3 NOVEMBER 1923, Page 2

Wherever the Separatists have been insufficiently supported by the French

and the Belgians the German population have turned on them and dispersed them. No doubt in some cases the Separatists have been grossly maltreated. But the provocation was extreme, as it must be maddening for Germans to see a few of their own countrymen carrying on a disintegrating movement which could not possibly continue for a single day without foreign help. That help has often been unscrupulously given, as when Separatists have been allowed to torture (and in two cases to beat to death) German policemen 'while French troops looked on without intervening.