THE KAISERS PEACE.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 April 1918, Page 8

THE KAISERS PEACE.

"THE POWERS OK HEAVEN MUST STAND 11V US.' UNDILUTED HYPOCRISY. The following is the ofticial text of tin; speech delivered by the Herman Emperor at Honiburg on February 10, on tile occasion of the celebration of tho conclusion of peace with the Ukraine: —■' Jly dear Homburgcrs.—With my whole i'cart 1 thank you for the simple celebra. lion and the warm words which your municipal chief has just spoken to me. Hard limes have passed over us, and each has had to bear the burden of care and mourning, grief and trouble —not least he who stands before you. In him are united the care and sorrow of a whole people, and its suffering. In this very Court I saw, as a small boy, the Homburgera stand in 1870-71 under the leader,ship of old Jaeobi, when they came to lay their homage before mv' i::ot)ier of blessed memory after the news <>i great victories. That scene stamped itself i'or ever on my soul. Then I did no! dream that it would be my lot to light for the preservation of that which my grandfather and my departed father had won and achieved.

Our Lord God lias certainly sortiet.hing 111 mind for our German people. That is why He has sent us to school, and every serious and eleai'-lhinHng man among you will agree with me that it was necessary. -We often trod false paths. By means of this hard schooling the Lord lias shown us whither we' want to go. But at the same time the world was not treading the right, path. Those who have followed history ean tee how our Lord God has tried, through one people after another, to bring the world on to the right path. The peoples | themselves could not manage it. The Koman Empire sank a way, the Frackisli Empire fell to pieces, likewise the oldGerman Empire. Now he has set us tasks. We Germans, who still have ideals, nro to work to bring about better times; we arc to fight for Right, GooA Faith, and Morality. Our Lord God means to have peace, but such a peace in which the world endeavors to do what is right and good. We are to bring ! peace to the world, and we will do it one way or the other. Yesterday we managed it in friendly fashion. The enemy who, beaten by our armies, sees that lighting is no more use, and who holds out his hand, gets also our hanc. We grip his. But he who will not accept peace, but, on the contrary, shedding the blood of his own and of our people, will not have peace, him we must compel. That is now our task, for which all must work, men and women. We wish to live in friendship with neighboring peoples, but first of all the victory of German arms must be recognised. Under our great Hindenbnrg our troops will continue to achieve it. Then peace will come —peace of the sort required for a strong future for the German Empire, a peace that will influence the course of universal history. To this end the mighty powers of Heaven must stand by lis. To this end every one of you, young and old, must live for one only thought: Victory and a German peace. Long live the German Fatherland! The London Times comments:—

The Kaiser's Homburg .speech of last week, which we are able to give in full from the German newspapers to-day, is not one of his great efforts. They have been so rare of late that some people are inclined to forget that he. is the centre of the Herman system. The Reichstag votes with great industry and docility—now and then it is astonished at its own courage in passing shifty resolutions. The statesmen and diplomatists stand in the limelight, except when they are overshadowed by the soldiers. But it is the soldier-caste and the "War Lord," its hereditary head, who govern Chancellors and Foreign Secretaries "come like shadows, so depart"; he makes and unmakes them at his will. He and the soldier-caste remain. What the others say must be interpreted by his views when he happens to betray them. At Homburg he tried to maintain the laboriously "pacifists pose which he has practised for so man'y months. He was very pious and approved with condescension the discipline which Heaven has inflicted upon the German people. He acknowledged that it was necessary. '•'We often trod false paths." But they were not alone in their backslidings. The Almighty, he declared, "has tried though oner people after another to bring the world on to the right path." The Romans, the Franks, the Germans of the Holy Roman Empire, were all tried and found wanting. But here the old arrogance pops up again. "Now miv Lord God has set us tasks." The Kaiser is as fully acquainted with the designs of Providence as ever. 'l7c Germans who still have ideals ... are to fight for Right, Good Faith, and Morality." They are not quite the things for which the Germans have seemed to be fighting hitherto; when, for instance, they ravished Belgium after swearing to defend her, when they took to sinking nierchantment at sight and "without a trace," and when they heaped infamy upon infamy in the occupied territories. "Our I-ord God means to have peace," and the Germans are the people whom He has singled out—by reason, 110 doi'ibt, of their ideals—to bring it to the world. The world can have peace to-morrow if only they will fall down before the—terrestrial —"All Highest.'' He desires to live in friendship with all, "but first of all the victory of German arms must be recognised." Then peace will come; a real German peacfc which will mould the history of mankind —Hindenburg and the troops are seeing to it. It is an aim so manifestly pure and holy that "to this end the mighty powers of Heaven must stand by us." lu form the phrase is less foolish and loss blasphemous than His Majesty's Christmas announcement that "the German people has in the Lord of Creation above an unconditional and avowed Ally," but it means the same thing. What hope is there of negotiating with a man of this temper until his sword is broken? And he is the man who really makes German policy.