The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, April 11, 1916. SOCIALIST ON THE WAR.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1534, 11 April 1916, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, April 11, 1916. SOCIALIST ON THE WAR.

I'M celebrating, ou February 7tb, the anniversary of a Socialist Mayor who died as a result of wounds received on the field, M. Vandervelde, the Socialist Minister for State of the Belgian Government,'and M. Sembat, the French Socialist Minister for Public Works, reaffirmed the necessity of continuing the war until final and definite victory. The leader of the Belgian labour Party declared :—‘‘We have now been for two years struggling for peace with all our strength, with all our energy, and with all our hope. To-day M. Sembat and myself are still fighting, and both of us are now working in the respective Governments of France aud Belgium, which have been transformed into committees of public safety for the defence of liberty. We have once more seen old men, women and children fleeing before invasion. When I left Belgium our towns were blazing, having been set afire by the German armies, and having lived to see that, small wonder that we should harbour in our hearts a hatred of the fratricidal war which is hollowing out between the peoples and proletariats of Europe a muddy and blood-stained ditch. But, comrades, there is something more frightful, more abominable than this war, aud that is that the responsible authors of it, those who let it loose, desired it, premeditated it, and declared it, are still enjoying immunity from punishment. You ask at times, perhaps, if the hour has not come to have done with these horrors, to make peace at any price, to drive out of our consciences the nightmare of war. Just think what Europe would be like if peace were made to-day. We should witness the triumph of the most menacing, destructive aud formidable militarism. A peace so concluded would be no more than a dangerous truce, to be feared both by the one side and by the other, for at once people would be busy preparing for a renewal of the struggle. Fresh victims' would be added to the millions of dead who now slumber in the soil of Europe.”