WHAT IS HE FIGHTING FOR?

Taranaki Daily News, 4 January 1916, Page 4

WHAT IS HE FIGHTING FOR?

A terrible indictment of the Kaiser is given in the New York Times in an editorial headed "What is he Fighting For?" It says that the Hohenzollerus dare not tell the people the purposes of the war into which they plunged at his command, and mentions the suppression of the Vorwarts for the reason that the. Imperial mind must not be vexed. "Ths Kaiser could end the war in a day by a renunciation. That would he the only possible atonement he could make to this world for the appalling calamities he has brought upon it. It would be an unheard of act of contrition, the most momentous donning of sackcloth men ever saw, but an abasement which would give life to millions now doomed to death on future battlefields. For his crown and sceptre, for the Hohenzollcrn House, for the iPrussian idea, he fights on, he drains the Empire of its life blood, prolongs hideous carnage, sustaining the spirit of his weary troops and of his people under the shadow of famine with blasphemous assurances that God is with him in what he calls the defence of the nation's existence. Peace will come if the Kmperor Wilhelm will tell the people what they are really fighting for." "Having been told over and over again that their enemies were in the dust, large numbers of the German people arc evidently beginning to ask why tile war goes on, why the Government, which has made war so triumphantly, is unable to conclude a peace which shall reward it for its effort and sacrifice," says the Westminster Gazette. "That question was urgently asked in an article in the Vorwarts, The Vorwarts, let us remark, is not, as some people think, the faddist organ of a Socialist clique; it speaks for millions or German working-people, and for nearly all those whom in Britain are called Radicals or advanced Liberals. 'We have been hearing for the past twelve months,' it writes, 'about everything that is not true, and we surely cannot be blamed if we express the desire to know, for owe, what is true—namely, what is the aim that the German Government hopes to achieve by means of this war. Battle after battle is fought, the armies are led against each other in new theatres of war, and yet the people are not told what has taken place and what must be achieved In order that the peace-bells may ring; this cannot go on for ever. The only information vouchsafed us 19 that "the others" must beg for peace, as we are the victors. Unfortunately, however, the others do not feel defeated, so that no result is arrived at.' This passage seems to us profoundly interesting," says the Westminster Gazette. "Nothing that we have read in any German publication marks so significantly the difference between Germany and her enemies. Can we imagine any of our fighting' men or any of their mothers or wives asking for what they and we are fighting? The answer leaps to the lips, and it is symbolised in words that are burnt into our memory, Belgium, Serbia, Lnsitania, Ancona, reminders of the territory to be redeemed, the freedom to he won. the law to be vindicated, the poa>ce, honor and safety to he secured against an enemy who would quench us with his {rightfulness and subdue us to his system. Let us assure the Germans that, though they may be in doubt what they are fighting for, wo have no doubt at nil what we arc fighting for, or the aims that must he accomplished, before we can dream of peace."