The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1918. THE GERMAN PEACE DELEGATION.

Taihape Daily Times, 8 November 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1918. THE GERMAN PEACE DELEGATION.

(With which is lecorpornted The Xai* hapa Post Bn( * Vfralmutlao News).

Indications of an early German surrender and tlie peace to follow have further advanced since yesterday. An official dispatch from Berlin announces that a German armistice delegation has left for the West front to interview General Foch, .and a message from the West front advises that the delegation is hourly expected at Foch’s headquarters. It is the war situation that has forced the military bounders of Germany to send a delegation to crave for a cessation from the bloody machinery they set in mo-, tion. In 1916, and later, they wanted a peace in accordance with the war situation, and in 1918 they are likely to be granted an armistice in accord with the war situation. That situation to-day discovers the Allies on Germon frontiers, west, south and east, and Germany sees half a million of Slavs ready to attack Dresden, only one hundred and twenty miles from Berlin, with a million or two more of the Allies to move up from the Italian frontier. No force Germany has now available could stop a triumphal march right into Berlin, which is already within range of bombing from Allied aeroplanes. Talk about Germany offering effective resistance to-day is stupid; the military machine has proved its Inadequacy, it has broken down past repair, and the military pride of German supermen is humbled so that they have to kneel at the feef of the great French General to crave for a staying of the crushing sword he is weilding. The German military machine js beaten to a standstill, the only I motion being of the reverse characI ter; the wheels of German war are I turning the other way and its men are fleeing as rapidly as possible from the ; doom that French strategy and Allied bravery has prepared for them. They fear the awful blow of Foch’s uplifted sword, and they appeal for a stay of the massacre. So overwhelming is the evidence supporting the hopelessness of the German case that it has become quite needless to discuss it. We have now only to wait for the peace that. Germany must accept from Foch. If the Bulgarian, Turkish and Austrian surrenders may be taken as a guide peace by armistice will be declared j and tbe fact will be cabled to this Dominion in from seven to fourteen days, and tbe greatest, most crushing ; orgy of military murder the world has j any conception of will have ended and ! peace will again reign throughout the j earth. We do not anticipate any [ lengthy harangue between the German pPeace Delegation and Foch, for its members left Berlin on their mission | fully cognisant of the only terms that ! were available, and it can scarcely be j assumed that they did not receive definite and final instructions to accept anything rather than tbe butchery of | Germany’s fleeing armies should continue. Germany is militarily beaten and the German people will be compelled to accept peace terms dictated by the war situation, and within fourteen days those terms will have been accepted and the. awful slaughter of civilised peoples will have ceased. | That is the position based upon ex- ' perience with the other three partners to the greatest and most frightful farreaching crime in history. The first intimation the world had of Germany’s decision to surrender unconditionally was the trail homewards of submarines that flew white flags and avoided communication with Allied ships. That home-going meant one of two things, 1 either renewed naval action or the ! end of the war, and the German Peace | Delegation now conferring with Foch i has removed all doubt about the ques- | tion. Unless it be for garrison duty in 1 enemy countries the need for sending more men from New Zealand has ceased. The only men it is of pressing importance to send to England are those who are to represent this Dominion at the peace conference, and they may already be on the way to London.,

WAR SCHOLARSHIPS.

His observations in a long experience in Trentham Camp led Colonel Potter to realise that a great injustice was likely to fall upon children of fathers who had made the supreme sacrifice for their country and Empire. There were children whose career was

already in the making, which the loss

of a father was likely to Break in upon' disastrously for the child and his position in after life, so it occurred to Colonel Potter that the country, or those who did not, through unfitness, the sacrifice of their lives for the common weal, owed to such children the right or privilege to the education they would -have received had the father not have made the supreme sacrifice. It appeared unjust to Colonel Potter that such a sacrifice should not be allowed to imperil the future of the child, so he formulated a proposal for raising a fund that was to operate against the child suffering through the misfortune of the father. The scheme was a modest one, but when submitted to other influential and humane camp officers its possibilities for good became evident. It was laid before a number of leading citizens and it blossomed as if by magic into a Dominion proposal with a hundred thousand pounds objective. The “Dominion Scholarship Fund” w r as organised and steps were taken by financiers, camp officers and others to evolve a scheme whereby such a huge sum could he raised. The organisation was soon completed at headquarters, and a travelling representative was appointed to go throughout New Zealand from the North Cape to the Bluff In support of the biggest thing in art unions that this Dominion has any knowledge of. Mr. Lints, the travelling organiser, very seductively unfolded the great scheme and gave details of its noble objects to a large meeting of Taihape’s representative men on the day that peace was declared with Austria. It at once appealed to all present, and the help that Mr. Lints asked from Taihape the meeting enthusiastically volunteered to give. This community Is asked to dispose of about five hundred pounds worth of Art Union tickets. There are already £6285 worth of prizes and more yet to be added. The Trentham Camp Band and orchestra, in company with a bayonet fighting { squad, specially perfected in bayonet work, with a concert party, are to visit Taihape on a day set apart, of which full publicity is to be given, to launch the ticket-selling campaign. Will the cause of the children of fathers who have been killed in action by German bullets, shells, or bayonets, be taken up in a liberal spirit in the Taihape district as it has been taken up in every community that has been’ appealed to up to the present moment? Will this community keep its pockets buttoned and refuse to purchase liberally, tickets that may return them a thousand pounds while one child is suffering crushing disabilities through the gift of its father’s life to his country? What can we all give to recompense that child for the Empire? There is a prize to every ticket, if it is not represented by money or in kind, it, at least, brings the glorious satisfaction of knowing that the child of some patriot father is not being bereft of the education and the chance in life that would have been his if his parent’s life had not been lest. Whatever we may give by the purchase of tickets in this great Art Union* it can never commence to compare with the sacrifice that was forced upon the child.