The Social Democrats in Germany have raised a very nasty
question in the Reichstag. Through Herr Haase and Herr Bebel, they on Tuesday accused the Government of "blacking Russia's boots." It appears that Russian spy departments are allowed to exist in Berlin and other large cities ; that the Post Office plays into their hands ; and that suspected persons are often hurried over the ,Russian frontier, which means for them a horrible fate,—and this though the Reichstag had refused a treaty of extradition. There is one, however, between Prussia and Russia. Even Germans are, it is alleged, subject to this espionage. Even the moderate Radicals denounced the practices revealed as humiliating. Baron von Richthofen, on behalf of the Govern- ment, replied that the espionage was directed against Anarchists ; that it existed in all the capitals of Europe ; and was defensible on the ground of the necessity of precau- tions. As regards the Post Office, the Department, and not himself, ought to be interpellated ; and as regards expulsions, the Government "would continue to send Anarchists across whatever frontier they thought right." There is, of course, no hope of changing the policy of the German Government ; but the debate is important because it verifies the suspicion that there is some secret agreement between St. Petersburg and Berlin with regard to revolutionaries. No one pities Anarchists ; but it does not appear that there is any legal proof when suspects are hurried across the frontier that they are Anarchists of the dangerous type. Some of them may only be opponents of the Russian Administration charged for convenience with Anarchism.
