The Dominion. MONDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1917. THE ENEMY PEACE PROPOSAL

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 82, 31 December 1917, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1917. THE ENEMY PEACE PROPOSAL

As some London commentators have observed, the peace proposals made by the Central Powers to Russia—and through Russia to the Allies—though they are no doubt genuine, are unsatisfactory. The proposals as they stand afford welcome and convincing evidence that Germany and her vassals are, as recent reports have declared, in sore straits. The terms offered are assuredly not those it was hoped to impose when the German legions poured into Belgium and France in 1914. It is a great deal gained that the unscrupulous authors of the war have publicly ■ and formally abandoned their arrogant darm to dictate peace from the standpoint of conquerors. No better proof could he desired that ,they feel the ground trembling underneath their the peoples whom they have thus far bent to their will arc becoming increasingly restive under the intolerable strain, and fearful sufferings and privations of the war. A move in the direction of moderation by the military _ autocrats of Germany and Austria can mean nothing else than that they see defeat and retribution approaching and are searching for a way of escape. The facts are admirably summed up by an American newspaper which remarks that Germany niakes an offer, biding behind her vassal and the Petrograd mob, which is tantamount to an acknowledgment of temporary defeat. The offer commands attention first and foremost as a confession of weakness and a recognition of impending defeat, but at the same time it goes far to confirm the view that the peace for which the Allies are fighting—a peace which will lastis impossible while the present rulers of Germany and Austria remain in power. The Austro-German proposals sum up as a demand that crime should go unpunished and that the victims of crime should go without redress. Germany and her vassals ' demand that they should be allowed to withdraw from the war on evacuating the Allied territory they have occupied, at the same time recovering all tho territory they have lost, and without making any reparation for the frightful havoc they have wrought over a great part of Europe and on the seas. The only answer to be made by selfrespecting nations to such a demand is tho answer that would be made to any other criminals demanding an advantageous composition. Tho fact to be emphasised is that tho statement made by Codnt Czernin at Brest Litovsk is not a peace proposal from Germany and Austria as nations. It- is an attempt by the autocrats who made tho war to reach a compromise which would give them immunity, confirm them in power, and secure them an opportunity to repeat their bid for world domination at a later date. The Allies are bound to reject tho enemy proposals not merely because the Central Powers refuse reparation—on this point they would no doubt make extensive concessions— but because acceptance of these proposals would perpetuate the conditions which made this war possible, and out of which, if they aro allowed to continue, another and still more terrible war will undoubtedly arise. Germany and her vassals have failed to compass the designs with which they entered tho war,

but in tho stress of this world conflict all Middle Europe and Turkey have been compacted into oiio vast military despotism, with the German war party in absolute control. Until this despotism is broken and the nations to whom it extends have assorted their right to democratic freedom there will be no secure and lasting peace in the world, and no real interruption in.the development of Germany's designs of predatory conquest. As a noted French writer observed not long ago, Aus-tria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey do not exist any longer as separate States. They are not tho allies of Germany; they are Berlin's vassals. The restoration of Rumania and Serbia would interrupt the continuity of tho Middle European confederation which now extends into Asia, but, as the same writer has pointed out, Serbia's independence can never be guaranteed while Germany remains practical master of the fifty million people of AustriaHungary. "The pledge of Serbia's independence, therefore, does not lie in Serbia, but north of the Danube. This pledgo (that Serbia's independence shall be restored) involves the liberation of the peoples .under Ha-bsburg domination." Significant as they are of faltering determination and failing resources so far as this war is concerned, tho enemy proposals obviously coyer a sinister determination to retain all things in order tor another and bet-ter-prepared attempt upon the liberties of the world. There is ample justification for the contempt with which they have been received except by minorities in all Allied countries other than R-ussia. That the unscrupulous adventurers who for the moment arc conducting, a parody of government at Pctrograd should acclaim tho Austro-German overture was to be expected, and the insolent demand _ they have addressed to the Allies in this connection deserves as little attention as it is likely to receive. The Allies have, in fact, made no secret of the terms on which they are prepared to conclude peace, but there is no need to consider detail' terms whilo Middlo Europe remains subject to military despotism. That the autocrats of Middle Europe have been driven to afjmit_ their inability to gain their ends in the war'is a definite step towards peace and a significant indication of tho st;ato of affairs existing in the countries over which they rule. But before further progress can be made it is necessary that the people of tho Central Empires should, realise that their own rulers arc the essentia! obstacle to peace, for the reason, as President Wilson has said, that any body' of free men which compounds with the present German Government is compounding for its own destruction.