The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, MAY, 18, 1917. BETHMANN HOLLWEG’S PEACE ORATION.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 18 May 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, MAY, 18, 1917. BETHMANN HOLLWEG’S PEACE ORATION.

(With which is incorporated The Taihape Post and W r aimarino News),

Bethmann Hollweg has delivered bis long-promised and anxiously-awaited peace oration to the German Reichstag, and we are disappointed. Read and analyse as one will there is nothing in it which would remove it from the realm or rank of mere bluster and subterfuge. Hollweg did not know on what to base his utterance, and it is now evident that he has been waiting for something that did not eventuate, that would enable him to frame just one intelligible proposal on the subject all the world and particularly the peoples of the Central Alliance have been earnestly hoping for. He told members of the Reichstag that in the matter of peace Germany had no difference with the Allies, in other words, the Allies had at least made Germany understand that she had no voice in evolving terms of peace that had any prospect of being acceptable to all parties. lie similarly refused to state the German programme of conquest, saying it would be just about as serviceable as any terms of peace he might name. Hie only guiding line was an early and satisfactory conclusion of t war. Members of tnc .‘wicnstag gr.ngrv with Hollweg 'S oy .ter-likc att.tude, and they questioned and heckled him until he heatedly asked them whether they wanted to declare that their armies should fight no longer, leaving a clear, unobstructed field for the Allies to go to what extremes they pleased. Germany was arrayed around the Kaiser, the people trusted him and he trusted the people. That wo only re-

garci as claptrap. Whenever do we hoar of the Falser having a say in anything in these later war days? The All-Highest’s name has fallen out of the war just as much as vou Emmich’s and von Gluck’s; he might be deposed or even dead for all the influence hisname or person has in the conduct of German a flairs to-day. We never hear of nis rushing to this front or that to celebrate glorious victories or to call down God stealings on his enemies; his

methods ox winning the war were played out and scrapped long ago, and the glory has passed on to Hindenburg. The Grown ITince is forgotten even by m.vi.y wuo read so much of him up till cue verdun fiasco. To# call in the > name of the ivuiser now is a distinct Sign of weakness. Goes Hollweg’s lengthy play upon words give any in-. Liiciuiou ox v»nat he really believes uoout the war? On the subject of peace no clung to ids December views; regarding uiC future of the war ho said, I • • Perhaps Germany's military position I is us good now as ever it had been.” ( ivrhups it is! Does he mean that Ger--1 many has discovered that her leaders were mistaken and that they have discovered that they never did have a chance of subduing the world, and that their future is now at the dictation of the Allies? He leaves it quite open to infer that is what is in his mind. The supporting words of his “ Perhaps” contention arc without significance and have little meaning but to confuse and involve. His best argument in support of the “Perhaps” idea is that Germany’s enemies in the West nave nut been able to pierce their . i.oai, but that contention is not even a re spec cable on e seeing that the effort at cut a way through tne German line uus only recently commenced. We might say with much more truth that 1.1 . iiv throe years of German cf..orl to reach furls the ead was a

misei-auio and utter failure. Holhvog A uov.s to-day that the German line has not ueen pierced, and ho also knows liiiit the piercing process Is so far advanced and so near accomplishment auic to-morrow he may have another laic to tell. Where arc now the All-i-iighest, the ' Crown Prince, and all the pompous preparations for a triumphant march into Paris They are forgotten as surely as though they had never been subject of fact, and the members, of the Reichstag are clamouring for a republic- things must happen in Germany as they have happened in Russia. What member dare utter such lose majestic in earlier, war days? Hollweg was told that he and his party have caused Germany to be regarded by vhe world as a nation of,robbers and a gang of thieves. Tht Chancellor says he is entitled to believe "that Germany is approaching a successful termination of the war," but he is told by a member that his words are not convincing; that Germany had no certain war aims at the present time; the Government itself was not convinced that the people were determined to continue the war even Another member stated Germany had started to conquer the world, thousands had been slaughtered against the people’s will, and he was pointedly told that the war party’s object could not be gained by throttling other nations. Hollwcg felt the lash administered by the people and realised his helplessness to punish his opponents. He and his Government were threatened with revolution and the only reply he was potent to make was, "I won’t be diverted from my path by any threat of revolution.” We have no hesitation in saying that the German Chancellor’s speech is the weakest from him that lias ever been reported., German newspapers had long led the people to expect bread and Hollwcg has given them a stone. His reference to a separate peace with Russia has noticing detrimentally ominous about it, for the Allies, because it is too well understood that if Germany could have effected a separate peace with any enemy it would have been accomplished before anything was said about it. Hollwog knows that his words were promptrot being able to engineer a separate peace, and that they are an insult to od by disappointment and chagrin at the Russian people, lie infers that he holds Russia in liis hand and that lie had no doubt that an agreement could be made for a separate peace at his will. Hollwcg has lost every vestige of his old time boast, and view his last utterance as we will it is nothing more than a misleading whine from a man who realises that he is beaten. Ho that we may become fully impressed with the import of the German Chancellor’s latest great and long-looked-for utterance let e.s imagine such a speech being made in the li-'n House of Commons by Mr. Lloyd George. It would lie so regorb 1 ’ statement of Britain's weak ' impotence : ■;■ y bars cf r ' " • ‘ v.-onhl in;TA uv;cn the Wwt -pw .1 Vn-tf rms bcill - G eyoH’ert at once to b ’..‘ ' / mi* dcc>u action human lit ■ > ■ ' ’ Hinlb w-g- s speech of bnort tie : 1-fxojc r,;- v.-i: it b ■ -o and a If yeara ago.