GERMANY'S DARK FUTURE.

Taihape Daily Times, 4 December 1917, Page 5

GERMANY'S DARK FUTURE.

LORD ROBERT CECIL'S PROPHECY. In the course of an interview with reference to President Wilson's reply to the Papal Peace Note, Lord Robert Cecil, in an interview issued by Router, said:'—"There does not appear to me to be anything inconsistent between the President's Note and the economic policy of the Allies as declared at the Paris Conference. The resolutions of the Paris Conference were purely defensive measures, and in no way aggressive. They had in view the necessity for restoring the economic life of the Allies after the war. and protecting ourselves against any aggressive and militarist commercial policy which might be pursued by our enemies after the war; and the Ger- ; man schemes for driving their allies into a Central European Commercial block show that such a policy is a real danger. We do not, indeed, hold that , in this struggle, economic considerations are as vital as purely military or naval measures. We have to maintain 'ana' foster the economic strength of those who are fighting the Central Powers, quite as much as Ave have to organise our armies and our navies_ We believe also that we are right in attacking the economic strength of our enemies"" with eve¥y legitimate weapon at duf command. That is why we rejoice at the vigorous policy which the United States are pursuing with regard to expci\s and other matters. Depend upon it, there is no more potent weapon with which to bring home to Germany the folly and wickerdness of her militarist leaders than to show her that war" does not pay, even in the strictest commercial sense. Hardly a week passes wtihout some indication that even those nations which still remain neutral are getting to the end of their patience. It is scarcely extravagant to say that, if the war goes on many months longer, the Central Powers will find literally the whole of the world arrayed in arms agaifisT them. That shows that, in the modern world, military force is not everything, and that even if the German armies were really as successful and invincible as the Kaiser and his generals boast, the future of Germany would still be increasingly dark. It may that a League of Nations,, properly furnished with machinery to enforce the financial, isolation of a nation determined to force its will upon the world by mere violence," would be a real safeguard for the peace of the world."