VITAL ISSUES

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 9, 10 January 1918, Page 5

VITAL ISSUES

LIBERTY AND SECURITY

GERMANY'S GAGE ACCEPTED

ALLIES' CLEAR DEFINITIONS,

RUSSIA'S COMPELLING VOICE. (Received 11 a.m.) WASHINGTON,*, January 9. Mr Wilson, in the course of his message to Congress, ■ said that the Russian representatives insisted very justly, very wisely, and in the true spirit of modern democracy that the conferences they were holding -with the Teutonic and Turkish statesmen should be held within open and not closed doors, and that all the world should be an audience. That was greatly to be desired. "To whom have we been listening?" asked Mr Wilson.

"To those who speak in the spirit and ■with the intention of the resolutions of the German Reichstag of July 9 last —the spirit and the intention of the Liberal leaders and parties of Germany? Or to those who resist and defy that spirit and intention, and insist upon conquest and subjugation ? Or are we listening, in fact, to both, unreconciled in open and hopeless contradictions? These are very serious and pregnant questions, and upon the answer to them depends the peace of the world. But whatever be the results of the parleys at Brest Litovsk; whatever be the conclusions, counsel, and purpose lying behind the utterances of the spokesmen of the Central Empires, they have again attempted to acquaint the world with their -objects of war, and have again challenged their adversaries to say what their objects are, and what sort of settlement they deem to be just and satisiactorv.

CANDOUR AGAINST SECRECY. "There is no good reason why that challenge should not be responded to with the utmost candour. We did not wait for it. Not once, but again and again we havp laid our whole thought and purpose before the world, not in general terms only, but each time with sufficient definition to make clear what sort oi definitive terms of settlement mast necessarily spring out of them. With-ii the iast week Mr. Lloyd George has spoken with admirable candour and spirit for the people and Government of Britain. There is no confusion of counsel among the adversaries of the Central Powers; no uncertainty of principle; no vagueness of detail. The only secrecy of counsel, the only lack of fearlessness and frankness, the only failure to make a definite statement of their objects of war lie with Germany and her allies. The issues of life and death hang upon these definitions. Xd~ statesman who has the least conception of his responsibility ought for a moment to permit himself to continue this tragical outpouring of blood and treasure unless he is sure beyond peradventure that the objects of our vital sacrifice are part and parcel of the very life of society, arid that the people for whom he speaks think them to be as right and imperative as he does."

TKRELLING CRY FROM RUSSIA. "There is, moreover, a voice calling for these definitions of principle and purpose which seems to 'mc more thrilling and more compelling than any of the many moving voices with which the troubled air of the world is filled—namely, the voice of the Russian people. They are prostrate and all but hopeless before the grim power of Germany. Yet their soul is not subservent. They will not yield either in principle or in action their conception of what is right, and what is humane and honourable for them to accept. It lias been stated with frankness, with a largeness of view, generosity of spirit, and universal human sympathy which must challenge the admiration of every friend of mankind, that they refused to compound their ideals or to desert others that they themselves may be safe. They call to us to say what we desirej and in what our purpose and spirit differ from theirs.

AMERICA'S GREAT DEMAND. "I believe the people of the United States would wish mc to respond with utter simplicity and frankness. Whether their present leaders believe it or not it is our heartfelt desife and hope that some way may be opened whereby we may be privileged to assist the people of Russia to attain their utmost hope of liberty and ordered peace. It will be our wish and purpose that the process of peace when begun shall be absolutely open, and permit henceforth of no secret understandings of any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandisement has gone, also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular Governments, likely at some unlooked for moment to upset the peace of the world. We entered this war because violations of rights occurred which touched us to the quick, and made the life of our own people impossible unless those violations were corrected, and. the world secured once and for all against their recurrence. What we demand in this war therefore is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in, and particularly that it be made Eafe for every peace-loving nation, which, like our own, wishes to live its own life and to datermine its own institutions.

