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learn from what I regard as a reliable source that the
necessity for this attitude has been impressed upon
them by their own Consular officials.
I venture to think, therefore, that the growing
anti-German feeling on the Concession, to which this
petition gives expression, is attributable not to
any definite acts of offensiveness on the part of lo-
cal German residents, but to a natural feeling of
disgust for the barbarous conduct of the German armed
forces in Europe and on the seas. It would be surpris-
ing if such conduct did not cause all British commun-
ities throughout the world to resent the presence of
Germans in their midst. Within the narrow limits
1
of this Concession, British in character as in name
this resentment is felt in a most acute degree, and I
think it redounds to the good sense and self-control
of the British community that no overt manifestation
of their feelings has ever taken place and that their
attitude since the outbreak of the war has been per-
fectly correct.
To such of the signatories of the petition as have
fr on