The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1917. A LORDLY CLIMB DOWN.

Taihape Daily Times, 3 December 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1917. A LORDLY CLIMB DOWN.

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

In this far away part of the Empire we arc inclined to accept the British Parliament’s conduct of the war without either comment or criticism. Now Zealand is sending tens of thousands of its young men and loading itself down with debt to secure a free Empire, and a home in accordance with the traditions of the race which Britons belong, but questions occasionally arise which tend to make people of these outlying portions of Empire wonder whether they understand aright the real intention of much of what is said and urged oy men on the highest rungs of the British administrative ladder. We been assured that the war aims of Briton included the complete defeat of Kaiserism with its attendant militarism, and it was with 'much concern we published a cable, last Thursday, giving the gist of a letter by Lord Lansdowne, sent to British newspapers, which seemed to urge a new statement of what Briton was fighting for. The inference was that England was war weary to giving in; that there was little chance left of winning the war to full of Briton’s war aims; or, that the cost of continuing the fight was too great for those who were now compelled to find the money. It was such a drastic modification of what wo wene understood to be fighting for as to amount to partial capitulation Lord Lansdowne’s letter insinuatingly commenced by urging “greater coordination of the Allies’ war aims.” As our aims are understood to be almost precisely similar to those of Atherica, France and Italy, what else arc we to co-ordinate with? Are we asked to bring our war aims into Fine with those of the Bolsheviks, Siam, Brazil, or Cuba, or by subtle reasoning are we asked to consent to an entirely new statement of our demands, and so open wide the door for a new crop of inter-Allied political wrangling? This noble Lord declared, “wc were not going to lose the war, but its pro longation would spell ruin to the civilised world.” Those of the British race who still place British blood in a higher category than money and possessions will ever regret that an Englishman uttered such words. We believe that Britons in all parts of the Empire are parting with their sons, not to save the hordes of millionaires, or

the unholy- profits of robbers, and extortioners, but to snatch the British Empire from the slavery from winch it stood in deadly real menace, pieserve it, and hand it on to Britons of the future as free from the taint of the slave-whip as they received it. These modern vultures would sell the glorious traditions of their race foi gold; modern Esau’s trading away a birthright that their forbears have spilled their blood for; but the time is fast coming when greed, like all othter vices, will "be checked. Greed has reached the heights of an infamy from which it must be brought down, or British birthright be sold to Germany, Lord Lansdowne now through British newspapers, says inter alia, that Britain and her 'Allies should go to Germany, and say, “we do not seek to impose on German people a form of government other than that of their ow r n choice; we do not desire to deny Germany a place among the great commercial communities; we are prepared to examine international problems including freedom of the seas; we are prepared to enter into a pact for international arbitration.-’ ’ A pact, forsooth, with Germany, the arch-scrapper of pacts and treaties, and this noble lord would have Britain enter into more pacts to be anything so long as it does not bring ruin to the civilised world. Eathcr sacrifice civilisation itself to German barbarity than risk ruin. If to save the pelf of British profiteers is all we have sacrificed our men for, far better had we not have fought, but that is not what the people are contending for. This noble lord’s letter is said to be the sensation of the hour; this miserable climb-down statement of British war aims is causing great consternation in Britain because it is feared it has an influential backing. It is feared that Lansdowno is merely the mouthpiece of millionaires and the huge property-owning British people w T ho fear ruin if the war continues. It is not the profligate sacrifice of British blood, l»t when it comes to the hoardings of British treasure the sacrifice is too great to risk in preserving the traditions of the race and to maintain freedom from German menace. Let these lordly profiteers once commence to whittle down the Allied minimum peace terms and the atmosphere of this earth will not be able to hold in suspension the volume of German boast of victory that will be launched into it. Are we to regard this whittling down of Britain’s war aims as a “yellow streak” in British blood, or is it a meeting of extremes, the profiteering nobility with the 1.W.W., cold-footed plunderers? For, no section of our Empire’s inhabitants will give such hearty support to the Lansdowno whittling of war aims as men of the 1.W.W., ilk. In addition to the influential backing in highest places, there will be the influential backing in the very lowest place’s; wdiat a coalition to handle the honour and destiny of the British Empire. Well may the United States threaten to entirely disregard Britain in the prosecution of the war, if she does not mend her-ways. Britain is accused of wasting blood and treasure by the acts of interested and incapable people, and America will have none of it. There is to be no political engineering by interested individuals while the life-blood of the world oozes away, and if Britain will not conduct the war, on these lines then the United States will go to work alone an in her own way. Only last July Lord Eobert Cecil stated in the House of Commons that to treat with the German Emperor would be ludicrous, apart from want of dignity, and ho stated, “We of the Allies arc determined not to accept a peace that will be no peace. It must be a peace just and durable. He favoured a league of nations, but before there can be, in the most sanguine mind, the slightest expectation of its success we must establish a sound, just and equitable peace.” Any peace that gives to Germany freedom of the Pacific to re-establish territories, there will not be acceptable to Australasia or Japan, nor would such a peace be anything but a distinct victory for Germany. We believe and hope that the people of Great Britain, and of Britain’s Allies in the War, will give Lord Lansdowno’s modification of the Allies’ minimum peace terms the shortest of shrifts.