The collective Note of the Allies on the evacuation of
the Cologne Zone was handed to the German Cha,n- cellor on Monday. The reasons for the postponement are substantially those which we mentioned last week. The Allies point out that the Great General Staff of the German Army has been reconstructed in another form ; that short-service volunteers have been rapidly passed through the cadres ; that the so-called Security Police are really an addition to the Reichswehr, and so on. Germany, of course, has her answers to all these accusations and they are already known. Her answers are merely denials in a stupid form that might have been designed to annoy and to justify the charge of evasion. If, however, dialectical exchanges, in the form of Note answering Note, are to go on in connexion with German disarmament there will be no end to them. As we have said several times, although we are quite ready to believe that Germany has deliberately defaulted, the main fact is that Germany, as compared with her neighbours, is in a military sense helpless. For practical purposes the Treaty has been fulfilled.
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