THE PEACE TERMS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 241, 5 July 1919, Page 9

THE PEACE TERMS

LABOUR CONFERENCE'S

MANIFESTO

A manifesto prepared by a committee instructed to consider the Peace terms was adopted by the annual conference of the Labour Party yesterday. It states that "tile 1919 annual conierence of .we New Zealand Labour Party, in common with the.British and Australian Labour end Socialist parties and trade unions, the French .Socialist Party and trade unions, tho Italian Socialist Party and trade unions, the Serbian Socialist Party, the. Rumanian Socialist Party, the Canadian and American Socialist movements, the South African Socialist movement, and the Labour and 1 Socialist movement, generally,'places on record its unqualified condemnation of the terms of the Peace Treaty." The manifesto .proceeds to.state that the Peace terms do not represent the voice of the people. "Labour has had no part in making the Treaty," it states. "No Parliament has had a voice; the people have not been consulted. Only the ruling class representatives of the five Great Powers in the War Alliance have had a deciding voice in the matter, and it is not to bo wondered at that _tho v Treaty violates almost every principle that Labour' holds sacred, as well, as every . principle that the Allies claimed to stand for in the war. In the whole Treaty there is not a single word about the preservation of popular liberties, and the misnamed League of Nations is representative of Governments, and- not of peoples, and would seem to have been designed for the purpose mainly of protecting the.trading interests of the Allied capitalists." After protesting that the Executive Council of the League of Nations is dominated by Britain, Prance,' Italy, the United States, and Japan, the manifesto states that tfie Peace terms make for war and not- for peace. They leave the Germans "no hope but revenge," and have been formulated "from the viewpoint of the international trader." The terms of the indemnity "will mako it inevitable that tho British markets will be flooded with German-made goods, with the accompanying danger of our own workers standing idle and unemployed". . .

"We were constantly told," continues Hie manifesto, "that the war was being fought to end militarism; but the terms impose on Germany alone the obligation to abolish conscription. Militarism is more firmly established in all the Allied countries. In Britain it is proposed to keep nearly a million men under conscription for a year.. In New Zealand Sir James Allen proposes to extend the system by conscripting tho eighteen-year-old boys, and sending them into military camps for four months of the year. France and other Allied countries retain conscription ;in an intensified form. America is building an invincible armada that is to rival Britain's invincible armada." ,

After objecting to the Allied occupation of the Saar Valley, and Japanese domination of the province of Shantung, tho manifesto declares in favour of self-de-termination for "Ireland, Egypt nnd India,; and,all subject peoples/' and proceeds:— .' '

"This' conference of tho New Zealand Labour Party joins with tho workers of Europe in general and Britain, France, and Italy in particular, in demanding the withdrawal of Allied troops from Russia, Hungary,. and all tho Socialist Republics. We further condemn the supplying of muikitious and other war material r- -' ■■■'•li'rnl ' iv'k'hnk. Geneva! Dei'iken, and other reactionaries. In support of this, protest wo would direct attention to the cablegrams of June 23. in which it is stated that Admiral Xolchnk has •refused to agree to tho Allied proposal re the establishment of tho 1017 Assembly in the-_ event of hi.i succeeding in tho war against Russia., and also the cablegrams of the same date, in. which it is- alleged that, the ex-Kaiser wn* in communication with Kolchnk in February, then proposing that tho latter cooperate in overthrowing tho Soviets, 'and then lestorinii tho monarchies inGermany and Russia,' "We declare unreservedly in favour of the lifting of the blockade which is bcinj operated against the Russian people, inflicting misery, hunger, and death on many thousands of children,'women and men! Wo find the following statement from the pen of n very eminent Russian in the columns of a British Labour paper: 'The Allied bloclcado is condemning the country to starvation and cold. Tho Scandinavian countries have broken with us very unwillingly, yielding to the pressure (if tho Allies, who presented them with an ultimatum. Owing to tiiis rupture, wo aro unablo to import from Denmark vegetable seeds to the value of 40,000,000 roubles, which we had bough! Illiere and paid for in cash. We cannot import agricultural implements and machines from Sweden; nnd the British havo forbidden them to export even paper to Russia. A large quantity of flax, bought by the Swedes in Russia, nnd convoyed front Petrograd in Russian'bottoms, was seized by the British at Rcval and taken to British ports. We are being strangled, and deprived of tho possibility of bettering the internal conditions, and yet it is we who are made responsible for the consequences. Neutral countries are beinp forced to boycott us, nnd then the fact is used as proof of our wickednoss.' "Finally, wo declare our firm conviction that the 'world can- never be uindo safe for humanity while capitalism, with its adjuncts of Imperialism and militarism, remains. It is, therefore, 'he duty i of the workers to and i politically in all countries, for the purpose, of superseding capitalism with industrial democracy, which is Socialism, and forming not r. League of Nations, but. a League of Peoples, with an international unity which ivill make warfare not only unnecessary, but altogether impossible."