PEACE TALK.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 December 1917, Page 5

PEACE TALK.

HE POPE'S REGRET. AT FAILURE OF PEACE INITIATIVE. Received Dec. 20, 7 p.m. Rome, Pec. 23. The Pope, in receiving the College of Cardinals, who presented Christmas greetings, pronounced an allocution regretting the failure of the last peace initiative, which had been prompted by, the tears of mothers, widows, and orphans, and the desire to end the world's calamity. He added that he had sowed the seed, hoping it would fall on good soil and fructify. He expressed great jov »t the liberation of Jerusalem. PERSHING ON PACIFISM. ' Oet. i). Much anger has been aroused in the American army in France by the news conveyed in United States newspapers that "efforts have been made in various quarters in America to spread the idea that the German line on the Western front cannot be broken nor tlie Gerinaiis driven out ; of France. "

General Pershing, the United States Commander-in-Chief here, addressing a number of American correspondents, said: '"The German propagandists in America, speaking through the agency of our pacifists, seek to spread this idea among our people in order to weaken our initiative. The German army, having lost its tactical advantage on the Ypres salient which it enjoyed during more tfian, two years, continues to yield ground be'orc the hammering British ; assaults. Everywhere on the Western front, despite the large number of German troops which the Russian situation has released.' Germany is on the defensive and the Allies on the offensive. "America has resources ill men and material which will add a weight which niust force a military decision against Germany. Our troops are. imbued with the spirit of aggressiveness, the spirit that means that we are going to #in this war, and that we have no idea of allowing ourselves to !bs influenced by pacifists or enemy propagandist*. We have no false notions that victory will be an easy matter, but that only makes our determination stronger."