SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, the Prosecution has not had a copy of this affidavit yet so we do not know what is in it. We suggest that perhaps Dr. Seidl could postpone the reading of that until we have had a chance to consider it.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I am afraid that must be postponed.
DR. SEIDL: Yes. Now I turn to Volume 3 of the document book.
If it please the Tribunal, this volume of the document book contains, in substance, statements and quotations taken from books and speeches of foreign statesmen, diplomats, and political economists, regarding the history and origin of the Versailles Treaty, the contents of the Versailles Treaty, the territorial changes made by this treaty, such as the question of the Polish Corridor, and above all the disastrous economic consequences which this treaty had for Germany and also for the rest of the world.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Sir David?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, I have read the documents in this book and I should like just to say one or two words about them.
They are opinions expressed by a great variety of gentlemen, including politicians, economists, and journalists. They are opinions that are expressed polemically and some of them journalistically, and with most of them one is familiar and knew them when they were expressed 15 to 25 years ago.
Now, while I submit, as I have submitted to the Tribunal, that the whole subject is too remote, I have a suggestion which I hope the Tribunal will consider reasonable, that the Prosecution should, as I suggested yesterday, let this book go in at the moment de bene esse and that when Dr. Seidl comes to making his final speech he can adopt the arguments that are put forward by the various gentlemen whom he quotes, if he thinks they are right. He can use the points as illustrations, always provided the thesis that he is developing is one which the Tribunal thinks relevant to the issues before it. That will preserve for Dr. Seidl the advantage of the right to use these documents subject, as I say, to the relevancy of the issues, but I suggest that it would be quite wrong to read them as evidence at the moment. They are merely polemical and journalistic opinions and directed to an issue which the Prosecution has submitted, and I do submit, is too remote.
However, I am most anxious that Dr. Seidl should have every advantage for his final speech. Therefore, I suggest it would be convenient if they were put in without being read at the moment and were left subject to the limitation of relevancy, which can be considered when all the evidence is before the Tribunal, for him to make use of in his final speech.
DR. SEIDL: Mr. President, may I shortly...