TIMELY WARNING.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 October 1918, Page 5

TIMELY WARNING.

PEAGS PLOTS OP GERMAXY AXB AUSTRIA. (From the Christchurch Press.) (By Mrs Julian Grande:) , Berne, Aug. 19. Within tile last ten days there have arrived in Switzerland a parcel, and a large, parcel too, of German and Austrian peace agent*. They represent various classes of society and various parties, with a goodly proportion of clericals, Austrian and priest* for instance. They all came about the came time, whether from Berlin, Munich, Graz, Budapest, or Vienna. Their luggage consisted mostly of peace propagandist publications, of which those in German are, I hear, being already translated into Franch, and will probably be published within the next, few weeks, despite the extreme ■canity and dearness of paper in Switzerland at present. These German and Austrian peace 'angels have not all gone to one place, sad whan they have gone to the s:me plan they have taken up their quarters in different hotels. The clericals have gone to Roman Catholic towns such as Fribourg and Lucerne, and the professors to university towns, such as Basel, Zurich, Berne, Geneva, and Lausanne. This latest Austra-German propagandist plot in Switzerland is organised With the greatest care and being carried out with the utmost circumspection. What is desired is first to instilinto tie public mind the necessity for supporting the Swiss Government in that offer to mediate between the belligerent* which Germany and Austria desire ft to make. For this purpose the j clericals, professors, authors, and other. members of the band of Außtro-German agents now in Switzerland, visit editors, professors, politicians, and, in short, anyone who is thonght sufficiently important and to have sufficient influence to make this worth while. Many Swiss, of couree, do not fall into the pit thus privily digged for them; others fall in but with their eyes open, and because they wish to do so. To the credit of such papers as the Xeue Zureher Ztitunf and the Basler Xachricbten, they live not yet been dancing to the Austro-Gennan pacifist piping. The Basler Xachrichten, for instance, plainly says that the "psychological moment must be awaited/' and that the Swiss Government ought "to keep its peace powder dry"—words which have made a deep impression upon the Austrian press. The Zeit, for example, of August 16th, Friday last, has a leading article entitled "The Psychological Moment," which is a lecture to neutrals generally but particularly to the Swiss, on its being tnteir positive duty to lend iheir good offices for acting aa mediators between'the belligerents at present. "The psychological moment in the highest and deepest sense,", says Die Ziet, "can after all only come about because of an intense desire for peace on the part of the The Seues Wiener Journal, also of August 18th, similarly lectures neutrals and the Swiss in particular on the necessity of their intervening to put an end to the war, and not intervening too late. It ii all very well, it argues, to keep ypur peace powder dry, but powder may be kept dry so long that at length it spoils- After arguing that the prestige of belligerents is nowise diminished by contemplating the preliminary negotiations leading to an "honorable peace," it concludes Thus every delay on the part of neutrals in negotiating for peace appears in the light of a sin of omission against mankind." The Neue Freie Presse, again of August 18th, emits something very Bke a growl, asserting that the war can only be ended by a peace by understanding, and that it is for neutrals to take the initiative in bringing about such a what is at the bottom of all the trrKntir sod peace propaganda?! It i« thU-rtat witftili the next two or thref Ir-k* German* and Austria will issue , «w<4* offpr of such a "generous na",r» thdt they atpwt it to result in se-

I ting a large section- of people in Italy, 'France, Great Britain, and the Unitsd States against the war, and making them ask, "Why should we go on fighting?'' Thus they hope not only to create dissension among the Allies, but to weaken flhem internally. These, I learn on the best possible authority, are the neatly laid plans of Germany and Austria.' To help them in carrying out these plans they hope to obtain the support of neutrals, for which reason they are making their ■pea.ee propaganda in Switzerland. When tlhey ask the Swiss Government to mediate, which I hear they intend to do, if they have not already done <!o, the Government will, they hope, then have the support of the Swiss people. Some of the German-controlled papers are already preaching t)iie necessity of the Swiss Government mediating. Already two days ago a paper in Berne, owned by a German, and, of cour.-c. highly pro-German in politics, argued that peace mediation should come from a neutral democracy, and that Switzerland is more suited to ni3diate than any other. Other pro-German GermanSwiss papers which, since the beginning of August, 1914, 'have been systematically crawling at the feet of Germany, and have never published a word of protest about the violation of Belgian neutrality, the sinking of the L'isi'.ania, or of hospital ships, or any other abomination committed by Germany, are now beginning, walking with Agaslike delicacy, to question, in sentence* is invoved as they are hypocritical, whether the moral disadvantages of a deed sucii as the German niar.h throw"h Belgium, may not after all more than outweigh the military advantages. For instance, ''Der Bund'' of Berne (August 30th, lfll4i. commenting on the Geiman announcement of the destruction of I.ouvain, said: "It i? terrible tl-:»t such judgments as this should still lie necessary in present-day war 3. But a f.opulation which fires on troops must make up its mind to the worst." Thus did this ostensibly neutral paper apologise for Germany a monOh after th« outbreak of war. Not quite four yean later (August ISth, 191S), it is discovering that Germany made a moral mistake in violating Belgian neutrality, and that before there can be peace "the Belgian thorn must first be extracted from the soul of the peoples. This is our firm conviction. So long as the occupant insists on making Belgium, which was occupied merely for military purposes, an object of barter, there cannot be any conciliation."