PEACE—REAL CONDITIONS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1692, 29 March 1917, Page 4

PEACE —REAL CONDITIONS.

Theoretically, and if no other considerations came in, the best guarantee for security in the future obtainable would be our insistence upon the democratisation of the Gennan system of government, and of the system that prevails in those portions of the Austrian Empire which shall not have been cut off to form independent Slav States (remarks the Spectator, discussing the terms upon which peace is to he made). While, however, in theory a Liberal Constitution would he the best guarantee for the future, experience shows that the most enlightened of Constitutions when forced upon a nation from outside does not succeed. But, though when peace is made, our enemies must be allowed to settle their own system of government, we can do and ought to do what Bismarck did at the (dose of the French war. He would not make peace with Gambrelta and the Provincial Government, hut insisted upon making it with the French people. We must insist that the ultimate terms shall be made, not with the Hohenzollerns and Hapshurgs, destined for all we know to utter oblivion as dynasts, but with the mass of the Gennan people. Therefore a popular Assembly should he called and asked to (dioose negotiators who will properly represent the German Confederation. After peace is made the Germans must no doubt he allowed, if they like, to place their necks once more under the heel of the Hohenzollern and the Junker.