The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1915 WHEN PEACE COMES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 33, 10 February 1915, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1915 WHEN PEACE COMES.

An article in the New Century Magazine, supposedly written by an English Privy Councillor, assumes not only the defeat but the destruction of the German military power, and either an entry of the Alljed troops into Berlin or a situation in which, through the fall of Germany’s great western and eastern frontiers and commercial centres, a surrender will l)e forced upon her. He sketches the terms of peace which will be offered to a beaten Germany, opining that she will lose Alsace-Lorraine to France, Schleswig-Holstein to Denmark, Prussian Poland to Russia. Austria will practically be relieved of the greater part of her Slav territories. Serbia will get Bosnia-Her-zegovina; Russia Southern Galicia; Roumania Transylvania. Russia is also to have the right to Constantinople, if she wants it. The German colonies wo shall not be well advised to take with the exception of Togoland; but they are to be divided between France and the Allies. Belgium is, of course, to have full compensation, and the indemnities will be limited only by the danger of impoverishing the debtor. A sweeping reduction of Germany’s military and naval armaments will be called for, and will bo answered by a corresponding diminution in the armaments of other Powers. Mr H. W. Masaingham, in the London Daily News, discusses this programme and says that while he and everybody must hope that Germany’s military disaster will lie a crushing one, lie is inclined to think that factors in the victory of the Allies must bo economic as well as military. He considers that while it is obvious that some of the proposals above outlined will be realised, of others we may be more doubtful. The writer in the Century contemplates a sweeping change in the German State. Either a new and presumably monarchical confederation will lie sot up, or a Republic will be set up after a revolution. J he Hohenzollerns will be a discredited and hated house, and their downfall must swiftly follow the breakdown of the military power which built them up. Mr Massingham further says that “'t is important to remember that in desiring changes in Germany we desire them because wo believe them to bo as good for her as lor ourselves, not merely with the idea ol blotting her out of the map of Europe. For if this ho the spirit of our policy it is likely to defeat itself. A ‘crushed’ Germany might very well come to the conclusion that, bad as the Prussian hegemony of the Confederation had been, it was the only (dement in the Slate that was likely to set her on her feet again. ft is therefore obvious tliat the best possible solution of the Gorman as of every great national problem would bo for Germany to effect her liberation for herself.” After discussing some other aspects, Mr Massingham finally concludes: ‘‘There is another consideration. The end of a war in which

Germany is derisively beaten, and as the result of which she changes her form of government, must lie the dissolution of the system of alliances. It will no longer he necessary for England, France, and Russia to bind themselves to resist the forces which have dissolved, and cannot come together again in strength for many a decade. Necessarily, therefore, there must be a change of policy. Some form of a Conceit will not only lie desirable; it will automatically spring into being. And then it will bo possible to devise, as all forms of Government devise, for the new entity means of self-protection, self-regula-tion, self-help. The danger no doubt will he that the now organ will be Loo conservative. Concerts always partake of this character. .Hut if it starts on a basis of liberty, as well as of a certain political equality between its various members, the chances are that it will not prove an instrument of reaction. All this may he said to he castle-building in the air until the graver realities of war- , fare have resolved themselves into a decisive issue. But events move quickly; and it is a serious matter that those who have given their adherence to this war because they believed that European State-liberty was at stake in it, should not find themselves iu a state of total unpreparedness when the end Is upon them. This, if all goes well with the Russian cam--1 paign, may be rather sooner than we expected. Every material effort must still ho made to secure complete and crushing success in the field. But not there alone is the battle to ho won, Spiritual as well as material forces have to be met and conquered and not all of them reside on the hanks of the, Rhine.”