PRESIDENT WILSON’S REVIEW.

Evening Star, Issue 16628, 10 January 1918, Page 3

PRESIDENT WILSON’S REVIEW.

FULL OF PERPLEXITY. NEW YORK January 9. President Wilson delivered the following Message to Congress; Once more, as repeatedly before, the spokesman of the Central Empires indicated a desire to discuss the objects of the war* and Die possible basis of a general peace. Parleys have been in progress at Brest-Litovsk between representatives of the Central Powers and Russia, to which tho attention of all belligerents was invited for the purpose of \ ascertaining whether it was possible to extend the parleys into a general conference with regard to terms of peace and a settlement. The Russian representatives presenterl not only a perfectly definite statement of the principles upon which they were willing to conclude peace, hut also an equally definite programme for the concrete application of those principles. The representatives of the Central Powers presented the outline of a settlement which, if much less, definite, seemed susceptible of liberal interpretation until their specific programme of practical tonus was added. That programme proposed no concessions either to tho sovereignty of Russia or preference of the populations with whose fortunes it dealt, but meant that tho Central Empires were to keep every foot of territory which their armed force occupied—every province, every city, every point of vantage—as a permanent addition to their territories and power. 11 is reasonable to conjecture that the Central Powers’ principles of the settlement which they first suggested originated with the more liberal statesmen of Germany and Austria—men who have begun to feel the force of their own people’s thought and purpose; while the concrete terms of actual settlement oa-rae from their military leaders, who had no thought but to keep what they had got. Tho negotiations have been broken off. The Russian representatives were sincere and in earnest, but they cannot entertain snob proposals of conquest and domination. The whole incident is full of significance, and also full of perplexity. With whom axo the Russian representatives dealing? For whom are the representatives of the Central Empires speaking? Are they speaking for the majorities of their respective Parliaments, or the minority parties? The military leaders are the Imperialistic minority which has so far dominated their w r ho!e policy and controlled the affairs of Turkey and the Balkan States, which felt obliged to become their associates in this war.