The Dominion WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1917. PAYING FOR PAST TREACHERY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3188, 12 September 1917, Page 6

The Dominion WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1917. PAYING FOR PAST TREACHERY

A statement is attributed to-day to Hekr Scheidehann, tho German Socialist leader, that President 'Wilson can bring about' an immediate peace if he acts in support of his words. ■ Further bloodshed, tho Gorman Socialist declares, is unnecessary if America ; accepts Germany's assurance that she will democratise herself within a generation. At an immediate view this is no more entitled to serious consideration that other utterances inspired by the German Government in furtherance of its peace intrigue, but in one respeot it deserves attention. Made as it undoubtedly is at the dibtation of tho Prussian Junkers, this statement nevertheless, gives conspicuous prominence to tho supreme obstacle to that peace which Germany is now exerting herself to obtain. When ho invites President Wilson as a first step towards the restoration of peace to accopt Germany's assurance that sho will carrv out: democratic reforms, Herr Scheidehann forgets, or affects to forget, that neither President Wilson nor any other sane man now regards an assurance from Germauv as worth the paper it is written on 'or tho air in which it vibrates. The Allies want peace, but they wou'd be mad to accept a peace resting on no firmer foundation than tho promises of a nation which has so unmistakably , demonstrated that 1 1s promises aro worthless. It has been justly observed iiiat in the moial bankruptcy and degradation resulting from tho actions of her own rulers and peoplo Germany has to mourn a greater loss and a greater calapiity than are involved m the exhaustion of her man-power material resources, lier dwindling food supplies, the ruin of her industries, shipping, and commerce, and the weakening and threatened defection of her allies. She now desires above all things to tne full punishment of her atrocious crimes, and to save what she can out of the wreck, but the grand obstacle in her path is one of her own creation. It is the fact that_ her iepeated peace proffers are universally regarded as merely a snare for the unwary, a pretence of good _ faith concealing some treacherous intention The revelation of German character afforded in' three years ot war has made uncertainty impos-, siblc. To trust Germany now would be as irrational as to reposo faith in a ravenous beast of tho wilderness. The fact of' Germany moral outlawry and its vital bearing upon the question of peaco arc recognised and affirmed to-day. even by those who aro most reluctant to pronounce harsh judgments. The condemnation of Germany as a nation bankrupt in honour, whose pledge no other nation will accept, has befcn pronounced with as little reservation in the United States as in the European countries which have beea gaining practical experience of tho quality of tho modern Huns during three terrible years of war. A late ■ example of' the fact is an editorial article in tbe New York Evening Post, a journal studiously moderate in tone and strongly inclined . topacifism. It represents a section of American opinion which undoubtedly seeks the easiest and speediest ending of the war which will make the world safe for democracy. y n this account tho article -in _ question affords not less striking evidence of American appreciation of tho essential facts of the war thaa the speeches of the American President, which aro now accepted as constituting a model statement of the Allied case.

In,their long-studied plans to win the creat war (it remarks), the German military rulers depended mainly upon two things—terrorism and trickery. Botli have not only failed them, but have recoiled upon them with tremendous and disastrous effect. Against German brutality, the oxhaustless heroisms ot the soul of man rose in a mighty Hood. Like tho man in Browning's "Installs ryrannus," Belgium "stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed," so tliat, today, it is Germany that is afraid. And oven more •ovenvuolnnßg lor Uermany than tho reaction against jrer barbarous methods in war is the inevitable result, as wo see it now, oi her treatybreaking, her underground plotting, hoi troachcrous dealing with nations at peaco with her. The time has come when the German Government desires to have its acts and words credited, but finds that it has itself cut away the moral props under it. Its fair language to-day js read in tho light of BethniannHollweg's talk of peace in December, 1916, though he afterwards admitted that he was merely seeking to gain time to build submarines and make tlio war more ferocious than ever. <Ihe intercepted Ziramernmnn'noto is not forgotton The German Foreign Office has made itself tho synonym for untrust. worthiness. The Gorman Government has discredited in advance its cwn aocuments. It has turned every mans hand against it.. That Germany's outlawry and moral degradation oppose tremendously formidable obstacles to the rc6toration of a secure peace is painfully evident, but a recognition ot the facts in' their full magnitude is an essential first step to that end. Fortunately thero is little reason to foar that the Allied nations will so

far forget tho lessons learned 1 during tho last three years as to plaoe any rclianco in German promises, whether they relate to conditions of peaco or to reformation of the intoiml conditions in Germany out of which the war arose. President Wilson spoke for the Allies when ho denounced as a, new proof of the perfidy of tho military masters of Germany tho sinister peaco intrigue which Scheidehann and others are retained to promote. _ To crcdit Germany with good faith because she is now anxiously seeking a way of escape from tho consequences of d feat would bo to invite worse disasters than tho war has brought.