y stand, I think, with the Social Democrats for the real Germany.

The _Berliner Tageblatt_ has returned again and again to the charge.
Here, for instance, is an extract from an article by Herr Theodore Wolff
as given in the _Daily News_ of February 4, 1916:

Since August 4, 1914, the Belgian question has been withdrawn
from public discussion, and only the advocates of a boundless
policy of grab are now and again impelled by their temperament
to throw off all restraint. Because these voices are alone
audible, the Paris papers and those Belgian papers which are
published in London are able constantly to din into the ears of
the war-weary Belgians and the world at large that Belgium has
only the choice between the continuation of the war and complete
destruction. In this way, by asserting that in Germany at most
only a few Socialists and pacifists without influence are
opposed to the policy of annexation, they succeed in stifling
again and again any aspiration towards peace. It is therefore
necessary and useful at least to proclaim from time to time that
this assertion, as will be demonstrated on the very first day
when free discussion is allowed, is absolutely incorrect.[48]

GERMANY AND CONTRACTS.

The real German is not simply a brute, though the brute lies perdu in
every civilised man. Mr. Herbert Hoover, formerly Chairman of the
Commission of Relief in Belgium, said, "The German authorities place no
obstruction in the way of relief, and, as far as can be ascertained, not
one loaf of bread or one spoonful of salt supplied by the Relief
Commission has been taken by the Germans." (_Times_, c. December 6,
1914).

It has often been said in this country that according to German rules
contracts with enemy subjects are cancelled by the mere fact of war. The
_Koelnische Zeitung_ published a legal opinion disposing of this
statement. No law to this effect exists, and none has been enacted.
"Only the right of enemies to secure enforcement of contracts by means
of legal process has been curtailed. Moreover, the making of payments to
England, France or Russia has been prohibited. But these last-named
prohibitions presuppose the legal validity of the contracts themselves,
since they declare the payments due under them to be merely postponed."
(_Daily News_, August 20, 1915.)

An old friend of mine was in process of negotiating patent rights in
Germany for an inve