FRENCH VIEW OF PEACE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1503, 29 January 1916, Page 4

FRENCH VIEW OF PEACE.

The French have not been slow to notice the constant suggestion of peace that comes from German sources. ‘‘There is something unutterably ponderous about the workings of the German mind,” says a great French writer. ‘‘Pedantry is the rule. Even the leading lights in the land like to marshal their facts dogmatically, explaining the obvious every inch of the way. One remembers the unnecessary insistence of the great people like Goethe, Wagner and Bismarck. And the nation is exactly like its famous men. It explains itself before everybody, careless as to who may hear. It is so certain of its superiority that there is no tone of apology about it. In the Zukuntt two articles by Maximilian Harden, of the Bismarck school, will explain my meaning. After having enumerated all the blunders committed by the Entente, he suddenly breaks off to demand peace, ‘peace with Servia, from whom we shall take Macedonia, giving her Albania and some ports on the Adriatic ; peace with Italy, whom it is not part of our programme, nor that of Austria, to ruin for ever; a definite understanding over Belgium, and we shall have unravelled the Gordian knot. The advantage is all on our side ; this, the psychological moment, may never occur again.’ This is what Harden wrote on October 16th. November 6th still finds him harping on the same note. ‘Bismarck was great,’ he says, ‘because he had the courage of his convictions. He knew when to go to war, and when to make peace. It was his duty to forsee the course which a war would take, and to stop it, at the risk of his life, bis honour and his glory, it he felt that it would drag on unhappily. There are limits beyond which war is not profitable to anybody.’ This Is said by a German who speaks with authority, who, to carry convictiou, invokes the patron saint of the country. Germany must make peace while she still holds securities. To delay is to risk losing everything. What are these securities ? Belgium, part of our country, and of Russia, Poland and Servia. in all probability. Germany’s plan is to dominate and to intimidate the ■ world- But what if the world should refuse to be intimidated ? Even if we were to lose the Balkan campaign we have at our disposal more men and more material than the Central Powers, and these must tell in the end,”