during the Moabit riots. Towards midnight of September 29th the
journalists were seated in an open taximeter cab, in a brilliantly
lighted square, which some little time before had been swept of
rioters--rioters from the Berlin police point of view being any one,
man, woman, or child, who is, with guilty or innocent intent, it makes
no difference, in or near a theatre of disturbance. Suddenly half a
dozen burly policemen, led on by a police spy, as he afterwards turned
out to be, charged the cab and laid about them with their swords. They
probably only intended to use the flat of their weapons, but one of
them succeeded in slashing deeply the hand of Reuter's representative,
who was of the party. The other journalists escaped with contusions
and bruises, thanks chiefly to the sides of the cab impeding the
sword-play of the attackers.

The journalists naturally complained to their Ambassadors, who took up
their cause with commendable readiness. Without immediate effect,
however; the authorities, though themselves very strong on the point
of duty, wondered much at journalists being in a place where duty
alone could have brought them, and refused any sort of apology or
other satisfaction. The Government, however, eventually expressed its
"regret," and a year or two after, possibly in the spirit of
conciliation and compensation, agreed to give foreign journalists in
Berlin the _passe-partout_, or _coupe-fil_, as it is known in France,
which is one of the privileges most valued by the journalist, native
and foreign, in Paris.

Among the international agreements of the year was a commercial one
between Germany and America. Commercial relations between the two
countries have never been quite satisfactory to either, and if there
is no tariff war, occasions of tariff tension, with consequent
disturbance of trade, constantly arise. Germany's European commercial
treaties have secured her a sufficiency of raw material for her
industry. Her chief object now is not so much perhaps to facilitate
imports of material from other countries as to find markets, in
America as elsewhere, for her industry's finished products.
Consequently she strongly dislikes the high tariff barriers of the
United States, inaugurated by the Dingley tariff of 1897, and has in
addition certain grievances against that country regarding customs
administration in respect of appraisement, invoices, and the like. Her
commercial connexion with America dates from