hand,: Rantzau, Uernstorff and Derriberg advocate obtaining all possible concessions by bluff, then accepting the terms, trusting that future developments will enable the modification or avoidance of the fulfilment of their obligations.