WAR AIMS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 272, 6 August 1918, Page 5

WAR AIMS

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

WHY COMPROMISE IS IMPOSSIBLE

Speaking at Khandallah last night, Sir Francis Bell, tho Attorney-General, referred to 'the matter of war aims, lie said that recently Lord Lansdowne had renewed tho suggestion that tho Allies should defino their war aims more clearly than had been dono in tho past, in order that conversations with the enemy oti tho subject of peace might be assisted. Similar suggestions had been made in some other quarters. . , Tho American Government had tried to answer these suggestions bysaying that there must bo a Leaguo of Nations, to which ovcrv powerful nation must belong. That idea seemed to some people to ]>3 a practical impossibility, a mere chimera. But to very many men it was tho basis upon which peaco discussions must proceed. Germany was not yet ready to adhere to a Leaguo of Nations. "Unless by some process there can 00 assured poli'tical independence and territorial integrity to the nations of tho world, small and large, then the end of the present war will not; mean anything moro than preparation for the next, war," said Sir Francis Bell. "And so it may be said—l think it must be said—that no peace is possible until (he position with Germany, as with every oilier nation, is that she must submit to the law of nalions. Tho law of nations will be laid down anew at the' close of this war by common agreement of the civilised peoples. and any nation that breaks the rules of the leajrue, and particularly the two principles I havo laid down, will havo every other nation in the leaguo against her, and at. war with her. ' "Then comes the question of the limitation of armaments. I. am not trying to solve the question to-night; I am merely stating it. It is an enormously difficult question. Take our own.case, our naval supremacy. Germany has already had the cleverness to l>ring that point into issue. America, fortunately, is not likely to join in any schema that would leave tho policing of the seas in German hands. "One issue between Germany and tho Allies at the present lime is this: that if every nation is to arm to the teeth after this war, the last state will ho worse than the first. Tho whole aspect of war has chaDged. War used to bo a conflict of army against army; it has become a conflict of people against people, with constant and growing danger to tho whole people because of the lighting being carried on so largely from tho air. Instead of aiming merely at the destruction of an enemy's army, tho

effort is now to destroy an enemy's country and poople. No longer are the guns directed against forts. The artillery of tho air is directed against the population of an enemy's country.

"Then it is obvious that in any futuro war the submarine danger will bo enormously greater than it is in this war. If tho nations are to be prepared for another war under sea, wo must look for a complete cessation of commerce during war, with all tho results, of such cessation. That is a consideration that stresses and imposes the necessity of attempting to create a Parliament of man, a League of Nations, standing for law and peace, at the close of this war. "So much for the general'aims. But with regard to Germany herself, she has so waged war as to make it necessary for us to constitute a league against her present and future. There is this horrible record of German methods. I am not speaking so much of the burning of towns, the destruction of homes, the robberies and so forth. I am thinking rather of Lord Brice'g commission and of his record to what took place in Belgium when the Germans invaded that little country. In dealing with Germany we have pot to protect our women against indesciibablebarbarity and horror. The man who goos to war can contemplate death as part of tho day's work. He can determine cheerfuliy that ho will Iry to make his enemy sorry there is n war. But what about the women? "Wo in this country can hardly conceive (ho state of mind of the Frenchman and the Belgian. T'liey have been faeo to face with savagery and brutality, with utter disregard for every decent and humane principle. They know (hat Germans have turned loose 011 helpless populations a licentious soldiery, with directions to treat women and children as slaves. The.Germans threaten and have Ihrealened tint they will give the same treatment'to English women. That is why it is idle to talk of a compromise peace. "The position when the war ends must be that Germany shall be made to know that war cannot be waged rs she has waged it; that it cannot pay her to wage war at all. Germany must know for the future that if her hand is raised against another nation, she shall be like Ishmael of old. whose ha«rl i\n= ncninst everv man. but every man's hand was against him."