The blockade of Cologne has been raised. At last the
French have agreed to ratify the Coblenz Agreement of last December, which authorizes a through goods and passenger service between the British, French and Belgian zones and the rest of Germany and foreign countries. The financial arrangements, as the Times special correspondent points out, are extremely favour- able to the French Regie, which receives 50 per cent. of the payments for through bookings from the Cologne area, while retaining all the money received for through bookings from the French and Belgian zones. The Regis, however, has been so unsuccessfully managed that all this money and more will be needed. Meanwhile, in the Palatinate the French tendency is to call off the Separatist Movement. Unfortunately thc with- drawal of French support from the Separatists has exposed these bullies to the revenge of the people who have suffered under them. The burning and killing of about twenty Separatists entrapped in a besieged building at Pirmasens on Tuesday night makes a terrible story.
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