Page 32 Advertisements Column 2

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 70, 15 December 1928, Page 32

“I am told that In post-war German literature there is evidence that moderate Germans find much to criticise in the pre-war policy of Imperial Germany. This is an attitude of mind that makes for agreement and future peace; it is one that we should wish to help. The war-guilt article in the Peace Treaty hinders this moderate tendency from developing and becoming the national attitude of the German Government and people. It provokes and intensifies expression in Germany of feelings that make other nations doubt whether the German national view about war and militarism has really changed, and it is this doubt that in the eyes of moderate and conciliatory opinion in neighbouring countries still throws a shadow on the future. Such is the harm that has been done by putting a war-guilt article into a Treaty that should have been concerned only with defining the conditions of present peace and providing for future, security against war. It is not easy to undo a blunder of this sort. There are genuine objections to cancelling the article. This cannot be done without opening the door to alterations of the Treaty of Versailles. Some day this door may be opened by general consent, but the time has not yet come for making formal alterations in the text of the Treaty, though statesmanship should see that stipulations which are proved to be impracticable are relaxed or modified in practice.”— Lord Grey of Falloden.