26 APRIL 1919, Page 2

Herr Ebert, the German President, assured the Weimar Assembly last

week that the Government would not accept a Peace that " sacrificed the present and future of the German people." He described the prolonged Armistice as " intolerable torture." But he warned the Assembly that peace and reform could not be had if " a handful of disorderly agitators" con- tinued to obstruct the establishment of the Republic. " Per- manent influence on the formation of our State life is to be granted to economic and social interests "—a cryptic saying which may imply some recognition of the " Soviet " theory- But " a Bolshevik dictatorship of a proletarian minority would certainly ruin industrial Germany in a few months."