The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-11-21
WAR ECHOES

London dispatch in the New York Times: As the result of the request made by the German and Austrian governments to the United States. Chandler Hale. who has just returned from Vienna and Berlin will visit every concentration camp in the British Isles and report on the treatment accorded German and Austrian prisoners of war. On their return to London MT Hale and MT. Chandler Anderson, who accompanied MT. Hale on trip of inspec- tion through the German concentration camps, indicated that the Germans were treating the British well, but that there was bitter feeling in Germany and Aus tria against the alleged harshness dis played toward alien enemies in Great Britain.
 'T am convinced that the stories of suf- fering among Englands prisoners of war are untrue,' said Mir. Hale, but there is no way of convincing the German public of this except by visiting every single camp in the United Kingdom, and that I intend to do if the war office will per nit" The American state department
 
 ton between the helligerent powers as much as possible lest the present excite- ment lead to bitter reprisals against cap tives in Germany, which already has been threatened MT. Anderson is connected with the state department, while MT. Hale is ex-Secretary of the American embassy at Vienna.
 MT. Hale, who spent several weeks in Vienna on the recent trip, said few signs of war were discoverable in the life of the Austrian capital, which apparently was as gay as ever, the theatres, res taurants and opera running full blast. The Viennese he says still seem confident of ultimate victory and fear neither a food famine nor Russian invasion. They laugh at the Russian investment of Przemysl, MT. Hale observed, being as-' sured that the fortress is provisioned for three years and that the Russians have TO guns powerful enough to destroy it.
 Bordeaux dispatch in the New York Sun: In an important lecture given in Christiana in the presence of the King and Queen of Norway, Dr. Nansen the explorer, said:
 ''The outbreak of the war, with Seryia and Belgium as the starting points, was not mere matter of chance. The ex- istenoe of small nations Is often ques- tioned when they become an obstacle to the plans of greater powers. But to apply the law of the survival of the fit- test, as sometimes is done, is a pure dis tortion of the real situation.
 Tt Is quality alone, not quantity, which counts in national existence. There ex- ists quality which may be called the soul of nations and which, above all should be preserved.
 "A nation which attacks the moral inde- pendence of a smaller nation commits an istence of the smaller states is a great factor in the progress of civilization by reason of the experience which their ev- olution affords to the larger states.
 Such countries as New Zealand, Switz- erland and Belgium, with their new social legislation and experiments in various branches of local government, are, as it were. political laboratories for the edfica- ton of the bigger nations. The heritage of culture which we transmit to posterity is more rrecious than individual life
 Woe be to the day when small nations disappear from the face of the earthn'