"The scrap of paper": German Chancellor's explanation and Great Britain's reply

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(10520.)
THE SCRAP OF PAPER.'
German Chancellor's Explanation and Great Britain's Reply.
(1.)
January 25, 1915.
THE Associated Press publishes the following account of an interview which its
correspondent has had with Herr von Bethmann-HoUweg, the German Imperial
Chancellor :
—
" German Field Headquarters of the Gervfian Armies.
" I am surprised to learn that my phrase, ' a scrap of paper,' which I used in mj
last conversation with the British Ambassador in reference to the Belgian neutrality
treaty should have caused such an unfavourable impression in the United States. The
expression was used in quite another connection and meaning from that implied in
Sir Edward Goscheu's report, and the turn given to it in the biassed comment of our
enemies is undoubtedly responsible for this impression."
The speaker was Chancellor Bethmann-HoUweg, and the conversation occurred at
the Headquarters in a town of Northern France, in a villa serving as office and dwelling
for the Chancellor, Minister von Jagow, and the members of the diplomatic suite
accompanying the Emperor in the field. The Chancellor had apparently not realised
until his attention was called to it the extent to which the phrase had been used in the
discussion on the responsibility for the war. He volunteered the explanation of his
meaning, which, in substance, was that he had spoken of the treaty, not as a scrap of
paper for Germany, but as an instrument which had become so through Belgium's
forfeiture of its neutrality, and that England had quite other reasons for entering the
war, compared with which the neutralicy treaty, to which she appealed, had only the
value of a scrap of paper.
The British Ambassador.
" My conversation with Sir E. Goschen," said the Chancellor, " occurred on the
4th August. I had just declared in the Reichstag that only dire necessity, only the
struggle for existence, compelled Germany to march through Belgium, but that Germany
was ready to make compensation for the wrong committed. When I spoke I already
had certain indications, but no absolute proof, on which to base a public accusation
that Belgium had long before abandoned its neutrality in its relations with England.
Nevertheless, I took Germany's responsibilities towards neutral States so seriously that
I spoke frankly on the wrong committed by Germany. What was the British attitude
on the same question ? " said the Chancellor. " The day before my conversation wth
the British Ambassador, Sir Edward Grey had delivered his well-known speech in
Parliament, wherein, while he did not state expressly that England would take part in
the war, he left the matter in little doubt. One needs only to read this speech through
carefully to learn the reason of England's intervention in the war. Amid all his
beautiful phrases about England's honour and England's obligations we find it over and
over again expressed that England's interests—its own interests—called for partici-pation
in war, for it was not in England's interests that a victorious, and therefore
stronger, Germany should emerge from the war. This old principle of England's policy —to take as the sole criterion of its actions its private interests regardless of right,
reason, or considerations of humanity—is expressed in that speech of Gladstone's in 1870
on Belgian neutrality from which Sir Edward quoted. Mr. Gladstone then declared
that he was unable to subscribe to the doctrine that the simple fact of the existence of
a guarantee is binding upon every party thereto, irrespective altogether of the particular
position in which it may find itself at the time when the occasion for action on the
guarantee arrives, and he referred to such English statesmen as Aberdeen and
Palmerston as supporters of his views."
" England drew the sword," continued the Chancellor, " only because she believed
her own interests demanded it. Just for Belgian neutrality she would never have
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