The Evening Star FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1919.

Evening Star, Issue 16992, 14 March 1919, Page 4

The Evening Star FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1919.

Tub news from Germany is still black. There is nothing assured about the outlook, and starvation continues to stalk through the land. The staying of that starvation and the speedy suppression of the spirit of unrest, dissatisfaction, and incipient rebellion now swiftly spreading throughout the country aro the immediate tasks that await not only the German Government, but the allied representatives now reassembling in Paris. Happily, no weak sentiment and no misplaced sympathy characterise their attitude. They arc unalterably aware of the main causes of Germany's existing plight, and they are irrevocably determined that what has now to bo done shall bo dono as an act of grace, not of right. Germany for more than a generation has deeply and defiantly sinned against mankind. Her colossal egotism and unbearable national insolence have embittered end disgusted the world. Her rulers and politicians and publicists have ridden rough-shod over Europe. They have hectored and bullied and dictated until their very name became an offence among those nations and peoples who were desirous of living in amity and peace with the rest of their kind. The soul revolts and a feeling of physical nausea takes possession of tho race as it looks back and contemplates thoughtfully the nightmare of that horror under which it has so long lived. Of Germany it may bo said, as Diehard 111. said of himself on the ovo of Boswonh :

Reaping tha Whirlwind.

And every tongue brings in a several tale. ’ " And every tale condemns mo for a villain. Perjury, perjury in tho high’st degree; Murder, stern murder, in the dir’st degree ; All several sins, all us’d in each degree, Throng to tho bar, crying all: “ Guilty ! guilty!” I shall despair. There is no creature loves me; And if I die no soul will pity me. No soul pities Germany to-day. save in tho most- restricted acceptance of tho term. Whatever appeals she may address to tho world will be first carefully weighed and balanced before an answer is returned. “If starvation wore Germany’s portion.” said (Mr Lansing, tho United States Chief Secretary of State at a dinner given to tho American Press delegates m Paris, “ and violence and murder stalked her streets, it- was only a just punishment for hex - ci'imos. Pity,” he added, “ almost vanished before w’nat-Fraxice had suffered.” Tho words are timely. France, if not bled white, as the typically brutal Bismarck once threatened she should bo, is a living witness, and for many a. long year will continue to be, of Teutonic savagery nod hatred. “There are,” said M. Deschanel. President of tha Chamber of Deputies, “6.000,000 devastated acres in Northern France, of which a quarter of a million will never a.gain be cultivable, another million only possible to restore at great expense, and millions of acres of forest destroyed.” And this appalling catalogue is hut part, and part only, of the fruits that fell crime which tho German War Lords, with tho enthusiastic approval of their people, forced upon I ranee and Europe and the world in the summer of 1914. Men need not, and the nations as a whole do not, wonder that the I reach Government and people are to-day chary and hesitant over coming to Ml arrangement with Germany. Franco has nothing for which to thank that maleficent Tower. For nearly 50 years her people lived under constant fear of attack, and now that the attacker is himself “down and out” it- would bo more than human to expect France to consent to any policy, even remotely, that might again lay her open to the possibility of fresh outrage. France is not- called upon to establish new precedents ; she lias merely to follow in the footsteps of tha Germans. When Paris, in 1371, was prepared to capitulate, Bismarck’s answer was: “ I hold you two millions or people responsible in your own persons, I shall let you starve fox* e.l hours unless you agree to our demands ; ves, and yet another four and twenty hours, come what might of it.” Again, when the news of the surrender of scattered French garrisons was coming in, the Bismarckian comment was; “Another 3,000! If one could only drown them in the Seine I” After the final collapse the order was : “If we cannot supply garrisons for every place within our sphere of occupation we should from Fine to time send a flying column wherever they show themselves rocalcitx'ant, and shoot, haxxg, and burn. When that has been done a couple of times they will learn sense.” What Germany, through Bismarck, did netirly 50 years ago, Bernhardt urged should be done in tho world wax' he helped to prepares “In one way or another wo must square our account with France. . . . France must be so completely crushed that she can never again come across our path.” How is it possible for France to forget? How can the nations express pity for Germany? They must and they will now feed her, uot because they havo yet forgiven her many crimes, but because the two words “peace” and “food” alone can save her from anarchy.