s a whole, but few have reached that stage of knowledge and feeling.

Asked at Ellis Island what his nationality was a gloomy gentleman from
Upper Silesia recently answered, "Plebiscite." And have there not been
many babies born whose nationality has remained long in doubt, pending
plebiscites and decisions of the Supreme Council? The plight of the
plebiscite baby is, however, eclipsed by that of the Armistice one.

The following true story was told me by H.M. Consul at Munich. He had
to decide the point at issue, or at least to take a decision upon it.
The difficulty was that of stating the nationality of a child born on a
ship at the time of the Armistice. The ship was a German one which had
been captured by the British. It had a British crew, but it was
bringing refugees from Murmansk, the Arctic port of Russia, to Reval on
the Baltic. It was flying the Neutrality flag. The ship, however, was
wrecked off the coast of Norway and was towed by a Danish boat into the
harbour of Stavanger. None of the refugees were allowed ashore but the
baby was born in the ship whilst it lay in the harbour. The parents
were Russian, but an attempt was made to get the British Consul at
Stavanger to register it as British. He refused. The English law is
that the flag decides nationality and in this case the flag was neutral.

A neutral baby has, therefore, appeared on the scene. It is a case for
the League of Nations to decide, We can only hope they will find it
possible to give it the status of a "good European."

LETTERS OF TRAVEL

XI. FROM MUNICH

The first day in Munich was marked by police inspection in bed. The
police come early to the hotels so as to catch people before they have
got up and gone out. The only people who are immune are Bavarians. If
you are a foreigner, even if you are a German from another part of
Germany--a Saxon, a Prussian, a Westphalian, it is all the same, you
must present yourself at the police-station and obtain permission to
reside in Munich. This means some hours in a stuffy room. You must
write a request for the permission in German and bring it some hours
later and answer the usual set of questions and be charged 150 marks.
I said I had not come to Germany to study the police system, and so by
dint of perseverance cut through half the formalities and the waiting
time and got away. An official wrote the request and even signed it
for me himself. Nowhere is red-tape more absur