The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1916. THE GERMAN REICHSTAG.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 212, 16 October 1916, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1916. THE GERMAN REICHSTAG.

(With which is incorgiorated The Ta! bapu Post and Waimarino News.)

' In the German Reichstag on Friday a member declared that the people of Germany were tumbling over a precipice. Millions of them were now lookink to Socialists for a. gleam of peace. Our sufferings, said the speaker, are growing to inhuman proportions, and nowhere is there hope. Our dream of world domination will never be realised; we must save ,the people from the worst, and yet the man that dared to utter these words was not howled down, it is not recorded that any other member contradicted him, but the present meeting of the Reichstag is largely punctuated with sucn speeches. At the same sitting another member stated that Germany wanted peace-and was tired of being lured to destruction by new and brilliant promises. Germany was willing to evacuate France and B'elgium, and peace must be based on the principle that France, Belgium, and Germany retain their respective territories. In fact quite a number of such speeches have been made on the lines of the two quoted. Schiedemann says let us organise our defences with the endeavour to secure an honourable peace. An admission that there is little for Germany to hope for; there is no more bombast about brilliant victories and countries over-run; organisation of defence is urged so that a dishonourable peace may be averted. Peace, he realises, has to come, bringing with it either honour or dishonour. Discussions in the Reichstag disclose that German hope of victory has now no place in the German mind

if they disclose anything at all. Schiedemann’s words mean: Let us organise among neutrals, let us start peace campaigns in America and in \ Europe, and wherever else there is any prospect of bringing pressure to bear on the Allies to. compel them to stay their hand in the destruction of Germany. It is an admission that the time has passed when Germany can organise a successful offensive. What about that now operating against Roumania, it may be asked, but great military writers and strategists have already pointed out that any great effort against Roumania in the corner made by the Carpathians and the Transylvanian Alps would be a speculation attended with such extreme risk that only desperation approaching madness, combined with a consuming desire to wreak vengeance could lure them on. It is stated that German concentration in that quarter is little short of inviting disaster. By some it has been asserted that getting the Ger mans into that corner is the successful working out of Allied strategy. Even the most uninitiated will lock upon it with wonder. They see the Roumanians still pursuing a successful offensive directly to the Avestward, while the Russians have possession of Carpathian passes in their rear, to the northward, and they naturally conclude that Germany considers herself able to deal with these communication threatening armies while her own devastate Roumania. To-day some intelligence may come to hand that will render the position in this quarter less obscure. If Germany has the slightest success we shall be sure to know, be- , cause making the most of anything of the kind is a vital part of the scheme to secure an honourable peace. But then a speaker in the Reichstag, quoted above, said: “Sufferings are growing to inhuman proportions, and nowhere is there hope; we must save the people.” The last ray of German hope has gone, “We must save the people.” That means, if the conflict is prolonged German territory will be invaded and German homes will, necessarily, meet with similar destruction to those in Hun over-run countries. Germans fear the retribution they have so overwhelmingly earned; they shrink from the thought of German homes being desecrated as they ha/ve been desecrated in France, Belgium, Poland, and Serbia, and they quake with dread like bullies and cowards from like sufferings they showered on others with inhuman profligacy. Germans are willing to evacuate conquered territory if, they are allowed to retain their own. The fact is that peace might now be arranged at any time on lines plainly stated and undenied the Reichstag, Germany is supremely anxious for such a peace, anything that does not involve an invasion r Germany. This view is not repudiated by the Kaiser and his brother war lords, because they know there is r. great political aspect. They realise that an invasion of Germany endangers an uprising against the powers that are responsible, which may end the reign of the Hohenzollerns. The Allies are increasing their striking power to the greatest possible extreme, despite the assurances of fcr. Lloyd George, Secretary for War, that the tide has turned and that victory is assured, because any recrudesence of a German successful offensive would be almost certain to evoke a peace campaign that would be disastrous to the world’s best interests. The beginning of the end has commenced, or is commencing, and the heavier the hand the Allies can hold over Germany the sooner will a peacr satisfactory to the Allies be won. Germans are not now T fighting to save Germany, but to save the Hohenzollerns.