ANOTHER PEACE MOVE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3010, 22 February 1917, Page 5

ANOTHER PEACE MOVE

DEBATE IN THE HOUSE OF

COMMONS

GERMAN WAR MACHINE MUST

BE SMASHED

(Itec. February 21, 8.10 p.m.)

London, February 20. In the House of Commons, on the third reading of the Consolidated Fund /Ml, Mr. A. A. W. H. Ponsonby urged tho Government to disclose its policy for tho future conduct of the war. We have always saidi that wo had no selfish motives, that we are not seeking to increase our territory, or dismember the enemy s territory, yet our Note to America showed otherwise. Britain has made great sacrifices from purely disinterested 'motives, and tho Government should not degrado those by making the war one of aggrandisement and supremacy. Thn German peoplo were suffering, not tho military party. We are destroying Gorman Liberalism, the only force capable of crushing militarist. We entered the war with clean nan*, and ought to emergo emptyhanded.

Mr. C. .P. Trovelvan declaml that the fate oT_Constantinople and the German colonie-i mado it a war of conquest. The Entente's Note mado the (jermaiis fight desperately to avoid national annihilation. The' Entente's detSifincT was npt characterised by frankness or charity. Whatever our'military successes were, wo would still bo compelled! to negotiate for -peace, not dictate it. "In Heaven's name," bo said, why not try now?" Mr. Philip Snowden said that the longer the war continued tho less likelihood there was of scouring terms satisfactory to either of the combatants. Tho Allies' terms were monstrous.

Mr. Bonar Law, replying, K a,id that Germany was acting on the principle that she must win, not merely by fighting, but by tyrannising civilian populations. Britain -was not fighting for additional territory, or to secure a glorious victory, which would reflect credit on our arms, but punishment was necesSary in order to make tho people Vesponsiblo for those crimes feel that it didl not pay. Tito -war was forced upon the world with calculations v-s cold-blooded as a man moves a piece on the chessboard. Wo had no guarantee that if the war ended to-day, with the German military machine unbroken, and the prestige of victory still clinging round it, the power of Germany would not be in the same bandis and used for tho same purposes. If preparations to fight recommenced, wo would have to defend ourselves under worse conditions. Those responsible for the Government were determined that our blood ehould not be sired in rain. "There must be no second war panic." He denounced the peace agitation, at a time when the greatest, neutral nation recojntfsed that the excesses , of r.r.r enemies had reached :i limit which made civilisation impossible.—Aus.N.Z. Cable Assn.