PEACE OR WAR ?

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 159, 4 January 1895, Page 2

PEACE OR WAR ?

In the beginning of last month in the Guildhall, London, Lord Rosebery, when speaking of the present dangers of peace, said : — " Ido not say that the prospects " of peace are anything but reassuring, " but in reckoning on the future we have " to remember how nice is the balance "in which the future of peace or war is " weighed. Ido not think that any here 11 present can entirely realise, unless " they have been behind the scenes, how " difficult and how dangerous sometimes " appears the task, not of preserving the " nations from war, but of preserving a " a good understanding between them. " There are three elements in the present 11 situation which are not altogether re- " assuring in the interests of peace. One " is these enormous armaments that roll " up like snowballs, and snowballs which " seem never to end, and which are, I " freely acknowledge, in their essence, " being territorial armies, measures of " defence and not of defiance ; bat there " are in those great armaments some " dangers to peace itself. In the first " place, there is the feeling that you " cannot for ever perfect tools of great " precision, of great expense, without " sometimes having the wish to use and " test them ; and in the second place 11 there is the people who have to bear " the burden of those armaments, weary " of the drain of blood and taxation that " they involve, may some day say it will "be better to put an end to this long- •' continued pressure and put all to the " hazard of the die." In confirmation of the views of this we find that the Ger- | man Emperor has approved of a plan for testing the readiness of his troops on the i i French frontier question, and stated his I intention to place a portion of them on a war footing, while the Berlin newspaper which represents the German War Office urges the leaders of the army to encourage the fighting spirit of the rank and file in order to be ready for an emergency. The French people are too gallant and combative to refuse to acknowledge this challenge, and we conadently expect to hear shortly that a I rench army of observation has been laced in the direction of Germany. Kussia is also on the alert, and, singularly enough, after the wonderful fraternisation which took place not so many j months ago between that nation and j France, the Czar has arrangod to carry I out some grand military movements at 1 Smolensk, including a grand reproduc- { tion (no doubt with scenic effects) of the j attack and defence in connection with | Napoleon's invasion in 1812. We can only draw the conclusion from these | | item . oi n ews that both Germany and I Kus;-'a look on France as a possible - nay | aiiuo >; a certain — menace to the peace of Eurot (■■ Lord Rosebery also remarked tuat he considered one of the dangers to the #ood relations between the nations "is that mighty engine which we call the yress," and gave some advice— which no doubt he considered good — as to the I management of that " mighty engine," and suggested the press should sift its ! intelligence a little before it gives it | authority. Kind council, but quite unI called for. He indicated very clearly I that the policy of Great Britain was non-intervention in European politics, because it was not worth while, with on.- extended interests all over the world, to attempt by interference to disturb tha:> siate of things in which, after all, the British Empire is sufficiently prosperous. Our readers will see by the foregoing that much the same programme uas been prepared for 1895 as that of 1594, when a European war seemed ■ imminent, and the armies of the Great Powers were " thirsting for blood " and hungeiing "to test their tools of precision " on the bodies of living men. Mutual respect for their strength, and a dread of the awful consequences of a war :nay have been factors iv the preservation of the peace during 1894, and we £hope they will be as powerful in 1895 ; out we have tbe knowledge that wisdom iX,c ( Hincil does not always prevail when •-, .s(j -"varlike nations are anxious to get at each others' throats.