MR. MASSINGHAM'S ARTICLE ON GERMANY.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The article in your issue of September 1st by H. W. Massingham is a strange mixture of inconsistencies, blindnets to facts, and—if the expression may be considered parlia- mentary—bunkum. He draws a lurid picture of the misery of life in Germany, yet he goes on to relate how swarms of Poles, Roumanians, Jews, &c., are pouring into that country. Strange, is it not, that aliens should crowd into a country where the conditions arc so terrible ! He dwells on the in- convenience caused by the fall in the value of the mark, but
he forgets to mention that it has been deliberately depressed by the German Government itself. He asks, "Is not Germany worth preserving ? " He does not wait for the obvious answer that no one wishes to destroy her but that everyone wishes her to pay up honourably just as she was paid herself by the Fzench after 1871. No ! he answers himself by saying she is worth preserving because the Germans have a passion for knowledge and " ideas " and because they have a love of flowers, and contrasts this with the French " one-ideancss and selfish clarity," but he does not mention another side of the German character, the side manifested by their brutal treatment of our poor captured soldiers, their treatment of Capt. Fryatt and Miss Cavell, their sinking of hospital ships, the unspeakable brutalities they committed in occupied France and Belgium, nor yet does he mention the extra- ordinary self-control of the French in occupied German terri- tory, self-control all the more commendable coming as it does after the Germans' own vile record in similar circumstances.
I wonder if Mr. Massingham has ever been owed money by a fraudulent bankrupt and if he did not then experience a " one-ideaness "of how to get his money back Y—I am, Sir, &e., Blairquhan. J. B. PoLLoex McCALL, Brig.-General.
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