The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1918.

Evening Star, Issue 16782, 10 July 1918, Page 4

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1918.

Avast altogether from the imminence of that great battle of the

The IV orltS in CSiaos.

nations on tho western front, there is little in

the day's news over which it is possible to leel aught but depressed. From cart to west and north to south the .record is one of almost unrelieved crime and horror. Each new morn New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows Strike heaven on tho face, until the heart and soul grow sick with the seemingly porpAual terror of them. Violent death, ceaseless new outbursts, of crime, outrage, plunder, and torture constitute the major portion of our daily news until the imagination is dulled, and wo seem to bo living in a. meaningless nightmare from which there is no escape. Yet tho sane among us know that if the world is ever to escape from the multitudinous seas incarnadine whkh at present threaten to engulf it the war must go on. It is not because the Allies do not want peace, but becam-e they do, that they have refused to enter into negotiations with Germany. "Is there a single Government, or individual," asked Lord Cffrzon on one occasion, "who does not wish to put. an end to this reign of Satan which is turning half tho world into a hell and wrecking the brightest prospects of mankind';" There is but- one answer to all such questions. Paradoxical as it may sound to the superihial, the Allies continue- to fight, and arc giving of their youth and treasure with even more seriousness and zeal, and, if possible, in increasing abundance, than they were when these words were spi/kon for no other purpose than that the world should sceiue permanent pea.ee. There is no escape from this present reign of Satan and his invisible world now displayed on earth by way of the German door. Tho voice that, comes from thence is but a meekery of our hopes and a satire upon peace. Germany, in her present plight, is in the mood to promise anything, if thereby she can be saved from handing back the fruits of her crimes. Germany knows no law and recognises no superior- power save that of brute, force. To this she has appealed, and by it alone can she be subdued if righteousness, justice, and freedom are once again to rale on earth.

There arc yet , these among us who would trust Germany. To them the experiences of tho near past are as nothing. They have but one idea and one cry : " Stop the war. no matter how or for how long; only stop it." Russia, through the men who had gained control of the Government, put- this belief into practice. What to them that General Smuts had warned them what would happen to their country if they placed their confidence in German promises ? They simply brushed aside General Smuts as they have brushed aside the warnings of every sincere friend and well-wisher. To them ho was but one of the many representatives of the bourgeois and the hated capitalist class. Yet the words of the- soldier-statesman were nob the less true. : " Unless the world of brute force is smashed, cur liberty cannot live. lam .rare Germanyis prepared to do anything. She will swallow all the nice formulas that the Russian democracy and any other democracy may devise. She will swallow Russia, too, if she can. She is clever enough to do that." At the end of 12 months, who are the true prophets—the Bolshevik leaders or the man who has done mnve for the liberty of the world, including Russia, than the whole rabble rout of Russia's temporary masters? To-day-much of Russia is given over wholly to the- enemy, while what is left is split up into hostile portions as huge as they are chaotic. Crime stalks abroad in the streets of its once great cities; no man's life is Fsfc; robbery, plunder, OTitrrpge. and infamy have become so common that- tire}' need be exercised on tho grand scale to attract notice. Murder remains the favorite mode of dispensing with inconvenient persons, whether they bo ambassadors or ex-Tsars, until the ghastly business lias developed to its present status of supremo loathsomeness ; and tins, too, in the name of Liberty. It is the Russian Socialist- and author of interrational repute, Maxim Gorky, who a few months since, when contemplating tire ravages of Bolshevism', paid: "Tile reformers . . . are coldbloodedly sacrificing Russia- in the name of their dream of the world-wide and European revolution. And just as lor.g as I can I shall impress upon the Russian proletarian: Thou art being led to destruction ! Thou art being used as material for an inhuman experiment." The words are less than six months old, but their truth becomes more manifest everyday.