AMERICAN PEACE PROPAGANDA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1671, 6 February 1917, Page 4

AMERICAN PEACE PROPAGANDA.

In an article Avritten at the end of November the Washington correspondent of the Morning Post forecasted President Wilson’s peace activities, and stated very clearly (he forces that were (hen urging the President to take the course he has since taken. The correspondent said: That powerful financial interests are anxious to see peace established, no matter on what terms, is strongly indicated. Some of these financiers are simply the tools of Germany, and believe that Germany can make better terms now than later; others, however, care little for the allies and less for Germany, but fear that if the war is prolonged the United States will be drawn into it, which would mean the end of prosperity and the collapse of the boom. He quoted the New York Tribune as having said that there are three well-defined forces at work in America to move President Wilson to intervene. These three forces are the proGermans, the Pacifists, and Ger-man-American finance. It is the recent accession of German-Ameri-can finance to the peace agitation which gives it new virility and fresh strength. The thing that Frenchmen and Britons must now recognise, said the Tribune, is the possibility of action by the President of the United States in obedience to forces and influences at home, and it thought it more than likely that Dr Wilson would be moved to make a peace proposal in the next few months, aided by some very definite, if wholly misleading, proffers of concessions made. by Germany. In the next few months, the article concluded, the United States is going to be the centre of the greatest “drive” for peace that has yet been seen, the agitation will increase, and the President will act without reference to the wishes of France and of Great Britain. In view of recent events it must be acknowledged that the Morning Post’s correspondent was singularly well-in-formed.