The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1917. THE RUSSIAN PEACE PERIL.

Taihape Daily Times, 1 December 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1917. THE RUSSIAN PEACE PERIL.

(With which is incorporated The Taihape Post and Waimarino News).

The one possible dangerous result Of the Russian revolution the Allies sought to avoid now seems imminent. In the name of democracy derman spies and emissaries have engineered a section of Russian Socialists with the ielp of German money, into action, converting the peaceful revolution into one of the bloodiest and most horrifying that can befal a semi/barbarous people. There is no limit in all that is opposed to honour and morality to which the class of men now in control will not go; they are in spirit, in nature, and many of them in fact truly German, and to expect anything beyond what j§ horrifyingly frightful and treacherous from them is to lower our guard and take a seat in a fool's paradise. The men now controlling a great part of Russia are not honest in their desire for peace; they are not Socialists; they are not trying to bring about universal peace and to end the possibility of war; their one object above all others is to assist Germany to win this war and secure a peace that will leave an open sesame to the hegemony of the world at a near future date. The men in Russia who want peace, and future concord of nations are on the side of the Allies, they know that is the condition above all others that the Allies are fighting for. While the people of Russia are adjusting their thoughts the nation is dangerously verging on disruption, if not extinction. Although a cable from New York states that Government officials in the United States do not believe the Allies will take up a hostile attitude to what the Bolshevik sections of Socialism a?.u doing, we have also to remember that Britain has said that if Russia enters into a separate peace with Germany it would be difficult to regard her as a neutral moreover, the Russians would bring upon themselves the most serious consequences. In forming an opinion of what the consequences are we have nothing to guide us, except, perhaps, what comes to us in a negative way from Lenin and Trotsky, Lenin said that if Japanese armies come into Russia Germany will send an ar-

my against them. Lealix's statement

not only admits the possibility of a \ Japanese army crossing into Europe, but also as well, the probability Ot-it The Paris Conference will endeavour to consolidate the elements in Russia opposed to the Bolsheviks, and constant communication is being kept Up with the army leaders, including generals Kaledin and Dokhoun, in order to off-set the peace moves; but the Allies need something more than a temporary balancing- of peace accounts, and unless they can give the tip to the scales in Allied favour there is always the menace of the Bolsheviks with German assistance being able to do so. The stake has momentous possibilities; there are a million Germans on the Russian front with artillery and full equipment for such an army that may be released and set to oppose British and French on the West front. The opinion expressed by some British military men that peace will not come for another two j years indicates that they believe the worst will happen in Russia. Not only will the Austro-German armies on the East front be released but there are one and three-quarter millions of Austro-German prisoners in Russia that will be set for we may rest assured that Germany will insist upon the freedom of prisoners being one iof the peace conditions, thus giving Germany an advantage of another two million trained men for disposition on the West and Italian fronts. An effective set-off to the separate peace party may delay the calamitous looking peace consummation until preparations are forward enough to present it. To release these prisoners would be an act of hostility to the "Allies. If Russia is honest in her desire for peaceful neutrality prisoners should be held in internment as they would be in all other neutral countries, but the Bolsheviks are, obviously, not out for the honest purpose of bringing peace to Russia ? and, therefore, the attitude of the Allies must be that indicated by the British Government in stating that Russia would bring upon herself very serious consequences. At present, we cannot deny that the consequences of a pro-German separate peace are looming up with disaster for the Allies. We know that on all fronts wc are wanting men; General Allenby must have reinforcements of men and guns before he can take a step nearer Jerusalem. No doubt the required men and guns for Allenby will be sent, although nobody here has the slightest conception of where they will come from. In Mesopotamia Britain has decided that there is nothing to be/ gained just now,, by expeditions far removed from the base at B'agdad, to where communications would be extremely difficult, and would involve the use of a great number of armed men. We have yet to learn what great purpose the Salonican armies are destined for; Italy is safe from further invasionn, and Allied strength on that front makes comprehensive attack on the whole enemy position sure in the very near future. The Russian peace menace is pregnant, with very serious consequences for the Allies but even on the slender evidence of the possibility of Japanese intervention, we are of opinion that if Japanese assistance is needed as an off-set, or to tip the scale in Allied favour in Russia, it will be utilised. Japan has as much to lose as any other of the Allies by a peace favourable to Germany, and being a trading and manufacturing nation she has as much to gain as any of the Allies in securing freedom from German domination of world trade and of the seas. Then why should her armies not help to fight for the common good? Why should Britain France and Italy go on sacrificing their blood and treasure to depletion and beggary for Japanese freedom, while Japan's millions of soldiers are not striking a blow, or sacrificing a life? Lenin's threat that Germany would send an army into Russia to fight any Japanese army thrown into the conflict is strong evidence that Lenin knows there are large Japanese concentrations ready and waiting for the order to march somewhere. If not to Russia, where?