The Germans appear determined not to conciliate Alsace- Lorraine. Under
the new French military law, soldiers who have served their terms are liable to be recalled to their colours. There are some 5,000 families in Alsace-Lorraine, in each of which a member who elected after the cession to remain French, has served his term and returned, and the German authorities have now ordered them all to quit the province, if unmarried, in forty- eight hours, and if married, in fifteen days, or to renounce their French nationality. The order, if carried out in this rigorous weather, involves unprecedented cruelty, and is entirely unjusti- fied by the practice of other States. There are thousands of Germans in London, Manchester, and Glasgow at this moment who are by statute German soldiers, liable at any moment to be recalled for service, yet it would be a brutality to expel them. An appeal has been made to Prince Bismarck to repeal the order, but it is difficult to believe that a decree which in other days might have produced an immediate declaration of war can have been issued without his sanction. What is the difference be- tween action like this, and the arrest of all British officers on leave who happen to be travelling in Germany ?
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