THE Pukekohe and Waiuku Times PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 1916 THE PRESIDENT AND PEACE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 187, 30 June 1916, Page 2

THE Pukekohe and Waiuku Times PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS.

FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 1916 THE PRESIDENT AND PEACE.

"We nothing extenuate, nor set down auahl in malice. 1 '

The approach of the election for the Presidency of the United States lias evidently inspired the President (Mr Wilson) with the idea that it is

necessary to cast about for some way in which he can re-instate himself in the very evidently waning esteem in which lie is held by his countrymen. He has apparently come to the conclusion that if he could succeed in

making peace, or even in associating himself with the arrangement of terms of peace, he will be able to present himself for re-election with far better prospects of success. Unfortunately for Mr Wilson he has not suilicient time to work this astute political dodge. The election is too near, and the end of the war i 3

yet too far. Germany is not yet humbled and weakened sultieiently to enable him to oll'er on her behalf the only terms we are likely to accept, and any attempt to approach the Allies with less is only likely to expose him to an unpleasant snub that will do anything but increase his prestige among his fellowcitizens.

The United States has been put in a most ignoble position by its President, and we cannot but feel sympathy with all the best and wisest of its people, who evidently feel it acutely. Although a signatory to the Convention guaranteeing the independence of Belgium, his government permitted that inoffensive neutral country to be over-run by the Hunuish hordes, its citizens murdered, and its towns destroyed, without even a protest. Over and over again Mr Wilson has announced that his country had no concern with tho causes or the objects of the war. liis timid remonstrances to Germany upon the torpedoing of unwarned merchant ships in comparison with his blusters to the British Government about the blockade that kept American cargoes from German ports, earned him from one of his own people tho bitter retort that in his eyes a few pounds of Chicago pork wore worth more than American lives. And it will take his country a generation to livo down his uufor-

tuuate declaration that America was too proud to tight. But however contemptuous our estimate of the character of the mam we must not forget that wo owe a debt to the ollicial, though wo may bo forgiven for doubting if he had any desire to befriend us. Had the head of tho United States Government been a man of courage and decision, loving the honour of his own groat country and hating tho cruel wrong inflicted upon unoffending peoples, America would have broken oil relations with Germany at a very early stage, and from that point to actual lighting Mould not have been far to go. For, as Mr Roosevelt remarked a year ago, "Then 1 are occasions on which a sell-respecting country will at tho dropping ot a hat." But what could have been more embarassing for the Allies than to have had Ann'iii a in luallv engaged as a belligerent; I f ci material help uithei on laud oi sea could have been

but small, and we should have lost ' what was lor many months an absolutely indispensable source of munitions of war. For, once involved, her own defenceless state would have absorbed the utmost limit of her resources to remedy it. Let us then be grateful to Mr Wilson for playing our game for us so thoroughly, however unwittingly and unintentionally, but do not let I our gratitude blind our eyes to the I fact that even little Montenegro has [ earned and will obtain a hundred i times moro voice in the settling of i peace terms than Amorica either deßorves or will get.