CO129-427 - Public Offices - 1915 — Page 53

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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

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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