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Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16357, 31 October 1918, Page 6

In Monday's cablo news there was a brief report of a debate in the House of Commons on ,a statement which Lordl Milner had made to the "Evening Standard." One of Lord: Milner's critics, Major Davies, said that the statement "had aroused profound misgivings among the Allies," bnt in the brief description of the statement which was then available there was nothing that seemed to justify such misgiving. Mr John iDillon complained! that Lord Milner had run counter to President Wilson. He appeared to suggest that Lord Milner did not desire a change in the German system of Government. All this must have rather puzzled our readers, but a fuller"account of Lord Milner's remarks, contained in a cable message in an Australian paper, goes some way towards clearing up the matter. 6 What probably upset Major Ihrvies was the way in which Lord Milner put the case for the destruction of militarism, and particularly the belief of Lord Milner that "the German people are as anxious as the Allies to see the complete and ignominious defeat of militarism." There is no lack of facts justifying this belief, in our view. At any rate Lord Milner drew the right conclusion. "The Allies' main task," he said, "must therefore be to hasten the wreck of militarism," and this could be attained either by a completely decisive victory or by an armistice so strengthening the Allies' position that they would be able to dictate their own peace terms. There is nothing very ' alarming about this. As to the character of the German Government, Lord Milner "deprecated

attempts to dictate drastic changes in the German Government, or condemning the new German Government too hastily." "A complete transformation of the Government," he said, "was in progress." One would rather see more caution in accepting the bona fides and the reality of the changes in Berlin, but as to dictating drastic changes, Lord. Milner can quote Mr Wilson in support of his view. The President and Mr Lloyd George have both disavowed any desire to prescribe the form of a new Government for Germany. They have taken the line that the matter is one entirely for the German people, the A'.lies reserving the right to accept or reject the new system according as it agreed or disagreed with their conception of what it was safe to deal with. What, perhaps, aroused most of the criticism that was directed at Lord/ Milner's statement was his observation that "it was .in the interests of the Allies to see that a stable Government) was maintained in Germany." "As reparation must be obtained," he said, "we don't want Bolshevism rampant there." This is a point of view which is very easily intelligible, but just now the destruction of Prussian militarism without regard to the possible consequences to Germany is the Allies' sole business. "When the Kaiser began this war ho expected that it would end with a very wide extension of German territory and Gorman influence. It is natural, therefore, the war having turned out a catastrophic failure for pan-Germanism, that the countries which were despoiled by Prussia in the past should desire a bolated reparation. There is no perfectly definite report regarding the intentions of Denmark with respect to SchleswigHolstein, but it will be surprising if the return of theso provinces is not insisted.upon. In the Treaty of Prague of ISGIi, in which Austria gave up to Prussia her rights over the Duchies, which had been torn from Denmark in 1864, there is a clause providing that Holstein and Schleswig should bo returned to Denmark if, by a free vote, the population expressed a desire for such reunion. That vote has never bsen taken. It is estimated that 85 per cent, of the population of the Duchies is Gorman, Holstein being wholly Gorman. But Schleswig is predominantly Danish in speech, and Mr Arnold Toynbee, in his book "Nationality and the War," declares that a plebiscite would show that it is Danish in national sentiment.