Reply

To Premier Herriot of France, who attacked Germany as a menace (see FRANCE), Chancellor Luther replied in a speech to foreign journalists at the Wilhelmstrasse (German Foreign Office) :

"I find it difficult to reconcile the

Herriot of that speech with the Herriot I knew in London." He went on to deny the allegations of the French Premier, to say that the drilling of a few thousand students was unimportant because they had no arms, that the amount of war material found was insignificant compared to the amount destroyed ; moreover there were no munitions factories, no modern fortresses, hardly any artillery. "Does M. Herriot really believe the details repeated by him can be looked upon, even remotely, as proof of a threat against France's security?"

At the close of his speech, the Chancellor said that his Government was not reactionary but founded upon a basis of goodwill of a large section of the country. He strongly deprecated the fact that the "Allies assumed the right to treat us as though we were standing at the bar of justice and handing out a verdict while we know nothing of the indictment or the evidence. . . . M. Herriot's program of arbitration security and disarmaments I can accept for Germany."