The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1917 THE LATEST PEACE LIE.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 19 September 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1917 THE LATEST PEACE LIE.

(With which is incorporated The Taihapo Post and Waimarino News),

Just over three years ago Germany strained every thing diplomatic in her desire for a war for which her preparations o£ years had reached her conception of the acme of perfection. We were told by a German writer that the minute Avar was declared men commenced to pour through the military departments going in at one end as civilians and teeming out at the other in millions fully equipped and armed units of the much vaunted German war machine ”Der Tag,” the long awaited, the earnestcdly -worked for and anxiously expected had come and the goose-step march through Belgium from Berlin £o Paris was joyfully and enthusiastically entered upon by the German Kaiser and his glorious troops, the invincible armies that were to similarly march over the whole civilised world. Where is the glory and enthusiasm today? Germany has had her “Der Tag” as most dogs arc reputed to have it, and like most whipped curs she is whining for peace and howling for mercy. Her peace howls are heard wherever there is an ear to listen, whether it be civil, military or religious, but she has had her day and peace refuses to come until the military machine that sought it has been completely destroyed. In the aftermath of her “Dcr Tag” she is writhing in natinoal agonies, biting wildly all round, dissociating every kind or well-intentioned international thought from her. Where are the boasts of her Allies? They now have their own, and a truer exegesis of her primal motives and * they no longer accept Germany at her own valuation. They have become fully conscious that Germany has used them for her own purposes; whore is now the hopeful voice of Turkey, the threats of Austria and has become of big Bulgaria’s cowardly bully, Ferdinand? All the old Teutonic vehemence, optimism, and wave of enthusiasm that spread from Berlin to Bagdad are broken on the rocks of failure, there is no hope, even, of victory heard anywhere. Turkey and Austria are searching for crevices in the steel Avails through which they might creep, and find ione; Bulgaria is lying low waiting and

hoping for something to happen whereby her bullying life may be spared. This constitutes a little of the difference between 'August and September of 1914, and the same months of this year; then it was the flouting of everything honourable and dishonourable for war, now it is the practice of everything putrid, treacherous, and contemptible in an endeavour to find peace. Germany is in mortal fear that her Allies will ac«ept an unconditional peace from the Entente, and to prevent or delay such a probability, the miserable, soulless, Satanic schemers have invented the lie that Britain has stated peace terms that bristles with corruptruth in every word. The lie direct was given instantly by the British Prime Minister to this latest 'Hun fabrication, and as inhere it* not a country outside the Central Alliance that will believe one word of it, there can be no Question about its real intention. It is another straw, another forelorn hope to which famished and beaten Austrians, Turks and Bulgars may cling while Germany walks over them in search of a way out. To the Allies the lie is too transparent; is it probable that when the Allies have just reached the zenith of the power they for three years have been striving to attain, they will, in the prime of their martial manhood, crawl to a whipped, dejected, famished enemy craving for peace? If Germany can, by her lying and scheming put some hope into her Allies the war will go on into) 1918, if she fails she will probably decide that there is more to be lost than gained by subjecting the country to the strain of another winter campaign. In any case she is fighting, not wtih the remotest hope of winning the war, but to secure a peace that will save the wreck of her military machine and Kaiserism In war, as in law, the loser is mulcted in costs, and Germany is now fighting to avoid the natural, lawful fruits of her folly. Britain and her Allies dare not accept such a peace; war has impoverished the world, and an inconclusive peace would mean that in face of this poverty the greater part of taxation would have to be spent on warship.building, and on conscripting, trainin, and equipping millions of soldiers, in readiness for the next spring of the Attilan brute. President Wilson has clearly announced the Allies’ peace terms, and they only commence with the absolute and entire destruction of Germany’s present form of Government. The military machine is to go for ever; there is to be no military skeleton in our cupboards, and when they have been removed then discussions of peace become possible, and not until.