The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. FRIDAY APRIL 13, 1917 AMERICA AND THE WAR.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 266, 13 April 1917, Page 2

The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS.

FRIDAY APRIL 13, 1917 AMERICA AND THE WAR.

"We nothing extenuate, nor - let down auoht in malice

The extraordinary eulogiuui of President Wilson'* speech made by Mr. Lloyd George will cause a good many people to wonder whether we shali ever again hear the accents of candour and sincerity from a democratic politician. The Prime Minister of Great Britain has been in his lime so downright and so outspoken in many of liis public utterances that he has usually been listened to with attention even by those who had least reason to agiee with his politics, and he lias been* so ardent and patriotic in liis war-work that lie lias won universal admiration and respect equally from opponent and friends. Ii conies, therefore, somewhat as a shock to find that lie is,'aflei all, merely a politician, and we are once more given an exemplification of the truth of Tnllerand's famous aphorism that speech was given to men to enable theitt to conceal their thoughts. The Prime Minister has evidently been taking a leaf out of the book of Curran, the famous Trish advocate, who explained his wonderful success in gettiug admissions out of witnesses by saying—"First T butters 'cm up, and then I slavers 'em down."

More than a. year ago —to be exact, upon April Oth, 1916-Mr. Wilson sent a Note to Germany statin;? " that if Germany renews her relentless ami indiscriminate warfare against vessels of commerce by the use of submarines, the United Slates has but one course Io pursue, and that is to sever diplomatic relations with the German nation altogether." On April oth, 101T, Mr. Wilson signed I lie war resolution passed by both Houses of Congress, and from thai moment America and Germany were at war. As Mr. Lloyd George puts it, "Once thai conviction (i.e., that Germany was a menace to liberty and human right) was reached, the great Republic of i\u> West leapt into the arena." The plain facts of the matter are that the position as regards the German menace to liberty and human right are no different in 1917 to what they were in 191G or in 1915. Refer the end of 1914 the Kaisei i.id the German people had shown liiei,: selves in their true colours in Belgium and

northern Prance. Their actions left no doubt as to what they would do elsewhere if they ever attained to the world dominion to which they aspired, an aspiration which has been blasted for ever by the sturdy, serene and patient courage of England and France. There Was no necessity for Mr. Wilson to wait two and a half years—or two and a half months —to find out all about the Kaiser and the German people. We may plainly and bluntly aver that we do not for a moment believe that if the war had lusted a generation President Wilson and his Government would ever of their own free will have broken with Germany. They have been forced into it by all that is wisest and best of American public opinion, and by the haunting fear that at the end the States would be left out in the peace settlement and the trading treaties between the Allies that will be a sure corollary of Germany's defeat.

Let us own with gratitude that from the beginning we have had all the intelligent and judgmatical inhabitants of the States unflinchingly with us, and we congratulate them that at last they see their country emerging from the humiliating degradation the inaction of the President had kept it in. They have won a solid victory already for liberty and human right by forcing the hand of the President, and we are much mistaken if that knowledge does not spur them on to insist that America's part in the war shall be commensurate with America's greatness. For " the great Republic of the West leaps into the arena " among the millions of combatants locked in the deadliest struggle the stars in their courses have ever looked upon with—sooo men. Was there ever such bathos—such a pitiful anti-climax? But it is at all events a beginning, and we may safely trust to the Anglo-Saxon element which still wholesomely leavens the States to pump a few more red corpuscles into the blood of the aiuemic Mr. Wilson.