FRANCE AND PEACE.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 January 1919, Page 3

FRANCE AND PEACE.

OBTAINING REPARATION. A STRONG HAXiD URGED, When Stephane Lauzarme, editor of Le Matin, of Paris, and member of the French High Commission, spoke at a meeting of tlie lle\v York Board ol Trade, choosing for his ''How France "Understands Peaec," be aroused bis hearers to a high pitch of enthusiasm by his direct and forceful language and his exhortation to deal with Germany and Germans with a strong hand"Let us remain strong," he cried, "ifstrength is the only thing that German understands, Let us not be too generou:-, —for sometimes generosity is understock as weakness. It is ridiculous to speak of 'the good German people'— the same people who shouted with glee in the streets of Berlin when the Lusitania was sunk with little American children. The German Socialists are noisy now; they were silent when Belgium was invaded, when the BrestLitovsk treaty was signed; then let them be silent now."

Speaking of the terms of Mr Lauzanne said: —"Our term 3 are reparation, restitution, and guarantees. Reparation! There can (be no reparation for the Cathedral of Rheims or the killing of women and children, tut the fine collections of art taken away from private homes and public buildings in Northern France and Belgium—they must be brought back. Factories huvo leeu robbed of their equipment; it must cosie back, an dthe fatcories be restored. "Aljead/ three cablegrams have come to the XJnited States from Dr Solf, complaining of the terms of the armistice. They say we want 50,000 cars and 1200 locomotives. Well tliev are a part of the railway equipment tk't wan stolen from France and Belgium; we want them back.

"All occupied cities have had to pay enormous indemnities, amounting to more than £000,000,000. Thesa moneys must come back. I speak of $50,000 houses destroyed and burned iu Northern France;' an army of 100,000 men will bo required for 20 years to rebuild these homes. These 100,000 jnen have to bo furnished by tho burners and destroyers. There is the restitution of all provinces occupied by the Germans, whether for 48 years or 48 months. Flanders is no different than Alsace-Lorraine.

'Now as to guarantees: The best guarantee against the repetition of all such crimes is the punishment of tin; criminals, and we are going to insist upon that. These three terms of which I have spoken are not ours alone, but thpy are for the nations who have fought side by side with us. I am'not swe that tliey are tenns of tho so-called democracy now residing in Control Europee where the socialists are so extremely noisy. "There are no good German people except those who aro dead," said Mr Lauzanne in conclusion. "The victory is not our victory. It is not your victory It is the victory of an ideal. It is the victory of right, humanity, civilisation—all that sort of thing for which all of us have suffered. And, above all, it is the victory of justice."