4 SEPTEMBER 1915, Page 2

On Wednesday the Foreign Office published a statement respecting the

Anglo-German negotiations of 1912—those in the course of which Lord Haldane visited Berlin on behalf of the British Government, The object of the Foreign Office in making this statement is to correct the semi-official account published last month in the Norddeutschs illegemeine Zeitstina The nature of that account may be summed up in the famous comment of Gibbon on certain allegations made by one of the early Fathers : "This statement, though probable, is certainly false."