WHAT DID NOT HAPPEN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 27, 18 September 1914, Page 4

WHAT DID NOT HAPPEN.

On Tuesday last a writer in the Christchurch “Press” remarked that one of the saddest and yefc most ironical reUnits of the war was the cancelling ■of the twenty-first International Peace (Congress, which was to have been opened in Vienna that day, and to have continued until Saturday next, i The news of the cancellation was printed on July 30th, and caused, we are told, deep consternation amongst the peace advocates. The peace societies had spent £IOOO in preparing for the gathering, and this money is all lost. As the New York “Sun” points out, the history of the abandoned Congress is full of irony. The “Press” goes o; to say: The honorary chairman was tc have been, of all persons. Count Berchtold,' the Austrian Prime Minister .The principal object of the Congress (was the interesting of the Slavs in tlu peace movement! A good many prominent Americans had gone to Europ in preparation for the gathering, am one can only hope that they were spar ed the last misfortune of being detain ed in Europe by the war. That would have been a ghastly stroke of irony. But there is a serious side to the matter. Had the Emperor of Germany found it convenient to postpone his long-planned blow to France and Russia, the Peace Congress would hava opened to-day. The absurdity of the naval and military preparations of tlu. Powers would have been, flemohstratetl 1 the fears of those who distrusted Germany would hqve been proved base . less—the honorary chairman could have borne emphatic testimony to the pas si on for peace animating his country’;ally and her Kaiser. The pacifist Pres; in Britain would have pushed its cam paign against (Hie Big Navy policy with renewed vigour. The Gorraai Press Bureau would have taken tin fullest advantage of British simplicity to represent Germany as Britain’s and the world’s good friend. In due course perhaps, the poison would have work ed. It is easy to understand that the Kaiser has been a friend of the Peace Congress idea.