A PLEDGE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 147, 21 June 1917, Page 4

A PLEDGE.

President Wilson's pledge of restoration to Belgium was no doubt ine tided in his recent statements of Amer.ca's war aims, but tliis separate declaration will 'be welcomed everywhere. Nothing; in Mr. Wilson'B policy from the out-: break of war to the entry of America gave rise to so much criticism as his! failure to make any protest against the: violation of Belgium's neutrality by Germany. Most British people realised the difficulties in the way of America entering the war on our side, but they felt that there was no adequate excuse! for the. silence on this tremendous moral] issue, of the head of the world's greatest I neutral State, a State that professed to] be founded on ideals of liberty and justice. Early in the war Belgium sentj a deputation to Washington to report! on the outrages of the Germans in! Belgium, but could get no satisfaction from Mr. Wilson. "They were kindly received," wrote an indignant American, " and the spokesman oi the States read them a little homily about justice in the abstract—and that was all!" But the heart of the American people was with Belgium; the finest spirits of the nation warmly chamjrionfid lier cause, extolling

her heroism, and holding up her tragedy to the pity and execration of the American people. "The tragedy of their great little land is of a pathos matchless in the history of the past," said Mr. D. Howells, the leading figure in American literature. And Miss Edith Wharton wrote of Belgium that Wherever men are staunch and free. There shall she keep her fearless State, And, homeless, to great nations be The home of all that makes them great. Nearly three years later Mr. Wilson says practically the same thing to a Belgian mission; he and the American people " glory in the unflinching heroism of the Belgian people," and pledge themselves that " Belgium shall be restored to the place so richly won among the self-respecting nations of the earth." It is probable that the President's determination has been hardened by the reports of American officials who have returned from the stricken country. The report of the American Minister to Belgium on the conduct of the Germans in Belgium—a report that the American Government dared not publish till Mr. Whit Jock was safe on French soil—is a terrible indictment of Germany. Mr. Whitlock says that " even if a modicum of all that is told is true, there still remains enough to stamp this deed (the deportations) as one of the foulest that history records," and as "one of those deeds that make one despair of the future of the human race—a deed coldly planned, studiously matured, and deliberately and systematically executed; a deed so cruel that German soldiers are said to have wept at its execution, and so monstrous that even German officers are now said to be ashamed." In their growing agony it will he some comfort to the Belgians to know that the United States, as well as other enemies of Germany, has pledged ibself to right this monstrous wrong. When America (strikes the blow will "be all the heavier for the knowledge behind it of theee intolerable outrages on civilisation.