"NO INDEMNITY."

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 147, 21 June 1917, Page 5

"NO INDEMNITY."

BRITISH LABOUR VIEWt

LONDON, June 13. Writing in "The Federationist," Mr. W. Appleton, secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions, refers to the cry for no indemnities and no annexations. He says:—lt -is impossible to state or even to estimate the value in terms of money of the millions of lives sacrificed to the ambitions of Germany's military caste; or of the mental and moral agony of the peoples whose countries she has occupied; or of the material resources that she has destroyed; or of the deferred and ultimate consequences of her fight for world domination. But it is certain that she has impoverished the world and filled humanity's cup of sorrow to overflowing. It is obviously impossible to extract from a Germany beaten even to her knees such indemnities as will restore to those she has outraged the material resources and the artistic treasures that they enjoyed prior to August, 1914. But it should be neither impossible nor unjust to exact such terms as will keep her so occupied in making restitution and reparation that she will have no time during the present century to dream of, or prepare for, further military adventures. The world owes this much to itself. To absolve the aggressor from all material penalties is to invite future better-prepared attacks, and to place in the interim between 6uch attacks all the accumulated sorrows, burdens, and debts upon those who suffered in the war, rather than upon those who made the war. Let there be no mistake. If Germany wins, she will both annex territory and exact indemnities. The phrase, "No indemnities and no annexations," is an admirable ideal, but, if democracy in the Allied countries adopts it carelessly, it will find itself saddled with the whole burden of restoring the resources of eleven different countries, will also leave undamaged Germany and Austria a clear start in the trade war which will follow the termination of military operations.