WORLD'S PEACE PROGRAMME. "Assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against the force of selfish aggression all the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice is done to others it will not be done to us. The programme of the world's peace therefore is our programme. That programme is the only possible programme as we see it, and it is this open covenant of peace openly arrived at, after which there must be no private international understandings of any kind; but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in puDlic view. There must be absolute freedom of navigation in all eeas outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as seas may be closed in whole or In part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants. The removal as ,far as possible of all economic barriers, and the establishment of equality of trade conditions among all nations consenting to peace and associating themselves for its maintenance. Adequate guarantees mut be. given and taken that national armaments be reduced to the lowest point, consistent wi€h domestic safety. There must be free, open-minded, and an. absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial

claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questione the sovereignty interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the Government whose title is to be determined.

TERRITORIAL AND POLITICAL LIBERTY. "There must be evacuation of all Russian territory, anil BUCh a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest co-operation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and, unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy, and to assure her a sincere, welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing. She should also be given assistance of every kind that she may need. The treatment accorded to Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their goodwill, and of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this to restore confidence among nations in the laws which they themselves have set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the wnole structure and validity of international law will' for ever be impaired. All French territory should be freed, and the invaded portions restored.

FRONTIERS MUST BE REVIVED.

"The wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in Alsace and Lorraine, < which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly tofty. years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all. The readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognisable lines of nationality. The peoples of Austria and Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity for autonomous development. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated, and their occupied territories restored. Serbia should be accorded free and secure access to the sea, and the relations of the several Balkan States determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality, together with international guarantees of political and economic independence.

THE BALKANS AND TURKEY. Tho territorial integrity of the several Balkan States should be entered into. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured of secure sovereignty, but other nationalities now under Turkish rule should be assured undoubted security of life, and have an absolutely unmolested opportunity for autonomous development. The Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage for the ships oi commerce of all nations under International guarantees. An independent Polish State should be erected, which would include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, ■which should be assured free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial _ integrity to great and small Statee alike. In regaTd to these essential rectifications of wrong and assertions of right, we feel ourselves intimate partners of all governments and peoples associated together against imperialists.

TOGETHER IN PURPOSE. "We cannot be eeparated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand together until the end for such an arrangement of covenants. We are willing to fight, and to continue to fight, until they are achieved, but only because we wish right to prevail, and desire a just and stable peace, such as can be secured only by removing the chief provocations to war, which this programme does remove.

JUSTICE TO GERMANY. "We have no jealousy of German greatness. There is nothing in this programme that impairs it. We grudge her no achievement or distinction of learning, or pacific enterprise such as has made her record very bright and enviable. We do not wish to injure her, or to block in any ivay her legitimate influence or power. We do not wish to fight her either with arms or hostile trade arrangements if she is willing to associate hereelf with us and other peace-loving nations of the world in covenants of justice, law, and fair dealing. We wish her only to accept a place of equality among the peoples of the world —the new -world in which we now live, instead of a place of mastery. Neither do we presume to suggest to her any alteration or modification of her institutions, but it is necessary that we must frankly say, and it is necessary as a preliminary to intelligent dealing with her on our part, that we should have known whom her spokesmen speak for •when they speak to us. whether for the Reichstag majority or for the military party and men whose creed is Imperial domination.

JUSTICE TO ALI. PEOPLES. "We have spoken now in terms too concrete to admit of any further doubt pr question. An evident principle runs through the whole programme outlined —the principle of justice to all peoples and nationalities, and of their right to live on equal terms of liberty and safety with one another, whether they be strong or weak. Unless this principle is made its foundation, no part of the struggle for internal justice can stand. The people of the United States could act on no other principle, and to the dedication of this principle they are ready to devote their lives and honour and. everything they possess. The moral climax of this, the culminating final war for human liberty, has come, and they are ready to put their own strength, their own highest purposes, and their own integrity and devotion to the test."