The Daily News. MONDAY, JULY 30, 1917. WRONGS MUST BE RIGHTED.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 July 1917, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, JULY 30, 1917. WRONGS MUST BE RIGHTED.

| The cables (lid not do justice to tlic messago delivered by President Wilson to the Provisional Government of Russia about the middle of June. The communication was really addressed to the common sense and conscience of every individual citizen of the Allied democracies. Mr. Wilson speaks with the directness characteristic of his addresses to his own people. He exposes German sophistry and intrigue. Writing before the British victon* at Messines he was able to point out that the war "has begun to go against Germany." Defeat means the dowmall of the caste at home and the destruction of the power they have misused abroad. This is the result which they are eager, at all costs and by any means, to avert. That is why they are courting men ■whom they despise and simulating democratic beliefs which they detest. But the real objects of such schemes as the .Stockholm conference and of their patronage of Sociaist diplomacy are to keep a lirm grip o( their predominance in Germany and to pursue their boundless plans of aggression "all the way from Berlin to Baghdad and beyond." For nearly half a century they have woven a "net of intrigue" against the peace and liberty of the world. 'The meshes of that net," President Wilson declares, "must be broken" and so broken that never again can it be rcwoven or repaired. The German Government, "and tiioso whom it is using to their own undoing," arc anxious for pledges that the >war shall end in the restoration of the status quo. Of course they are, and Mr. Wilson with remorseless hand strips off the rags of righteousness under which they seek to' hide their motives. They want the status quo because the status quo enabled them to lay their plans and to make their preparations for this war, and because its restoration wduM enable them to 'begin at once making ready for the ' next war," to wliicn they already look forward. With one accord the Allies have vowed that this status must be so altered as to defeat their purpose. Mr. Wilson sees quite clearly the means by which the vow can be fulfilled and the errors which would make it vain. Twice over he insists that no settlement is possible until the wrongs that have been done are undone, until due -afeguards are taken to prevent their repetition, until necessary readjustments are made —until, jn sliort, practical questions are settled in a prac- j tical wav. That, he nointi out. is the [

only way in which tliey can : be settled. ■'Piuases will not accomplish the result." Remedies must lie found, as well as statements of principle that will have a picas in:,' and sonorous sound.'* (But the settlement is to be a settlement based upon principle, and the -principles which Mr. Wilson names are, it need hardly be said, in general accordance with those for which in Europe the Allies have been fighting all along. Sovereignty is not to be forced upon any people against their consent; changes of territory arc to lie made solely for the advantage of tho inhabitants; indemnities are to be limited to payments for wrongs done, and readjustments of power to those which will tend to the future peace of tho world. Finally, Mr. Wilson describes anew that vision of the reconstituted society of nations which he has painted in such glowing colors on former occasions. He looks forward to a "workable partnership" for the purpose of protecting it against the aggressions of autocracy. Xot the least impressive or the least valuable part of the President's communication is the exhortation to bo up and doing with which is concludes. Mr. Wilson warns all whom lesser matters distract that "the day has come to conquer or submit." The enemy is trying by all manner of insidious arts to divide us. The wireless message sent to tne liussian troops in tho trenches assuring them that a separate armistice, as distinguished from a separate peace, would not involve any breach of faith with the Allies, is a sample o. German military honor in these matters, which the Council Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates have met as it deserved. 'lf tricks or subterfuges of that kind were to prove successful and to split the Alliance, then, as .Mr. Wilson bluntly savs, the forces of autocracy would overcome us. But if >we stand together, as tho events of each succeeding week encourage the expectation that we shall stand, "victory is certain and tho liberty which victory will secure." When they are won, he adds, we can afford to ho generous, but neither now nor then can we afford to bo -weak, "or omit any single guarantee of justice and security." The London Times, referring to tne speech, expresses the hope that this remarkable utterance with its practical shrewdness, its breadth of view, and its lofty and generous ideals, will have upon all Allied and neutral peoples the eil'ect which it will assuredly have upon the iiritish democracies.