PRESIDENT WILSON'S LATEST.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 January 1916, Page 4

PRESIDENT WILSON'S LATEST.

The speech made by President Wilson, a cabled summary of which appears elsewhere in this issue, will cause no small amazement and speculation. Probably the first query that will suggest itself to most readers will be; Does lie really mean wliat lie says? and then curiosity will naturally be aroused as to why, after stoioallv sitting 'on the rail fo: no long, lie lifts uoyf been induced

to launch out in a semi-bellicose manner I and talk of preparing lor war. If America can only really be aroused to defend her honor as well as the lives of her citizens, even at this belated period, she may in some measure attone for her callousness in the past. Apparently it would appear that the President has been shamed into taking up a more dignified attitude, though his speech con•tains very little real policy worthy of the name. There is a great flourish of empty phrases about the liberty and honor of the nation, and the readiness of Americans to fight, but no indication of any intention so to do—merely a plea for preparedness. Hitherto President Wilson's attitude has evoked nothing but contumely and a full crop of gibes and taunts. His* "Notes'' to Germany, Austria, and Britain have been derided,- and American policy has become an object of pity and contempt. The typewriter having failed, president Wilson is now changing his tactics from the suaviter in modo to a feeble attempt at the fortiter in re. He attributes the change to increased knowledge, but if his speech is examined it will be found to contain nothing but generalities. The only fact emphasised is that America will not be the aggressor, and that leaves her position exactly where it has been right through the war, Germany and Austria may still trample on America's honor, murder her citizens and destroy her factories, but America will not lift a hand against them-. All that the President considers the American* should do is to be "faithful servants to those things we love and be ready to defend them," How can that duty be performed by mere defensive tactics? The idea is too absurd to entertain. It b more pertinent to speculate that thia woefully belated exposition of America's duty is engendered fey the spectacle of Germany's decline and the conviction that the Allies must win. The. speech lias all the appearance of being intended to placate the Allies, and especially Britain, rather than, as Washington correspondents infer, to be a final warning to Germany, whom the speech will certainly fail to move except with contemptuous derision. America has lost a splendid opportunity of giving practical evidence of that deep-seated passion for peace for which she is credited by her President. She has remained" with fojded hands while the war lias, progressed, concentrating her aim on gathering dollars by the million out of the combatants. : At the eleventh hotii" there comes some feeble talk about preparing for war. President Wilson lias certainly failed most woefully, and all talk about the need for preparedness is as nauseating as his enunciation of the duties of neu- : tralitv.