A PEACE WORTH HAVING

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 82, 31 December 1917, Page 5

A PEACE WORTH HAVING

WHAT THE ALLIES MUST FIGHT FOR. The First Lord of tho Admiralty (Sir Eric Geddes), in a letter to a leading Sydney worker in connection with the Citizens' War Chest, refers to the futility of any hopes of an early peace which would be lasting. He says: "We . want everybody's shoulder to the wheel at the present time. Amid all the rumours of peace—which to mo is at this moment a very pernicious thing to talk about—one is struck with the determination of the Empire and our Allies to go on until we get a peace worth having. Germany is not beaten, but 6he knows sho cannot win, and my own view is that it will bo the ond of 1918 or well into 1919 before wo can get anywhere near a peace that will prevent the Central Powers from planning another aggressive move. Tho Prussian military caste only held their position by their military ascendancy over tho minds of the people, and that military power has to be broken before any peace worth having can be attained. The only way to bring homo to the German people—and they, of course, aro the backbone of the Central Empire alliance—that they are beaten is to get tho outward and tangible sign which the world, and especiallythe Central Empires, cannot bo deceived into thinking to be anything hut a clear manifestation of tho defeat of the Central Powcre. I see no hopo of absolutely starving the Central Powers into submission by a blockade, and were it possible I am not sure that a peace brought about by starvation would bo such a peaco as could make us feel that _ the sacrifices by the Empire and by our ' Allies had been justified if tho Germans could say: 'You could not beat us in a. military senso, but yon starved our women and children. 1 They would add, .without the least doubt, in my opinion, 'Wo miscalculated the length of the war, and that mistake wo shall sec'ehall not bo made' next time.' It is our business to see that' there is no 'next time,' and no peace which does not make that clear is worth having. Such a peace is not in sight yet. Tho Navy and Army feel that they aro throughout masters of equal force of the Germans. Tho worst dangers of tho submarine, campaign appear to bo gradu-' ally recodiiic, and the probabilities of a. considerable increase in aeriah attack' to he increasing, and England'ls realising that the fact that, sho is an. island does not prevent her from being in the war zone."