The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-04-20

It has never occurred to the Germans that on the other side of the fence there are fairly good arguments to su5- port Frances retention of these provinces. The junction with Austria provokes an almost equal enthusiasm, and 1t would al- most seem as if half the speakers insert it in their speeches for that purpose alone A countryman from farthest east Prussia can be sure of "bravo' if he mentions the brethren in Austria yearning to be- come the tail end of the German kite. The Schleswig- Holstein question has come to the front lately and Germany is filled with ropaganda to show that Schleswig should and must remain Ger man.
 No speech is complete without at leasN reference to Poland and Czecho-Slova- kia, and the longer the reference, the more braves. Yet not one of the speaker1 Is but knows that these questions will hp settled, for good or i'll, by the peace con ference.
 The failure of the German to change materially is in no way better to be oh- served than in his attitude to the queS ton of the conduct of the wnr. It is only rarely that a criticism of it is heard in the house. and the general feeling seems to be that, if anything was wrong with ii, that is all in the past and should be for gotten or overlooked by Germany's ene- mics.
 l The prisoner of war question is as puz- | ling to the student of German psychology ! just now as anything else. Virtually ev- | cry speaker touches upon the prisoner question before he leaves the Tibunet | Tell a German, first, that the armistice ! made no provision for the return of Ger
 man prisoners, and, secondly, that while
 Germany begs daily for food she att | tempts at the same time to saddle herself with 800 900 more mouths to feed, and It
 l has no effect on him. It cannot be sheer pity for the welfare of the prisoners, be- cause plenty of Germans know only too | well how slim the food is.
 |. The assembly has had it's fill of speech
 making that consists chiefly or party | programmes that everyone knows, or
 more frequently in attacks, often person. l al that show how bad the feeling is oe
 heath the surface. Now it proposes to do some real work in committee. The press
 may not attend, but gets what the com mittees oare to give out, unless some
 members tells tales out of school. Listening to delegates to the assembly, | and talking to Germans outside of it, the correspondent finds that the old German viewpoint he learned to know so well dur | ing the war until the breach with Ameri-' ca. is still abroad in the land though III | less truculent form The German thinks differently from any other human being in the world, anci therefore does not understand why ne now should suffer, why everything cam not be placed on a basis of status qua ante, why anyone should hold against him | a conduct of the war with which he claims he had nothing to do.
 He complains bitterly that some of the. troops of the armies of occupation force | the Germans to bare their heads when an officer passes, or walk in the street. Ie the answers are made that the Germans | did just that in Belgium and northern l France, he replies that one indignity does not warrant another, and overlooks the part that human nature plays in the way of reprisal.
 It crops out every day and generally several times q day in the assembly and Heads nearly every "enemy correspondent | to the conviction that the new German | is not at all unlike the old one. only grown a bit more humble when that IS useful, but typically himself when he gets to talking before his own Kind, ana utterly incapable ever of understanding anyone else or any other standpoint than his own.