THE PEACE PERIL

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2631, 29 November 1915, Page 4

THE PEACE PERIL

The American Pacificists who are said to be organising a peace mission to Europe on a. Big scale are no friends of Britain. No one . who talks peace to-day is a friend of the British Empiro. The nations which want paaca are our enemies. Peace to-day would be a crime not only against the British Empire, • but against civilisation. It would mean that ere many years have passed the world would be once more plunged into a dreadful wa!i\ Germany to-day is in a position to demand terms of jpeace which would enable her in a few years' time to once more reach out to satis'fy her arrogant ambitions. When this, war comes to a close the Entente Powers must be in a position to dictate suoh terms as will impress on the German people the folly of the teachings Which have led them to disaster and made the name German 'a term' of odium and shame throughout the civilised world. Germany must be so crippled that her people will have full time to reflect on the hideousness of the outrage her rulers have perpetrated 011 the nations of Europe ere she is iu a position to attempt to repeat this colossal crime against humanity. Peace to-day would be a crimc aeainsfc humanity because Germany has not yet thoroughly learned her lesson—not yet paid even a fraction of the .price of her terrible misdeeds. Peace today would leave an- arrogant, overbearing Germany, stricken helpless for the time being, but still filled with an insensate ambition to dominate the world by the ruthless and unbridled exercise- o'f might, anrl waiting only for an early opportunity to renew the conflict under more advantageous conditions than those in which sno now finds herself. Peace to-day would relieve Germany of the shame and aigony of that defeat which alone can bring the German nation to reason, and which her rulers now realise is slowlv liut inevitably overtaking her.' Peace today would leave unredressed the terrible .wrongs and the awful suffering under which Belgium has been ground to the very dust. Peaoe .today would mean that the hundreds of thousands of lives laid down in the fight to free the world from a monstrous tyranny had been wasted. Peace to-day would leave tie whole world burdened with the terrible nightmare of preparation for another gigantic struggle. The'greatest danger Britain, and indeed the world, .has tq fear to-day is Hie peaoe-monger—the- man ox woman who 'preaches that criminal folly— ,1 premature peace. This Dominion is a small part of the British Empiic. but we trust th'at Mb. Massey and Sib Joseph Wahd, when'thev go tn England next year, or, should occasion call for it, before they go tc England, will make it known to the British Government and to thu people of Britain, in the most emphatic ' manner possible, that the people of New Zealand will not easily forgive a betrayal of all for which they have i'ou?ht and bled, by the acceptance of a patck-d-uj; peace.