The Dominion. TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 1917. THE SHORTEST ROAD TO PEACE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3108, 12 June 1917, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, J UNE 12, 1917. THE SHORTEST ROAD TO PEACE

At a time when the war outlook is clouded by internal dissension in Russia, President Wilson's Note to thai country is particularly opportune and welcome. The Note is not to Russia only. It is an assurance to tho whole world chat America lias entered the war as the champion of human liberty and the relentless enemy of autocratic aggression, and that she will tmver call a halt until her ideals of universal liberty nud justice have been in tho fullest measure realised. The | Note is oven more than this. It is an inspiring repetition of the call to arms sounded nearly three years ago when free nations were called upon to take their part in the most terrible war known to history or acquiesce in the- extension of Germany's autocratic domination o\ct Europe, and into lands beyond Europe, and so invite calamities moro tcrriblo and lasting than any war could inflict. Though the President's Note is cast in broad and general terms it is entirely freo from obscurities or phrases of doubtful meaning. No more triumphant vindication of the stand taken by tho Entente could bo desired than is implied in tho fact that tho President of tho great Bepublio which has entered the war with no thought of aggrandisement, but eololy in defence of human liberty against aggression, has outlined war aims which differ in no essential feature from those of France, Britain, Italy, and smaller countries linked with the Entente. President Wilson had said that no people must bo forced under a, sovereignty under which it does not wish to live, that no territory must change hands except for the purpose of securing the inhabitants a fair chatico of life and liberty; a,nd that no indemnities must bo imposed except those con-

atituting a recompense for manifest wrongs. This, with tho declaration thai, tho war must coutiuuo until Germany's "Middle Europe" dream of empire 'is shattered beyond repair, constitutes a statement of war aims which might as appropriately havo been made by Mi:. Lloyd Geokgr or M. Eibot as by the President of tho United States.

What the- effect of the President's Note will he upon Russia is admittedly conjectural. It is doubtful at best whether Russia has any immediate prospect of conquering tho internal disorders which arc reducing her to impotence as a belligerent, and are at once complicating the task of hor Allies and imperilling her own lately-won freedom. But tho President's Note, and in particular hie warning that the Allies cannot afford now to bo weak or to omit a single guarantco of justice- and security, will appeal irresistibly to all Russians who aic capable of grasping tho essential issues aad principles at stako in tho war. Tho Note should be the last thing needed also to discredit tho advocates of peace at any price who Jlave lately made themselves heard, though happily with little effect, in other Allied countries than Russia. There is no more- convinced pacifism in the world than the present President of tho United States, and the pacifists ia Allied countries who are advocating peace on any terms, tcgardless of what an inconclusive peace would entail, will be hard put to it to explain why a noted pacifist like Mr. \Vilson has gone as far as any .Allied statesman in enunciating a firm and relentless war policy. People who are able and willing to honestly face the facts will be under no such difficulty. Wo may assume quite confidently that Mr. Wilson is as eager as any man to find and follow the shortest road to peace. But unlike some of those who harbour the same general desire ho is wise enough to discriminate between a real and lasting peace and a nominal peace which would perpetuate the injustices out of which the present war arose, and infallibly lead to another and a more- terrible war as soon as Germany was ready to make another bid for world empire. At bottom, all that has been urged in Allied countries against the firm and unfaltering prosecution of the war may be traced, if not to some even baser motive, either to mere weakness or to lack of vision— to an astonishing failure to perceive that tho name of peace and peace itself arc not identical. Peace on tho basis of a return to the conditions that existed before tho war would mean neither more nor less than conferring an unrestricted opportunity on Germany of renewing tho war at a moment of her own choosing. This in itself is sufficient to condemn and discredit the pacifist propaganda, but it is only ono item in the indictment to be made out against its promoters. If the shortsightedness which proposes to loose a criminal nation unshackled and unpunished were pardoned due weight must still be given to the fact that tho unreasoning pacifists who loudly profess to be speaking in the name of humanity are condoning the inhuman and unspeakable outrages of which the Germans and some of their vassals have been guilty in various theatres of war. Nor can it be forgotten that these people who are so insistent in urging that Germany should be granted an easy way of escape are callously indifferent to the fate of the peoples living under German, Austrian, and Turkish misrule, and that- they are equally callous in rcfsw'd to" the fearful sacrifices, that ave been' incurred, particularly by Franco and some of the smaller 'Allied nations, in upholding the cause of human liberty. Tho whole position of the pacifists who have lately made heard in stop-the-war agitation is that they are prepared to condone appalling crimes and to basely ignore noble efforts and sacrifices, in the selfish and visionary hope of securing respite from the terrors of war. The author of the Note to Russia is a pacifist of a very different kind —one who recognises that the way to establish future peace and security is not merely to utterly defeat the nation which began the war but to transform and radically remedy tho conditions which its rulers were ablo to turn freely to account in furtherance of thoir ruthless ambitions. For full and ample justification of the stand taken by President Wuson, with the approval of his countrymen and in common with the Entente, \i is hardly necessary to go beyond the fact that the Pan-German party still reigns supreme and practically unchallenged in Germany, and that other parties, nominally its opponents, are in the main and with unimportant exceptions merely its tools. These truths arc stressed by Tkesident "Wilson in his Note. The body of evidence which supports his indictment is amplified to-day in news from Germany by way of Hollandof a great spread of Pa-n-Gcrinan propaganda in the German armies. Thero is in fact no lack of evidence that the spirit nf Germany is in essentials the same today "as when she wantonly plunged Europe into war, and sacked, plundered, and outraged Belgium, and it is idle folly to suppose that anything short of crushing defeat and the release of subject races from her thrall and that of her vassals will curb the ruthless ambitious of her rulers and dominant parties. In concentrating attention upon these essential facts President Wilson has at once greatly strengthened tho hands of the Enicnie, and mapped out very clearly the shortest road to a secure and stable peace.