EITHER EARLY PEACE.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 March 1918, Page 5

EITHER EARLY PEACE.

OR TWO YEARS' MORE WAR. (By Arthur Drafie, in Hie New York Tribune). Britain is much like the lending shell entering the fourth mile of a gruelling boat race. She is tired, she is anxious, she is even worried, but she is still eonfident Hint she will cross the finish in front. The race has been a surprise to her, and she has lost a lot of her self-as-surance. There is only one danger: that all the oarsmen may not hold the stroke in the toughest part of the 'race. Some of the crew are now wobbling, uifl the boat no longer rides on an even keel. Nevertheless, it is being held in front by the dogged, fierce detrmeinaiion of the strong-hearted members, and though the stroke maj- lack polish it contains n world of driving power. When the race will end no one knows—not Lloyd George, nor (,'lemencean, nor Orlando, Hertling, nor Czernin, Haig, Pctain, no> Pcrshir\g, Hindenburg, nor Ludendorff. They have (heir opinions—so has every European—but, like a statistician with a pile of figures in front of rim, the rjiore they study it the more uncertain they become. DIPLOMATISTS TO WORK HARD. Between now and the coming of spring the diplomatists will work desperately to do what the militarists have failed to ao. complish, and perhaps they have one chance in ten of reaching a settlement in mid-April. But, generally, big thing* come through by hard work and superiority in numbers and materials. If the diplomatists fail, if the moderates do not quicken their pace, if the growing band of Labor Socialists is held in cheek, the war will he renewed in all its fury in spring, and will burn right through to ne\t fill. Either Europe will make peace within the next four months or the war will last another year at least. Some say that America has prolonged the war; some that she has shortened Amerie were eliminted froiii Allied and enemy calculations to-day peace undoubtedly would come by spring. The war would end in a stalemate, because neither side would be strong cough to tight to a decision—and by a decision is meant the physical occupation of one set of countries by the other set, with peace dictated by the victor. ALLIES' FAITH IN AMERICA STRONG Within the last three months, espeeV ally since the Italian disaster, the whole tenor of utterances of Allied statesmen has been that America would furnish the straw to break the enemy'sbaek. There have heen many variations of this theme, but fundamentally they are the same, ll (he Allied statesmen are honest in their declaration of their peoples, they consider America ablep hysically, economically, and financially to beat the enemy. There is no reason to doubt them, because, few (statesmen in any country would dare to gamble heavily or promise much at this stage of the war. Their power and position at present are as unstable as a seat on a picket fence. The same facts, or at least the essential ones upon which Allied statesmen base their declarations regarding America, are in the hands of tho enemy leaders. Whatever is said about the German, he is a mighty cool, coldblooded calculator, who does not juggle with facts merely to suit his wishes. This is the reasoning of those who expect an early ending of the war. They argue that both sides are now guided more by facts and less by sentiment, that the leaders are turning toward compromise through fear and the wave of dissatisfaction that is sweeping over every country. Unquestionably Russia to date has influenced the course of the war to an immeasurably greater degree than has America, whose power W still largely potential. The loss to the Allies of' Russian military power, great as it M'as, seems small as compared with the political effect of the Russian development? have had on the rest of Europe. -ne Russian revolution marked the real birth of the present radical movement, and'it is having a marked influence on the German internal situation. Discounting that part of the present Pan-German protest intended as camouflage, there ■ remains enough to show that the Junkers do not like the Russian development, and that they fear the movement toward radicalism more than they do military threats. The French firly believe they will receive the first blow, and, needless to say, they are ready for it.