UNTIMELY PEACE EFFORTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1705, 28 April 1917, Page 2

UNTIMELY PEACE EFFORTS.

THE question of untimely peace efforts has for a long time been engaging the attention of writers in British newspapers. Most of the contributors agree that to exploitpeace when a mighty contest is raging over issues that involve the moral welfare of humanity is illjudged, and they equally regard as treasonable the promulgation of opinions and views which are likely to embarrass the Government or which may be seized upon by the enemy at a time when the Government is engaged in supremely critical controversy. Historic incidents are cited to show the actual evil untimely peace efforts may bring about. In 1800, when France was at war with England, Pitt, the Prime

Minister, rejected overtures of peace on these grounds. “In compromise and treaty,” he said, “with such a power, placed in such hands as now exercise it, and retaining the means of annoyance it now possesses, I see no possibility at this moment of concluding such a peace as would justify that liberal intercourse which is the essence of real amity; no chance of terminating the

expenses or the anxieties of war or of restoring, to us any of the advantages of established tranquility. And as a sincere lover of peace I cannot be content with its nominal attainment; I must be desirous of pursuing that system which promises to attain in the end the permanent enjoyment of its solid and substantial blessings for this country and tor Europe. As a sincere lover of peace, I will not sacrifice it by grasping at the shadow, when the reality is not substantially within my reach. Why do I reject peacef Because it is untrustworthy, because it is dangerous, because it is impossible.” The next year Pitt went out of office, and his successor made the peace of Amiens with Napoleon, which Napoleon promptly u*ed to prepare another war, more extensive, more perilous, longer than the previous one. Again, in 1814, Southey warned his fellow countrymen of the danger of their peace talk, but a year later peace was made: and within another year the whole peril had to be faced again. Every life lost at Quatre Bras, Ligny, and \\ aterloo proved that Southey was right. In the American Civil War, in August, 18(i4, the Democratic National Convention declared that the war was a failure and that hostilities should be stopped. The country was so far attecled that in the Presidential election the change of* only 200,000 votes out of 4,000,000 would have elected McClellan on that platform! A ithin less than six months Lee surrendered, and all for which America stands was saved. It is argued that, in the face of these experiences, a decent intelligence, not to say common honesty in the desire for the securing of justice and right and the welfare of the world, and a. loyal patriotism fairly demand that this planning or plotting for peace should he stopped until the real fight is won and there is call for securing what victory has made possible.