THE ONLY ROAD .

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16218, 22 May 1918, Page 8

THE ONLY ROAD .

(from our own correspondent.)

LONDON, March>2l. In a speech, at the Women's Liberal Federation, Jlr Asquith said: —

"Of the eight million ne-.v ctoctors_to be placed on the register, six millions are likely to be women. The work that women have done no longer needs commendation. Their praise is in all men s mouths. We, all of us, the women of the country as the men, are anxious for peace. But none of us is disposed for a moment to purchase that peaco at tho price of sacrifice. The purposes for which we Trent to war wo are satisfied in our hearts and consciences wore worthy of a great people. The hopes of a possible approximation to the ideals and aims which I suppose all of us havo the strongest temptation to entertain and encourage have been for the moment heavily overclouded. This so-called treaty concluded between the Centuil Powers and the representatives of tho ltussian people is not a treaty at all. It bears nono of the marks of the genuine binding or enduring compact, it, was extorted by force and intimidation, and violates, both in tho letter and spirit, every ideal for which every one of tho Powers of one side or the other has ever professed to entertain or pursue. It is for the moment —and this is where the sinister influonco comes in—an object-lesson, and only an ob-ject-lesson, for the world as to what a victorious Germany would seek to impose upon those sho has vanquished. To think of all these proceedings fills one with despondency, but one does know perfectly ivell that an arrangement of that kind cannot last, and that it contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction and death. Ther© is no hope cf a permanent tranquillity under conditions such as these. We are fighting to maintain the equal rights of great and small peoples, and restoring what has been wrongfully taken away, and, above and beyond all, for victory as a means to an end, and not an end in itself, but as an avenue aud road—tho only avenue and the only Toad —by which the peace of the world can bo placed beyond the ambitions and rivalries of selfish iniscliief-making interests and forces. It is our duty to ourselves, to our Allies, and the neutral world, and it is our duty none tho less to the peoples of tho Powers against whom we are fichting. Let us make it clear beyond dispute that these, and these only, _ are the purposes that brought us into the war, and which, after three and a half years of unparalleled storm and Btress, suffering and sacrifice, still keep us in the w.ar. It is for attaining them, and nothing more and nothing less, that we are continuing the struggle.''