The Daily News. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1917. A SHAM OR DURABLE PEACE.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 September 1917, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1917. A SHAM OR DURABLE PEACE.

Peace proposals in the abstract have an alluring tendency, and judging from the number of recent cable messages concerning the Pope's subtle suggestions a? to arriving at a basis for peace negotiations, it wquld appear as if at least there was a prospect of coming to terms. How hollow and hypocritical the replies of the Central Powers are can be seen by even the most casual observer. It is easy to comprehend the eagerness with which Austria and Germany have snatched at the Papal straw to save them from utter destruction! The domi-

nating factor in any peace proposal that justifies a moment's consideration must "inevitably bo whether it ■will provide for what the Allies are so determinedly bent on obtaining— reparation, restoration, and reliable guarantees of durability. Any other peace would be a mockery as well as a hollow sham. For what are the Allies fighting in this war which has laid waste some of the fairest portions of the earth and maimed the pick of the world's manhood? For th 6 sole purpose of destroying the menace that threatened the permanent peace of the world; for loyalty, truth, freedom, and right; and "Europe must perish rather than submit to the domination of the sword of the German Hun," for to die fighting i 3 infinitely preferable to a peace based on any arrangement that can be made with Prussian militarism. What of the lives that have been shed in this titanic conflict for the cause of !mman librety? Are the huge sacrifices that have been made to be in vain 1 It would be disloyal and treacherous to the memory of our brave heroes to make an illusory peace that would only be a prelude to a greater and more ruthless war than the present. We have lately had some startling revelations of Germany's base methods of intrigue, and there is very little doubt that she engineered the Pope's latest appeal. For the Central ; Powers a patched up peace would "mean ; salvation—for the Allies' disaster. Whv

did America enter the war arena after maintaining neutrality for so long a period? Let tlie President's own words i answer: "We accepted the gage of battle" with "the natural foe of liberty ] (Germany), and will, if nceassary, spend the whole force of the nation to check s and nullify its pretensions and its ' power. , i To such a task wc can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, ( everything wo are and everything we j have, with the pride of those who know ] that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her ] might for the principles that gave her ( birth and happiness and the peace which . she has treasured. God helping her, she i can do no other." That is the proclaimed faith of the American people, and it is also the faith of the Allies. The time has come when the civilised world insists on an end being put to the arrogant claim for dominance which Germany has put forward. With consummate hypocrisy Germany, sinco she saw no possibility of the dream of world conquest being realised, h£s whined dismally anent the wickedness of her enemies seeking her destruction, and claimed with desperate insistence that she she has been forced into a defensive. Aye, there's the rub. She sallied forth like a braggart swashbuckler to place the nations of the earth under her yoke, and like a whipped cur, is howling under the lash j "but the depth of her iniquities is gradually being sounded, each fresh piece of news emphasising the impossibility of trusting to either her pledges or her guarantees, while her good faith —if it ever existed—is as worthless as in her eyes are the scraps of paper on which j solemn treaties are recorded. The Papal note was so evidently inspired by Germany that it is doomed to failure. While Germany still holds the vast territories and valuable districts she suddenly seized contrary to all law and all justice, while day by day she carries on the •■ most monstrous system of piratical out- , rage of which the world haß ever heard; while her statesmen still refuse to be bound by any treaty or convention ■ while all this remains true, it is an insult to our comrades who have fought and fallen in the cause of democracy, freedom and civilisation, to take any part whatever in discussing peace proposals with an unchastened and impenitent Germany.