BRITISH POLICY AND THE .
PALATINATE.
[We have received the following communication from a correspondent who has first-hand experience of all the events of which he writes. He was indeed the first English- man to visit the Palatinate after the arrival of the Separatists.] ON November 6th, the first gang of eighty Separatists arrived at Neustadt in the Palatinate, conveyed there from their previous activities in other parts of the Rhineland by a French Re& train. On the following afternoon the Separatists, armed with rifles and revolvers issued by the French from the stores of weapons that were confiscated at the beginning of the Occupation, attempted to seize the Government buildings, but were driven back by the infuriated townspeople. The Separ- atists had suffered their first defeat. But they had other resources. By orders of the French authorities, all traffic in the streets was forbidden between the hours of seven in the evening- until six in the morning. Many of the local German police were ordered to points outside the town, and the four who remained to guard the civic hall were instructed to take their orders from officers of the French gendarmerie and on no account to use their firearms. At five o'clock in the morning, when the loyal citizens dared not leave their homes for fear of infringing the French traffic regulations, the Separatists occupied the Government buildings. Later in the day an attempt was made to eject the invaders, but Moroccan troops, acting under the orders of a French officer, dis- persed the loyal citizens with rifle fire, and the Separatists were left masters of the situation. By similar methods other towns _in the Palatinate were occupied by Separ- atist gangs, and for three months the population have lived under a reign of terror, looting and the threat of deportation if they resisted the Separatist demands.
Now, according to .messages from Paris "the spon- taneous desire for an Autonomous Palatinate," as it has been unctuously described by M. Poincare and General de Metz, is to be allowed to "fizzle out." In other words General de Metz has been caught in the act, thanks, in the first instance, to the testimony of several British newspaper correspondents, and finally to the damning report drawn up by Mr. Clive, the British Consul-General at Munich, extracts from which were read to the House of Commons shortly before the adjourn- ment.
But the process of "fizzling out" is apparently to be a leisurely one, and the assistance of the Council of Ambassadors or the Hague tribunal is deemed necessary. Meanwhile General de Metz will be able discreetly to withdraw his Separatist mercenaries to await, perhaps, a further " spontaneous " movement in some other quarter of Occupied Territory, and to announce to the world that no officials remain to carry on the government of the Palatinate and that some form of paternal French protection is essential for the welfare of the population. If Mr. MacDonald is content to stand by and to permit such a result, British prestige in Germany will suffer another heavy blow, the people of the Palatinate will have been betrayed, and M. Poineare will once again be able to flatter himself that although these tiresome Britishers may be goaded into occasional protests by ingenious quibbles and delays, French policy may still be carried on with a few mere trifling additions to its original concession. If the Government are convinced, as they must be, by Mr. Clive's report that the whole Separatist movement was a direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles and the Rhineland Agreement, supported and inspired by General de Metz and his staff, they must also demand that the deported officials and business men must be permitted to return without fear of further victimization, and that the unfortunate individuals whose property has been looted by the Separatists under the guise of " requisition " orders, and also those who have suffered violence and imprisonment, shall be compensated. This object can at any rate mainly be 'achieved by reinstating the deported officials who arc now living in Heidelberg, Munich or elsewhere.
One of the most pathetic sights in Heidelberg to-day is the Central Aid Station for the Palatinate. In a few cold, barely-furnished rooms are some of the men who a short time ago were playing an important part in the government of the Palatinate. Expelled from their official positions for refusing to execute the Separatist demands they are now trying to organize the meagre relief funds which are forthcoming from Munich, Berlin or charitable sources to feed and house the numerous victims who have been deported from their native country for the crime of patriotism. Mostly the men who are working at the Central Help Station at Heidelberg are elderly officials whose hair has grown white in the service of the State—men who for years have earned the esteem of their fellow-citizens. There are younger men also, journalists as a rule, Whose papers have been suppressed and who are now without work, often without money, because they held to their convictions and refused to hide the hatred that their readers felt for the Separatist tyranny.
If the British protest and Mr. Clive's report are to be really effective, these men must at once be reinstated, for there is no one else capable of reconstructing the machinery of government which during the three months' Separatist regime has almost completely broken down.
But General de Metz will clearly use every means in his power to oppose this. His statement of last December to a leading industrialist of the Palatinate indicates his attitude :—" I have my orders from Paris to maintain the present policy. All the devils of the world may be let loose in the country until the people of the Palatinate are ready to agree with my way of thinking."
Many of the worst types of Separatists were withdrawn during Mr. Clive's visit, but General de Metz was true to his word if one may judge from the criminal degenerates that could be seen at the Government buildings of Speyer in December last.
Mr. MacDonald's Government has many tasks to fulfil, but he will earn the gratitude of a population of 200,000 law-abiding, industrious citizens and will raise British prestige on the continent enormously by insisting at all costs that the status quo, as it existed in the Palatinate before November, shall be completely restored. The population of the Palatinate have pinned their faith to the ideal of British fair play. Surely Mr. MacDonald's Government will not disappoint them. B.
Previous page
