Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9th., 1917. PEACE POSSIBILITIES.

Hokitika Guardian, 9 October 1917, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9th., 1917. PEACE POSSIBILITIES.

Thk cloud lightening tho black horizon of war is something larger than a man’s hand now, and it is not unlikely shapening events, to say nothing of those which transpired last week, will assist to enlarge the herald ing signs of the end of the war. The enemy are conceding something all the time. We are far passed tho stage when the Central Powers , were prepared to accept a peace based on miliuirv conditions. That would be peace of a very compromising nature, and in fact would be peace with a something rather more than a modicum of victory for Germany. The time has gone by even when with some assurance and apparent concession the Central Powers were ready to offer peace on pre-war conditions, tho return of the anti-bol-lum status. That would havo been peaco without victory for either side, and would have left the world the poorer, because civilisation could not have derived tho benefit from the fruits of the armageddon which iB vet to he the prize. There, remains but the Allies’ terms to ensure the peace worth having—the peaco with ' victory which will give lasting freedom to the races. This is the only form of peace which can bo permanent, and which would have made the great sacrifices the war has demanded, worth whilo. The Central Powers are recognising this fact, storm Tirpitz and Hindenbnrg os they will. In the inevitable peace which t hey see ahead probably dangles a noose for they or their kind, and they arc not too ready to meet their fate. Tho crimes they are guilty of, and the crimes they have put tinon their pernpie, are hardly to be abolished by a scratch of the pen giving a concession hero or a concession there. So these War lords still talk fine and large, hut * they .cannot deceive the country men j all the time. The war in the west with > its unprecedented toll, tho war to be waged from the air which will probaMv wipe out a German city or two . to begin with, these are facts whipb

will bring the nation however ill-led, to realise that their army is beaten, their lleot tied up omnipotent, and their cities howover remote from tho battle fronts, still within reach of the searching aeroplanes. This realised, and the Pope’s task in conveying the terms the Central Powers will subscribe to will ho considerably enlightened. President Wilson has indicated the general principles on which a permanent poaoo will be established, and the Allies generally havo subscribed to that statement. Generally therefore the enemy knows full well what are the alternatives. Not to accept the inevitable now, is to commit a great crime against its own people, who when they cotne to realise how thoy lmvo been duped and betrayed aro sure to demand the removal of those responsible for the prolongation of the war. Tho fighting as time goes on, is gaining in violence so far the Allies are concerned. They are still adding to their strength, while the enemy is a vanishing quantity. Hopes for tho victories which Hindenbnrg and Tirpitz have pictured are but mirages of thetr own suggestive thoughts. Victory can never pass to the enemy now, and the peace to. come will be a real peace betokening the victory of the Allies.