The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 1918. ENFORCING OUR PROGRAMME.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 10, 11 January 1918, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 1918. ENFORCING OUR PROGRAMME.

For the cauae that laoJfce neaiatanct, For the wrong that need* retiatanee. For the future in the diatanoe, And the good that we otn "ia.

It is well to see clearly the chasm that yawns between the Allies' war aims, as outlined by Mr. Lloyd George and President Wilson, and the ambitions and ideals of the military party in Germany, who still control the forces of the Central Powers. Everybody hopes that the statements by the Prime Minister of England and the President of America will enlighten and influence German and Austrian opinion, but we must not hope that the walls of this modern Jericho will fall at the sound of the trumpet. We must rather examine closely the vital differences between our aims and the enemy's, and realise that unless something like a miracle happens we shall have to put forth our utmost strength to force the enemy to accept what we hare told the world we must have. There are only two points in Mr. Wilson's message that are acceptable to the military party in Germany—"freedom of the seas" and equality of trade, both of which they would use after the war, if they had the power, to prepare for their country's success in future wars. Acceptance of the rest of the Lloyd George-Wikon programme would mean ruin to them. They set out to conquer the world, and they themselves would be conquered. They would have to give up all their conquests, and raise vast sums for the restoration of invaded territory — a crippling burden considering that the finding of interest on their own war loans is already causing anxiety. They would, in all probability, lose most of their colonies and two of their annexed provinces, and their allies would be deprived of territory. And the acceptance of such terras •would he a clear and dramatic confession to the whole world that they, the controllers of the mightiest military power ever assembled for aggression, who openly boasted that they were superior to everybody else and meant to conquer the world, had been decisively defeated.

The world would see, too, that the defeat had been inflicted by democracy banded together to destroy autocracy. To the German militarists democracy is hateful, because it threatens all their privileges. It must never be forgotten that the militarists fight not only for Germany, but for themselves. They are a people within a people, an immensely strong community with rights and privileges far in excess of anything of the kind in any Allied nation. For generations they have been entrenched militarily, socially, politically, and economically, and they will fight to the last for their possessions. They rule Prussia, and through Prussia Germany, and through Germany they control Austria. They are materialistic, brutal, and narrow, and the only thing that exercises any persuasion on them is force. As Eaemaekers says, the only thing that impresses a Prussian is a blow on the head. These are the men we have to defeat if the world is to be a fit place for civilised people. If the German democracy rises and asserts itself, our task will foe made much easier, but even then we will have to exert pressure to obtain what we have set out as our aims. A revolutionary Germany would object to the surrender of Alsace and Lorraine, and the restoration at German expense of the invaded territories. Failing a revolution in Germany, we have simply got to fight on until the Prussian Junker, who lacks neither bravery nor tenacity, gives in.

The post-war aims of the Allies also conflict with those of the German war party. Because war is to us a relic of barbarism, we want to eliminate or minimise the risk of war. We have for an ideal the reign of peace. The Prussian of the ruling classes opposes this ideal. To the Pope he expresses approval of the idea of disarmament and arbitration, but in Ms heart he believes in war, and hopes that he will secure a patphed-up peace that will enable him to renew the struggle for the mastery of the world. His friends in the army and. in the Press openly discuss the next war, and deride the idea of disarmament,

and arbitration. War has long been Prussia's greatest industry, and the Junker has no wish to see the industry uprooted. For him the terms of the 1 Allies mean not only immediate ruin for him and his party, but the creation of international ideals and machinery designed to make it impossible for Prussia to rise again as a military power. So he will fight on, hoping that we will prove inferior to him in staying power, or that some other event like the Russian revolution will save him from defeat. It is our business to see that neither hope is fulfilled.