The Dominion. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1018. THEH YPOCRITICAL HUN

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 17, 15 October 1918, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1018. THEH YPOCRITICAL HUN

_ Some English newspapers are insisting that Germany must be granted no armistice until she has given solid guarantees over and above the evacuation of invaded territory. Thoir contention in itself is unexceptionable, but it runs a long way ahead _of events, and leaves tho practical issues of the day untouched. It will bo time enough to discuss tho conditions which snould govern an, armistice with Germany when there is sonie definite evidence that she feels it necessary to accept tho just conditions of peace laid down by the Allies. At present not only is there a complete absence of evidence to this effect, but thore is conclusive evicienco'that Germany is today on precisely the same moral level as when, after long and methodical preparation, she deliberately plunged Europe into war. This evidence is being afforded from day to day on land and sea. It appears conspicuously in events like the sinking of the Leinster, "the most shooking sea crime since the Lusi-

tania," and in the red trail of" destruction the beaten German armies

are leaving behind them as they re^

treat in France. The attack on the Leinster, a peaceful passenger shin with a complement of men, women, and children, was marked by every circumstance of ruthless and coldblooded murder. The objects of the orgy of destruction in which the Germans are indulging as they retire in Franco are tersely summed up to-day by a correspondent at the front. "The meaning of this," he says, after describing the sea of smoke and flames behind the enemy lines, "is that if terms acceptable to Germany are not offered Prance will recover her invaded territories, because it cannot be prevented,, but they will be deserts littered 'with dead cities." In her infamous history Gerkiany has never surpassed the crimes her armies and her submarines are now committing on land and sea, but it is not alono in their enormity that these crimes rivet and command attention. They are- at the same time,a faithful revelation of the real Germany—the Germany that Erzberqee and his kind are now attempting to cover from tho gaze of the world with false trappings of democracy and reform.

It is the one redeeming fact connected with the hideous crimes Germany is adding day by day to her vile record that they make her real oharacter unmistakably plain. If there were no other evidence to upon than the sinking of the Leinster and the wanton devastation that is being wrought in France we should know past all doubting that every profession Germany has made regarding reform and the desire for a just peace is false to the core. There is no excuse for wasting time over assurances like that of Erzbeeger, the German Director of Propaganda, that militarism in Germany is ended for ever, nor over the German Government's ostensible acceptance of President Wilson's fourteen, points. The commanding fact by which we are faced is that German militarism is every hour adding to its crimes, and that it is meeting with no'hindrance from the German people. As Mit. Balfour has •said, it is incredible that crimes like the sinking of the Leinster and other even more cowardly and destructive crimes against helpless civilians and prisoners do not commend themselves to the German people. It is true that German oiviiiaris are not boisterously jubilating over the sinking of the Leinster and other recent crimes of a similar order, or over the destruction of towns and villages in France, as they did over the sinking of the Lusitania. But they aro passive in face of these atrocities, and their passivity is at once a crime and brands them as still the submissive helots of Prussian militarism. Had there been a trace of honesty in Germany's professions of reform and peaceful intent the latest crimes of militarism would nowhere have been more fiercely denounced, would nowhere have inspired a swifter and more insistent demand for retribution, than within her own.borders. A nation which had honestly repented and reformed after a long careor of crime would not passively submit while new and more frightful crimes than those of the past were committed in 'its name. Had there been any honesty in the German professions of which we have heard during the last few days hew crimes of frightfulness on land and sea would'have cost the Kaiser and his principal military and political accomplices their heads. Summary justice would have been meted out to them for continuing a policy of frightfulness whioh the nation had forsworn and for branding Ger.many anew with infamy in the eyes of- the world. This undoubtedly would hayo been the course taken by a nation really determined to make an end of militarism. The position of tho German nation is that it is as tolerant as ever of frightfulness committed in its name and as indifferent as ever to the infamy that is being heaped upon its head. Only one conclusion can be based upon these plainlv-established facts. Germany's professed desire to make peace on.just terms is simply trickery and humbug designed to supplement the terrorism and frightfulness which first and last aro her principal weapons. Events on land and sea have so completely exposed the hollow hypocrisy of Germany's professions that it is hardly necessary to consider the circumstances in which they are alleged to have been made. Even from German .accounts, however, it is plain enoujm that the changes said to have '~lirred in Germany exist in fact-tm.iy upon tho scraps of paper issued by the German Propaganda Department. It is not even pretended that there has been any political change in Germany. The German Government has declared through its Foreign Minister that tho Chancellor is supported by a majority in tho Beiohstag. and speaks in the name of the German Government and people, but tho last of these claims is certainly falsc.cxcept in the sense that the German .masses are still subservient, as they have been hitherto, to the military autocracy. The Reichstag does not represent tho German people; it has no power, and has never seriously attempted to j*ain any power. So long as tho Reichstag under its existing constitution occupies tho place in Germany that should bo occupied by «i freely elected Parliament tho German people have neither spoken as a nation nor shown themselves capable of so speaking. The rjeace orofessions with which

' Germany is now attempting to ticklo the ears of the Allies come from the German militarists, the self-same men who are coincidently directing new horrors of frightfulness on land and sea, and the character of these professions is not in any way affected by the fact that they are spoken through a clumsily fashioned : mask. No sane human being can believe that tho road to peace is opened by such professions or that the Allies can afford to take any other line of action towards Germany than that of unrelenting attack and reprisal. The poHcy they are bound to follow is acunirably stated by General Pau, the grand old veteran, who is now in Australia: "Wo must not fall into German traps. The only real solution is to get the Germans on the other side of tho Rhine."