Important Advance on a Nine Mile Front

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 8 June 1917, Page 5

Important Advance on a Nine Mile Front

HISTORIC SPEECH BY FRENCH PREMIER

MESSINES CAPTURED NOTABLE SPEECH EY THE FRENCH PREMIEI • Eleven*German Maenines Brought Down in Recent Air Raid

FUTURE PEACE FORMULAS. | "NO ANNEXATIONS" DEFINED Beceived 9.30 a.m. PARIS, June 7. In the Senate M. Regismanset introduced an interpellation inviting M. Rifcot the Premier, to define the general policy of France. H e said the Senate was unanimously indignant when seven Frenchmen proposed to go to Stockholm to confer with Germans. It wished to share the Government's responsibilities, being unable to admit that Frenchmen should show the least sign of halting when the country was atill invaded. M. Ribot replied that the German Socialists from the first had been conscious they were the accomplices of Crimes against humanity. Even now they approved of the atrocities by their culpable silence. It was morally impossible for Frenchmen in the middle of the wan to confer with such enemies. Such confabulations in foreign towns would only create ideas of an illusory peace, that are dangerous. Never at any moment, especially iwhen the struggle is hardest, and because the end is approaching, can we MAve such an illusion in the public mind. The army of France requires all the strength, especially moral strength, as befits free men. We do not seek captious and equivocal formulas. W e rejected the trap laid in a seductive formula, which had not originated in Petrograd but was improted from elsewhere, the birthplace of which was only too obvious. The words "no annexations" cannot mean we have no right to demand what belongs to.us, namely, Alsace and Lorraine, Avhich never ceased to be French at heart since the abominable act which violated justice and right in 1871.

But what is meant by "no indemnities"? If it is a question of humbling the conquered we will have nothing to do with it. No French Government could renounce reparation for damages and atrocities after the unprecedented devastations of our territory. It is not an arbitrary act but an act of justice which is our aim. We are convinced we will find these ideas reflected in President Wilson's Note to Petrograd. We are thus in complete agreement • with the conscience of the civilised world. The resolution was adopted by the Chamber.

M. Eibot added: We must demand guarantees to safeguard our children from a return of such horrors. Shall we find them in territorial acquisitions or temporary occupations of territory or neutralisation of territory? All these questions will be considered when the time comes.

Our best guarantee will be the reformation of Europe wherein all nations "belong to themselves, where no single man can let loose such evils. If necessar}' the Germans should consent, for I believe in the power of the ideas of justice. All those who fought together to the end will find th»y need not be separated after victory. They must form a League of Peace in a time democratic spirit, which France had had the honour of introducing to the world. We nations in arms must form a society of nations wherein the future of humanity lies. 'All nations .which are not natiiWi of prr-y must unite to prevent frthers tiisturbing Peace BRITISH POLITICS. FRANCHISE PROPOSALS. LONDON, June 6. i»^ n e House of Commons, an in f avour of separatiag m ■ Proposals from tbe 2LI t 0 75 Pr ° PoSalS WaS ne S ative <* **