The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 1918. NO GREATER FALLACY.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 June 1918, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 1918. NO GREATER FALLACY.

There could be no greater fallacy than to believe that a patched-up' peace, leaving Germany in possession, of a conquered territory and still in a position to threaten the liberty of all Europe, would lead, "to an immediate victory for democracy afterwards. It would only" mean that for years the machine; which plotted the war and supervised its execution would remains in power, on the one hand poisoning the mind of its'people in order to induce them to maintain the> armaments on which its power depends; on the other, filling the rest of the world with intrigue, and corruption, suspicion, and, fear. So long as that happens there can be no real peace. Either no nation will dare to diminish, its armaments, or they will believe the specious lies of the Prussian propaganda and open the road once more to their own hearts and the universal triumph of the Prussian sword. The rulers of Germany, indeed, are not thinking of the terms of peace. They are still thinking of victory. Transferring the greater part of their troops and guns from Russia, they have been making the most colossal of all their attacks on the "Western Allies, not in order that they may retain the whole of Alsace-Lor-raine or obtain this advantage or that, bat in order to establish once for all their ascendency over Europe. Their calculation is that even if they do not succeed in overthrowing the Allied armies altogether, they will at least be able to inflict such damage upon them that the peoples behind will ; weaken and come to terms. Those terms will not be particularly hard. But they will represent the* clear triumph of might over right, and they will have been accepted by the Allies because the Allies will have been unable or unwilling to endure any longer the hardships, and sufferings consequent upon, withstanding the Prussian will. And if they succeed in thus forcing their terms on the Allies they will indeed be the masters of Europe, for no nation therein witfc' ever dare to resist the rattling of' their sword. liberty will have succumbed to despotism. The only road to a new era of lasting; peace is a complete - : ->tory for justice and freedom \ If theAllies go throu,"' the task

they have undertaken until either the German Government or the Governments of its allies are forced by their own peoples to-ac-cept the just terms which have' been offered to them, or if theypersist in rejecting them, until' their authority has been overthrown and a Government responsible to an awakened people is in power, the principal cause of the ambitions and hatreds-which have disunited and estranged the nations and thereby' Caused war will have disappeared. Eight will have prevailed.over might, a settlement will have been made which contains within itself no seeds of fresh war, and the way will have been prepared for uni-versal-peace through proof tlrata League of free Democracies has in 1 practice been able to vindicate the law of nations against the assaults of the most powerful autocratic combination that the world have ever seen. If they fail, whether' through want-of resolution, or inability to see •clearly the-tremen-dous meaning- which the next few weeks onnonths may have for the r future of mankind, or by giving way to the overwhelming desire for peace and plenty and a respite from the horrors of war, they will only doom themselves and their descendants to a new reign of terror and a new war worse than the old. The true peacemakers are not those who shrink from war and would sign a compromise peace in order that they may end it. They are those soldiers of thet right who recognise that there can be no peace with evil triumphant, and who are prepared to endure whatever sufferings and hardships may be necessary in order that right shall prevail. Let us see to it that we stand firm and that the weakening shall come first from the side that is resisting democracy in order that it may inflict new wrongs.