Now the French would find no legal difficulty in doing
this, because they have all along maintained that they were not bound by the dates set. out in the Versailles Treaty since. that. Treaty had been. violated by Ger- many. That was the thesis on which they founded the legality of their 'Occupation of the Ruhr. But it is far more difficult for this country to find an excuse for staying in Cologne than for France to find a reason for entering PAGE it when we may have left, for we have founded our whole 1024 opposition to the Ruhr occupation on the clearly-expressed opinion of British legal experts that it was illegal, .‘ It now appears from Lord Curzon's statement in the House of Lords on Thursday, the 18th, that we are going to base our continued occupation of Cologne after January 10th on the thesis that Germany has not fulfilled the Versailles Treaty in the matter of military disarmament.
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