THE VOTE ON THE LONDON PACT

It would have been the occasion for a singular bargaining

DUSSELDORF August 30. According to the press of the occupied countries, the change of front of the German nationalists in the acceptance of the laws on the execution of the London convention is due to their bargaining between the government and the nationalist party. The constitution of a bourgeois bloc is expected which will prevent the return of the socialists to power. Mr. Marx will be replaced by a nationalist: This will be the inauguration of a reactionary policy under the direction of the nationalists.

However, in democratic circles, it is estimated that the nationalist party, which has refused 8 laws out of 9 and has only let the last one pass to avoid the dissolution of the Reichstag, and a good half of which maintains its hostility to ensure their application.

How the Nationalists Camouflaged Their Ballot Papers

BERLIN, August 30... The Tageblatt gives the following details of the final vote on the Railway Law, which took place yesterday in the Reichstag: The President opened the roll call. At this point the Nationalist deputies in the front row, among them Messrs. Hergt, Westarp and von Tirpitz, ostentatiously displayed red ballot papers signifying rejection and sought to give the impression that they wanted to defeat the law at all costs.

By this maneuver they wanted to force a section of the Socialists to abstain, for if the Socialists had abstained in part, the Reichstag would have been dissolved. But at the same time the Nationalists in the back row were instructed to brandish red ballot papers too, but to hand in white adoption ballot papers. Thanks to this camouflage, the law was adopted by a majority of 19 votes higher than the two-thirds majority that was required. »

After the Reichstag vote, says a dispatch from Berlin to the Radio Agency, as applause broke out in the galleries, several Pan-Germans raised their fists in the direction of the diplomatic box where M. de Saint-Quentin, secretary at the French embassy, ​​was sitting.

Ludendorf's anger

BERLIN, August 30. It is said in the corridors of the Reichstag that General Ludendorff, as soon as the result of the vote was known in the Reichstag, abruptly left the meeting room with a flushed face, shouting at the nationalist deputy Bruninghaus: "It is a disgrace for Germany. Ten years ago I won the battle of Tannenberg and you, nationalists, have won the Jewish battle of Tannenberg today." Whereupon the deputy Bruninghaus replied coldly: "History will have to judge whether we were right or wrong."

The liberal press, which reported the incident, judiciously noted that if Ludendorff had in his time not only won the battle of Tannenberg, but all the battles of 1918, there would have been no need to proceed yesterday in the Reichstag to the vote on the implementing laws.