CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 July 1916, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

WHAT SORT OF PEACE! In a recent interview with a representative of the Chicago Daily News Sir Edward Grey summarises admirably the ideas of the Allies on the question of peace. He said the injustice done by this war has got to he sot right. ''The Allies can tolerate no peace that leaves the wrongs of this war unredressed. When persons come to me with a pacilic counsel I think they should tell me what sort of peace they have in mind. They should let me know on which side they stand. If they think, for example, that Belgium was innocent of offence; that she has. been unspeakably wronged; that she should be set up again by those who tore her down, then, it seems to me, they should say so. Peace counsels that are purely abstract and make no attempt to discriminate between the rights and the wrongs of this wai arc inelYective, if not irrelevant. Nobody wants peace more than we want it. But we want a peace that docs justice and a, peace that re-establishes respect for the public law of the world. Presumably Germany would like neutrals to think we are applying pressure to keep France, Russia and Italy in the war. We are not. France, Russia and Italy need no urging to keep them in the war. They know why they are in the war. They know they are in it to preserve everything that is. precious to nationality. It is this knowledge which makes them determined and unconquerable. Unless mankind learns from this war to avoid war the struggle will have been in vain. Furthermore, it seems to me that over humanity will loom the menace of destruction. The Prussian authorities have apparently but one idea of peace—an iron peace imposed on other nations by German supremacy. They do not understand that free men and free nations will rather die than submit to that ambition, and that there can be no md to war till it is defeated and renounced.''