my friends in America informs me of a curious conversation
between an influential banker and the German Ambassador, Count
Bernstorff. The banker, who had just handed over a substantial check for
the German Red Cross, asked Count Bernstorff what the Kaiser would take
from France after the victory.

The Ambassador did not seem the least surprised at this somewhat
premature question. He answered it quite calmly, ticking off the various
points on his fingers as follows:

1. All the French colonies, including the whole of Morocco,
Algeria, and Tunis.

2. All the country northeast of a straight line from
Saint-Valery to Lyons, that is to say, more than one quarter
of French territory, including 15,000,000 inhabitants.

3. An indemnity of 10,000,000,000 francs, ($2,000,000,000.)

4. A tariff allowing all German goods to enter France free
during twenty-five years, without reciprocity for French goods
entering Germany. After this period the Treaty of Frankfurt
will again be applied.

5. The suppression of recruiting in France during twenty-five
years.

6. The destruction of all French fortresses.

7. France to hand over 3,000,000 rifles, 2,000 cannon, and
40,000 horses.

8. The protection of all German patents without reciprocity.

9. France must abandon Russia and Great Britain.

10. A treaty of alliance with Germany for twenty-five years.

_Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, late German Colonial Secretary of State, has
published an article in The Independent, in which this forecast
appears_:

1. Germany will not consider it wise to take any European territory, but
will make minor corrections of frontiers for military purposes by
occupying such frontier territory as has proved a weak spot in the
German armor.

2. Belgium belongs geographically to the German Empire. She commands the
mouth of the biggest German stream; Antwerp is essentially a German
port. That Antwerp should not belong to Germany is as much an anomaly as
if New Orleans and the Mississippi delta had been excluded from
Louisiana, or as if New York had remained English after the War of
Independence. Moreover, Belgium's present plight was her own fault. She
had become the vassal of England and France. Therefore, while "probably"
no attempt would be made to place Belgium within the German Empire
alongside Bavaria, Wuerttemberg, and Saxony, because of her non-German
popu