PEACE TALKERS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 144, 11 February 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

PEACE TALKERS.

(From London "Daily Mad.') Already the. Germans are crying * Peace, peace V in feverish accents. Each new effort on the west front or on the east, we are told, will i;esult surely m a separate treaty. There are strange rumours of mediation.- Now it is the Pope who is en•«a"ed in the fruitless quest, now it is ' Mr. Wilson. There are vague reports .of comings and goings In Holland and Switzerland. Even Herr Maximilian Harden, the one writer in Germany who at the outset had the candour to proclaim that the war was Germany s war, is in favour of peace. He declares that neither side knows why it -is fighting, and computes the value of three months' fighting saved as equal to a vast indemnity. When Herr Harden says that neither side knows what it is fighting .about he telLs a half-truth. Germany, I can well believe, wonJers and is in doubt. She began the war, which is her war, at her own •time and on her own terms. She will .finish it on ours. The reason why she declared war -wantonly upon a large part of Europe .is clear enough; she aimed at universal dominion. She failed to reach her goal when her attack upon Pans was broken; and never again will she come within measurable distance of it. In •vain does she transport her troops from -east to west, and then eastwards again in a tired, melancholy procession. In vain does she distribute her forces in ..new fields and over fresh countries. That which she hoped to achieve she can never achieve, and Herr Harden is right when he insists tl at Germany not know what she is fighting for. He is very wrong indeed when he charges'the Allies with a like ignorance. We are not, we never were for ia moment, in doubt. Our duty lies plainly before Vs, and we accept its burden with a light heart because we -■understand very clearly what would be 'the payment of defeat. When Germany a year ago began her carefully -organised attack,- f-he boldly declared -that she meant to enforce her civilisation upon a humbled world. Now there Is one thing which no country will ever -accept until she is broken to the dust, and that is another's civilisation. It •was plain, then, from the beginning that we were fighting for the right to live and to think as we chocse, and -though Germany cannot succeed in the which she prepared for fifty years, we know the cause for which we are 'fighting: we know also that, if we do not crush Germany before tho' terms -*of peace are signed, she will begin her preparations aHew, and recreate her wild ambition to conquer the world. SANCTITY OF THE BATTLEFIELD. . And ever since the war began Germany lias showed us in a series of dastardly outrages precisely what the boasted civilisation which she would .have forced upon others at the sword's point amounts to. She has openly pro--claimed her contempt for the most ■ sacred treaties; she has broken in p : eces the whole body of international law; she has marked her advance across Ehrope by rape and murder; a hundred sanctuaries of learning and theology, outraged in heartless brutality, bear witness to the savagery of our ■foes; the murder of non-combatants, wen and women alike, calls for the vengeance which sha'l be meted out to it.

With the men who have done these things we cannot make terms. As little may we sit down and discuss the basis of a future understanding with the representatives of a people which, wherever it has gone and worked during the last half-century, has done its utmost to lie, defame, and embroil. War was once a trial of skill and strength. The Germans have added to its weapons the tools of the forger, the dynamiter, and Jhe assassin. So little suspicious were we a year ago that we would not have believed the stolid, over-disciplined German capable of the unnumbered crimes which ho has committed not only in the held but in every neutral country where he has been permitted to sojourn. We know liim better to-day as a desperate cracksman, for whom no crime is too base, if only it helps him to attain his •unworthy end, who with a knife at his belt and explosives in his pocket lurks in the by-ways of America that he may burn and murder.

The Allies, therefore, understand completely what they are fighting for. They are fighting not rnly for their life and freedom but to restore to the world law and the comity of *ations. If Germany were to win, or to exjet from us an inconclusive peace, we should accept her view of warfare, we should bow our knee to the vile god of cynical brutality which she and her Kaiser have raised aloft. In other words, we are fighting also for the sanctity of the battlefield, that when •next men take up arms one against another Germany shall not be an example but a warning of terror. And if Herr Harden wishes for another cause of the Allies' obduracy, let hinv remember that Germany has from the very first exasperated all her adversaries. So long as she thought she wis going to win, exasperation was indeed the first article of her policy, and she •will presently learn to her cost that it is an ill business trying to make peace with an exasperated foe. FIGHT TO A FINISH.

Since the Allies are fighting for justice and clean conduct they can admit no compromise. With them it is and must be neck or nothing. You might honestly treat with an honourable opponent; you cannot cry quits with a malefactor. M. Pamleve put the case of his country the other day in the terms of eloquence- "France," said he, "will never yield. The principles for which she is fighting admit of no compromise or bargaining. You cannot compromise with right and justice. When you are the champion of such an ideal you must conquer or die, and our ideal is immortal." M. Painleve, in speaking for France, speaks for us all, and explains in language which cannot be misinterpreted why Heir Harden proves himself a sorry judge of our intelligence and our resolution when he hints that the Allies do not know why they are fighting. Indeed, we know, and the knowledge strengthens our arms and fortifies our hearts. We do not under-cstimate the stern task that lies ahead of us. We are faced by a ruthless, implacable foe. But we are un'ted in aim and purpose, and since, as I have said, we fight for justice and freedom, we can never make peace except at our own time and in our own way. Nor need we shrink from the fatigues and hardships of the campaign. Not only are the Allies wholeheartedly loyal to one another, not only is the mere thought of a separate peace ridiculous, but Time, the staunches! ally of all. fights upon our side. We can afford to wait, as Germany cannot, for the right moment to deliver the final blow. Meanwhile the British Fleet, relentless and efficient, tightens its grasp upon our enemies Jind preserves, unconquerable, the sovereignty of the sea. So that Herr Harden may put away from him all hope of a speodv and undecided peace AVe shall fight to a fin-'ah. We shall not risk the chance of ultimate victory to save three months of war or twelve. Net until we have Germany humbled at. our feet shall we offer or cons : der i'ermsj of peace.

AX ENGLISHMAN.

Every Bulgar has a stake in the country. Even if he is only a peasant lie owns a small farm and knows no landlord.

The Danish salvage steamer Danmark, which has been working at Constantinople since the beginning of 1914, has been seized by the Turks with another Danish steamer, the Sally Mar-sk, with ;'. cargo of maize for the Danisn Co operative Grain Company.

The Siberian- who |n : n the Russian Armies are large'y u-ed as snipers. Their experience as hunters hns made thorn crack shots, and though they are not Inrn soldiers like tlio Cossacks, tlu>v are fine brave men.

French and Ita.han schoo's in Bulgaria, which had been closed, have been made State property, and are sued for the Bed Cross.

The Norwegian Government has prohibited the export of salt herrings, but an exception is made in certain cases on payment of Bs. per ton. the proceeds from which will bo devoted to supplying herrings at a nu'erate price to the poor.

"I lieliov* that one of the manv nob'o religions results of this war will he a- Christian unity snHi as England lias never witnessed before " Rev. Hinsdale T. Young, ex-president of t!:e Wesleyan Conference, at Leeds.