The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1918 AFTER WAR DANGERS.

Taihape Daily Times, 7 January 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1918 AFTER WAR DANGERS.

(With which is incorporated/ The T«ihaps Post tad Walcramo News),

Although Germany is crippled militarily beyond all hope of recovery within measurable time, and the Mittel Europe scheme has burst beyond all repair she may yet be the cause of disturbance of the peace in Europe for sometime to come. A message received yesterday indicates that Prussian Bolshevism is very similar in quality to Prussian militarism; it can lull, murder and oppress, but it must neither be killed or interfered with. At a Spartacus conference the leader, iLiebknecht disapproved of German troops firing ou Bolsheviks, and if they were ordered to do so the troops should turn round and shoot their officers. If. will be sometime before the strongest faction in Hunland can bring about complete order and a reasonable observance of laws enacted by whatever form of Government may bo instituted. There is little doubt that the Lenins, Trotskys, Liebkncehts and Schicdemanns conspired to join up the Bolshevik forces of Russia and Germany with a view to a European reign of anarchy, but the feelers they put out came into contact with the Allied Generalissimo and he with characteristic brevity warned them that the German political atmosphere must be quickly freed of Bolshevism or the armistice would be declared off, and the Allies would launch upon the conquest and occupation of all Germany. Licbknecht and his Spartacus crowd seem to have taken Foch’s warning to heart: he is fully aware that there must be a reasonably stable government to accept from the Allied Peace Conference whatever terms are determined upon, and that in the absence of such a government the armies of the Allies would march over Germay and enforce the terms with sabre and cannon if needs arose. From every centre of government in northern continents come a plentiful crop of guesses ns to what the Peace Conference will decide, *o complete in detail are they that one almost wonders whether there is any actual need for the Conference to sit at all. It seems rather a mistake to cable the opinions of every governing blatherskite in Britain, America, France and Italy' to Australasia as they only confuse and trouble the minds of most people who read them. The average man of intelligence thinks that no responsible correspondent would go so far as to invoke the use of thousands of miles of cable for anything but most important facts and happenings, bur cables (havei recently brought little else but the opposite of facts. Some retired pig-farmer in America, has through accumulated wealth managed to be elected to Congress, and wishing to become famous he gets a journalist to compose a few highfalutin sentences for him and then to cable them away for which he pays handsomely, the unfortunate part is that New Zealand newspapers have to pay inland transmissions on the silly, senseless, misloadign verbiage. From the confusion of conflicting cablegrams the position realisable is that the immediate aftermath of the great war is almost of as bloody a nature as the war itself.) All Russia is being drenched with the blood of the Russian people; anarchy reigns in Budapcsth, the capital of Hungary;

Roumania in revenge for murder, robbery and spoliation by the Austro- ; Germans, is invading the land of the l Hungarians; Turkey is undergoing the process of withdrawing into its shell, leaving in Armenia and in other lands a trail of blood, ravage and massacre; Poland is rising against the Hunnish brutes who ravaged and desolated their country, and is marching to battle in an attempt to obtain some compensation by force for what . her people have lost and suffered; i Sweden and Finland have the Bol- [ shevik scourge in a most acute form I to deal with, while the Allies have ' a Herculean task in feeding the starving inhabitants in devastated Allied countries. In conquered countries there is intriguing within intriguing, every shade of political opinion is endcavourng to assert itself; new nations are being formed out of the Teutonic debris. The Czecho-Slovak Republic is founded firmly beyond all doubt, and now it is reported the Allied loaders have agreed to the creation of a new German Confederation directed by Bavaria, also to a Danube Confederation under the

Czccho-Slovaks, ’ taking in till nonHungariau speaking peoples. The wreck of the dethroned Kaiser’s Mittel Europe could not well be more thorough «nd irretrievable. I l *' appears that the Allied rose is not entirely thornless; Japanese aspirations seemed to have soared to unreasonable heights for gratification without finding satisfaction. The dapper little brown men have been moving very tamely in Siberia, indicating an undercurrent of insincerity in the mission launched upon, and a want of unity between them and the British and Americans has resulted in Allied intervention in Siberia being a failure. The withdrawal of Japanese troops from Siberia strongly indicates that the war has not resulted in accordance with Japanese hopes, much more was wanted and expected than will be forthcoming and the little brown fellows arc chagrined, piqued and disappointed. Both the main combatants of the war did not fight, themselves into complete exhaustion' and helplessness; the- war was not a draw, a stalemate, neither side having sufficient strength left to knock out the other, and Japan’s opportunity did not materialise in accordance with anticipations and intentions. We may remember that the Jap. Army was modelled on that of Germany, and that German officers did the modelling and instructing, therefore it need ttot surprise anyone to see exudation of Hunnish spirit, cunning and deception. However that may be, Japan strikes the only discordant note in the Allied camp. In trade there is in Japan a replica of that of the Germans on a smaller scale, but the Japanese traders have already made it quite clear that they are exceedingly apt pupils, and they have put upon the Allied market goods they would never have put up had they the faintest conception that the war would end in the complete crushing of the whole German military system, and that Germany would be destroyed as a power among nations. These are the only serious matters in sight the Allies need trouble about. The Peace Conference will determine the' future of Allied enemies, and that determination will be enforced to the utmost of the spirit it breathes. There need be no uneasiness about the final judgment, for despite all the silly canards and opinions of men lacking responsibility, it will be found that there will be a remarkable uniformity of opinion as to peace terms. The evolution of an international policy for the government of nations, whether it he by a league of nations, or otherwise, must give rise to the expression of varying opinions, but notiwthstanding the threats of some American mighty noodle, we cannot conceive that competitive armaments will he allowed to continue in the future; it is unbelievable that with the recent experience producers and workers will permit their governments to squander their earnings in powder and cannons and warships. The money that has been wasted in armaments in the past is gone, but if pQt to peaceful purposes in the future it will prove sufficient to pay all war hills and leave ampV to enable every individual to become immune from being forced into want.