PROGRESS OF THE ARMISTICE

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10292, 29 May 1919, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE ARMISTICE

For the moment the Atlantic crossing monopolises the world’s attention. The wings of Hawker and Grieve, though they fell into the Atlantic, are carrying joy and admiration over the Entente territories. Nowhere is any question heard of “Oui Bono.” Mankind is lost in admiration of a great deed, and rejoice that the doers have come unhurt out of the jaws of death. Paris goes as frantic :-as London, and the shouting is heard from New York to Thurso, and from the Hebrides to Australia. It is in some ways an echo of the Great War, which attuned the minds of men to heroism; familiarised them with great deeds by examples innumerable: astounded them with tho mastery achieved over tho air, overshadowing the glittering series of great deeds with spectacular effect. Thus it came to pass that when these men, without stimulus of military duty, but with a spirit of patriotism as undaunted as the'soldiers, went forth on their daring adventure, tho hearts of the peoples who had watched tho four-year sway of Armageddon went with them, stood still in their eclipse, and welcomed their safety with tremendous acclamation. The interest of the world in the finer side of things human has risen almost to religious pitch. It is a revelation of the effect of the war, and an fencouragement to hope for tho host from the reconstruction, the urgency of which is a companion revelation.

The impressive funeral of Edith Caviell bodies another voice of tho war. It is an answer to German frightfuluess, showing how a great nation honours its illustrious dead. Ignominious sentences of ferocious courtmartials leave no stain on their honour; tho heroism of their death marches down the avenues of history side by side with tho magnificent courage of the soldiery; the gratitude of the people keeps alivo for ever their service and their sacrifice. This heroine had offended against the military law, but there was no need fqr the extreme penalty, as the barbarians admitted by tho base concealment of their murderous intention. Besides its needlessness, the barbarism of the punishment was useless, for the work of helping the men of the Allies to get to the sphere of service went on regardless. And now tho end of tho war is followed by this dignified expression of the nation’s grief, with solemn appreciation of the nation’s gratitude. To the nation which shouted applause over the awful .Lusitania holocaust, with .the help of a special medal consecrated to ■barbarism, this lesson of the great Nineral is the severest possible reproach. If there is a spark of humanitarian honour in tho German people, that reproach must kindle the Gorman conscience.

That there is a German conscience,, the outspokenness now reported ot the sanor Gorman opinions regarding the Peace terms is an encouraging proof. First the voice ot 'the eminent pacifist Harden was raised, denouncing the methods of itaiserdom for deadening the public conscience. The reports now arfiving v show that this voice is not crying alone in a wilderness of senseless barbarism. Its protest against the perpetuation by the Republic of the methods of K-ai-serdom is being joined by other voices. The burden ot their protest is that Germany is awarded a punishment tinged with mercy; that the decision of the Allies is vastly different to the

treatment intended in the hour of expected victory for the vanquished Allies; that the men who, in their treaties enforced on Russia and Roumania aimed at taking not only the territories of their beaten enemies, but their very life blood, have no right to protest against the severe nut far better treatment meted out to them. These protests are the call of the bettor instincts of Germany to their leaders to accept defeat in the proper spirit, and go on with the work of repairing the damage wantonly done to other nations, and restoring their own industrial life wantonly gambled away to destruction by aggressive, insolent X’russianisra.

They go further. In this awful crisis of the nation’s fato the leaders have threatened to throw their people 'into the chaos of anarchy rather than suffer any loss to their prestige. The protest is a rebuke to such reckless selfishness, and denunciation of the insult offered to the German people by the implication that they are neither willing nor able to resist the tempest of anarchy offered at the moment when they have sternly repressed the anarchic forces assembled in alliance with the greatest and most unprincipled menace ever raised against civilisation. It is possible now to realise tho hollowness of the appeal to anarchy of the Prussian leaders. It is not tile signing of the Peace of Paris which will wreck the German Government. It is tho appeal to anarchy which will sign the death warrant of all who make it. Ihe peace, it is possible to believe, will now be signed.

Lord Jellicoe contributes another voice from the war. He declares practically that the German campaign of piracy ought to have won the war. In tho right hands, in the hands of men of the British stamp, the men of initiative, daring and resource, not n British merchantman would have escaped the U-boat attacks. It was, as a matter of fact, the Admiral declares, a task ridiculously easy to the right : men. Fortunately it was in the hands of the wrong men. Tho enemy did the right thing tactically, but they spoilt it in the doing. It is rather , uncomplimentary to the men who put down this piracy, to undervalue their opponents. If the Admiral, who did not annihilate the enemy in the battle of Jutland, is right, the war has really proved the ascendancy' of the submarine in naval war. But the general opinion of experts, not of lay observers, is ttiat the war has proved the absolute contrary. And all tho_ talk all the naval circles of maritime nations is that the battleship and the # battlecruiser are paramount, and their verdict is‘backed by all the naval programmes.