The Dominion WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1919. THE FINAL CAMPAIGN

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 118, 12 February 1919, Page 6

The Dominion WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1919. THE FINAL CAMPAIGN

Whines for lerlienfc treatment have been heard from Germany ever since her beaten and demoralised armies were compelled to acknowledge defeat. German women, though they had raised no protest while French girls were being dragged from their homes and a thousand other infamies were being perpetrated by tho Kaiser's hordes, lost no time in organising an appeal against the imposition of harsh terms on their own country. The lead they gave, no doubt under instructions, has been followed up with energy. German politicians, commercial men, and others have been tireleßs in ufging that whatever else happens Germany must be treated tenderly. During the last few days this campaign has taken a new turn. Previously it had been in the main one of tearful supplication. 'Now, however, the people who speak for Germany seem' to think that the time has come for defiant, bravado. Conveniently forgetting tHat • their armistice delegates opened their conference with, Marshal Foch by admitting that the German armies were at his mercy, they are attempting to explain away their defeat and to suggest that they are in a position to reject such terms as the Peace Conference may impose should they choose to regard these terms as unduly onerous. An authoritative lead on these lines was given by Ebest, at present head of the German Government, when he presided over the opening session of the Notional Assembly. The speech he made on that occasion has never been surpassed for brazen assurance and shameless hypocrisy. He spoke for a nation steeped in infamy and loaded down with the guilt of innumerable crimes, a nation, incidentally, that is gorged with the plunder of spacious Allied territories that were once flourishing and are now little better than desert. Yet he did not hesitate to accuse the Allies of "introducing robbery into the peace terms and shamelessly imposing the harshest possiblo conditions." The natural inclination is to treat such a change coming from such a source with contempt, but it has to be recognised that from -first to last this campaign of mendacity and hypocrisy has been organised with an eye to results. The whines and supplications in which it arose and the blustering threats in which'it is now being developed take as definite a place in Germany's criminal aggression upon other nations as the invasion of Belgium or any act of war that followed. In this final and forlorn' hope campaign Germany is attacking all that is weak and unstable in the Allied organisation. It is unlikely that her present leaders have any thought of facing the desperate-hazard of an--other appeal to arms, but no doubt they hope by noise and bluster and by confusing the issues at stake , to divide the Allies and weaken their resolution.

The first thing necessary to compel Germany to recognise and accept the realities of her situation is a drastic tightening of the military bonds m which she is enclosed. The Allies will have themselves to thank u she is permitted to forcibly contest the decisions of the Peace , Conference. It is reasonable, however. . to regard Jior threats of renewed military action as more bluff. There is a. more serious clanger that she may succeed by her outcries in unsettling opinion in Allied countries and to obscure the essential issues of the' war and the peace settlement, liven in Allied countries some people have been weak and foolish enough to adopt the view that severe terms imposed on Germany, because of their severity, would of necessity be vindictive and would bear witness to a spirit of revenge. Such people must be madeTo understand that weakness is neither moral nor meritorious,' and that it may easily deserve to be classed in an opposite category. It is to be said on the broadest grounds that a de°™J on the part of the Allies to withhold all nunishment from Germany would constitute neither mercy nor morality. On flio contrary, it would be a negation of morality—a formal declaration by the greatest .international assemblage i the world has ever seen that the vilest crimes, provided they are committed in tho name of a nation, must go unpunished. There is the less room for controversy in this matter since the severest punishment it is practicable to inflict on Germany will undoubtedly be light in comparison with her abominable crimes. The most that can be hoped for is that she may bo compelled to partly repair and make good the havoc she has wrought in the world. A well-known English journalist. Mr. Massac Buist, recently laid just emphasis upon the fact that the application of thn term "indemnity" to such demands as the Allies propose to make on Germany is a misnomer. Imposing terms on France in 1871 Germany compelled that country to pay the whole of ■ her war costs (£114,000,000), together with a fine over and above that amount of £5G,000,000, and to surrender Al-sace-Lorraine, then valued at £64,000,000. As far as they have been disclosed the demands! now contemplated by the Allies are that Germany should as far as.possible make reparation for the havoc wrought in devastated countries and territories and by the activities of her piratical U-boats and to re--

coup their war costs to an amount estimated at about £25,000,000,000. Apart from the destruction of life, this last amount is far from comprehending the whole outlay involved in bringing Germany and her vassals to defeat.. Instead of demanding indemnities the Allies in fact are only asking that Germany should restore or.replace property stolen or destroyed and pay part of the war costs for which in a moral sense she is wholly responsible. There is no prospect of terms that could justly be called narsh being imposed on Germany, but there is a very real danger that tho final settlement may leave her still enriched by plunder and able to congratulate herself upon a measure of success in her methodical at-, tempts to destroy the economic life of other nations, notably France. German appeals for leniency appear in their true value and perspective when set against statements like that of M. Clejienceau to an interviewer which is quoted in the news to-day. As a result of the devastation wrought by the German armies in the French northern departments, undoubtedly in pursuance of a deliberate plan, one-third of the French factories are idle, while those of Germany are not merely intact, but have been expanded and multiplied as the result of wholesale looting. It should never be forgotten that Germany's conduct of the war was marked by a long series of thefts on the most colossal scale, and that to a great extent she still retains the proceeds of these thefts. In the occupied regions she enslaved some .£6,000,000 Allied subjects. At the same time she methodically stripped these regions of industrial plant of all kinds,, raw materials, foodstuffs, and other things, and exacted enormous sums in money. The exploitation of captured mines is another conspicuous item. The production of the French fields alone enabled her to practically doublo her normal output of iron. In meeting the just demands of the Allies Germany has in the first instance ah enormous fund to draw upon in the direct and indirect proceeds of her organised thefts. For the rest her pre-war annual national income amounted to £2,000,000,000, _ and her national wealth was being increased before the war at the rate of £500,000,000 a year. At a moderate estimate her mineral assets alone ' represent a value of £191,000,000.000. With such resources Germany is well able to' satisfy the Allied demands—and/in bare justice these demands must be rigorously enforced.