HOPE IN THE PACIFIST MOVEMENTS.

Taihape Daily Times, 26 October 1917, Page 2

HOPE IN THE PACIFIST MOVEMENTS.

PROSPECTS OF BIG PEACE. OFFENSIVE. LONDON, August 16. It is not the military situation and it is not the naval situation of even the submarines, which give an occasion for uneasiness. Ask any soldier or sailor you meet what he thinks of the outlook and his review is always reassuring until he begins to dwell on the political situation at home. Unquestionably the squabblings and bickerings of the politicians are a real source of weakness to the Allied cause. From, the /terrace /of the House |of Commons on still nights you can distinctly hear the booming of the guns on the Belgian coast. But even this reminder that "there is a war on" seems without effect on the M.P.'s..

The Germans, at least, are very much alive to all that is going on in the House of Commons. The rupture between the Government and labour over the Stockholm, Conference has caused the Central Empires to take a much more cheerful view of the general position than they were inclined even to do a few weeks ago. They believe that the proceedings in the British Parliament reflect a steady growth of the pacifist movement in Great Britain. This is precisely the atmosphere which, for a long time past, they have been seking to create. Skilful efforts are being made to encourage this movement of public opinion by creating the impression that in Germany itself democracy is coming by its own. That Germany would seek to take advantage of any signs of a peace movement in England to launch a new peace offensive of her own was more or less taken for granted. There is a disposition, however, to attribute the Pope's intervention to Austrian rather than to German influence. The relations between the Vatican and the Austrian Court have" always been very close, and no one who knows anything about the internal condition of Austria at the close-of the third and beginning of the fourth year of the war

J doubts that the Popo 's intervention will be cordially in Vienna. There is reason to believe that for some time past the Austrian Government has been exercising pressure on Berlin to induce Germany to submit peace proposals of a kind likely to prove acceptable to the Allies. Up to the present £ier representations have proved unavailing. Nevertheless, if the situation in Austria really grows as desperate as private advices recently received ifi London suggest, Germany is facet! with the possibility of her most considerable ally concluding a separate peace. In that case even Berlin might be inclined the welcome tJ ■ plausible pretext afforded by the overtures. It has been expected for a long time past that a new peace "offensive" would be started in the autumn and it would be quite characteristic of German diplomacy to induce the Vatican to pick the coals out of the fire on her ,behalf. The developments which may be expected to follow from the peace move of the Vatican are developments which will need to be very closely watched .