The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1918 FROM WAR TO PEACE.

Taihape Daily Times, 14 November 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1918 FROM WAR TO PEACE.

(With which is incorporated The Tal* hape Post and Waltmuiio News).

A preliminary peace has been arranged with Germany in the signing of an armistice for a period of thirty-six days. Thi§ preliminary peace was signed at five o’clock on the morning of November the eleventh, and by the orders of Generalissimo Foch all fighting ceased at 11 o’clock on the same morning. The greatest, most bloody and diabolical war of history has ended —ended because the offending company of nations were defeated to a standstill. The surrenders of Bulgaria, Turkey and Austria are now history, but the whole Allied world is only yet in the paroxysms of initial rejoicings at the complete and crushing defeat of the most callous, black-hearted criminal mankind has knowledge of. By rolling all the very worst of the old Roman emperors into one, to which might be added the greatest criminals of Persian and Assyrian history, the embodiment of frightfulness would not commence to compare with that of the Kaiser the German people now understand, and who they have'promptly relegated to a level that will involve punishment for the longest and most heinous category of sins ever committed by one man. Unfortunately for the people of Germany, they are responsible for the acts of their king, and they will be compelled to foot the bill of costs of the four years and three months of colossal vandalism they indulged in by his orders. Foch’s terms were terribly hard, but in justice to Foch let us compare the crime with the terms, and we shall at once realise that it would be impossible for any human being to invent terms that could be commensurate with the crime. Foch met the German delegates in his railway carriage; as they entered he said : “ Who are you, gentlemen?” Erzberger replied : “ We represent the German Government, and have come to solicit an armistice.” Foch then said : “ These are our conditions;” and while he read them out in a vocal monotone the Germans listened with hard clenched teeth; they were terribly hard even to Germans. No doubt Foch had foreseen what terms would have been forced upon the Allies had the Kaiser of frightfulness been victorious, and he was somewhat surprised at his own reasonableness, Very briefly summarised, Foch’s terms provide for — “Occupied territory, wherever situated, to be evacuated; German territory to the westward of the Rhine to be evacuated ; Allied occupation of Mainz, „ Coblentz and Cologne, and territory within a radius of thirty kilometres on the eastern Rhine bank; evacuation of Alsace and Lorraine, the whole of the west bank of the Rhine to be a neutral zone ; the surrender of guns, munitions and war material; the surrender of all submarines at sea or at home within fourteen days; the disarmament of six battle cruisers, ten battleships, eight light cruisers, and fifty destroyers under Allied supervision ; Heligoland to be occupiedby the Allies; repatriation of inhabitants of all occupied territory; immediate repatriation of all Allied prisoners ; German troops to evacuate Russia, Roumania and elsewhere ; abandonment of BrestLitovsk and Bucharest treaties; no transfer of any German

ships to neutrals ; duration of the armistice, thirty-six days.” The most practiced quibbler could not deny that such terms amounted to unconditional surrender, and only unconditional surrender. They disclose how thoroughly, effectually, completely, German militarism has been conquered ; they disclosethatcivilised peoples of the world are determined that they' will be ruled in love and justice, and not by the sword of tyrants; that half their number shall not be employed in earning money for making weapons of war and in building up huge armies and navies, but that the workers’ share of what is produced shall go to swell his mede of comfort and rest, so necessary for the health and the mental and moral improvement of the race. If the terms of the armistice die-

tated by Foch and accepted by Erzberger are completed within the prescribed time, a peace conference will be held, and its deliberations will evolve the terms upon which Germany is to be allowed to again join the society of law-abiding and respectable nations. In the meantime, the absorbing topic will, with most thoughtful people, be the amazing bravery, hardihood and determination of the men we have sent from this Dominion to fight the Empire’s battles. They have, rightly or wrongly, been classed as the finest troops, German or Allied, that have set foot on any battle front; but whether they are or not, they have earned universal gratitude andesteem, and it should be every man’s and woman’s duty to see that the returned and returning heroes receive recognition and reward commensurate, as far as possible, with their gallantry and sacrifices. The chief concern is not now with the past, but with the future. In accord with the lessons of the past, let the future be shaped; let not the people rescued from military _ enemies fall victims to commercial trusts and combines. From our soldiers a splendid should spring, who, after defeating militarism, would assist largely in easing the load of taxation that must follow. The whole Dominion, with one or two minor negligible instances, has done its duty in the war in a way that has contributed largely to the success that has been achieved. A,stain will for ever stand out clearly on the National Government, put there by its failure to stop the most wicked profiteering, and for shirking its responsibilities in that connection by the appointment of that nondescript thing it termed a Board of Trade. g This Government sin will assuredly meet its just retribution. The Press of New Zealand has almost uniformly done its utmost to keep the people so well and correctly informed as to enable a sound understanding of the war situation, in all its varying changes, to be readily obtainable. This journal has endeavoured to steer acourse exactly between optimism and pessimism, and although it has been dubbed an extremist on some occasions, results, have invariably proved it not guilty, and the hundreds of congratulations received from all sorts and conditions of people comprise a testimony we shall ever treasure. Taihape has shown by its rejoicings and thanksgivings that the awful solemnity of the war had sunk very deeply into its understanding; the 1 joy was not free from an alloy of soitow, begat of the terrible sacrifices that were made by many of the district’s most respected families. It was difficult to abandon oneself to undiluted joy while the fact that there were many very deeply seared hearts-i persisted in its obtrusion. The,end of this greatest orgy of human butchery is, however, welcomed by all, and those who have suffered most -severely may, and do, find cause for rejoicing in the fact that the orgy of killing is already'something of the past. Peace is now assured; the people need no longer concern themselves with war, but their attention should be seriously given to those questions for the future in which is embodied their success or failure.