BY THE WAY

Evening Star, Issue 17086, 3 July 1919, Page 2

BY THE WAY

fßy Caret, Ckoss.] The signing of the Peace Treaty has not thrown us into paroxysms of joy. We were so staled by hope deferred as to be almost incapable of appropriate jubilating. Long anticiption had taken the edge off. The thing had been so long revolved in the mind, and talked about, that when the deed was done there was hardly any victory cako left after our eight months of nibbling. Lukewannness in the matter o* the peace celebrations is a poor compliment to the meii who have fought and died to secure a ■victorious peace, especially when that lukewarmness is associated with a cheeseparing grunt over the alleged waste of money which one hears so frequently. To the general mind, peace actually came when the guns ceased booming and the slaughter was arrested. It was instinctively realised that peace came with the armistice, and we can never reproduce the spontaneity of the outburst of passionate joy and thankfulness which marked that occasion. The signing of the peace terms comes like a diplomats finale formally expressing a situation that was already actual many months ago. But when the official joy-days oome we will do our best to celebrate as we can a world-event of such stupendous magnitude, solemn and import as to beggar all our resources when we essay a worthy.celebration of it. * * * * *" # * Moreover, even while we are crying '•'Peace, peace!" we have an uncomfortable feeling that these is no peace. The very peace terms and the rearrangement of national boundaries have created a host of new problems and new animosities, which will test to the last limit the vitality of the League of Nations. Geririany has bowed to the inevitable, but has retired from the scene, of her humiliation "muttering sullen thunder." Recreated Poland is as yet but a- geographical expression and a political theory, to be made good in the teeth of a menacing environment. The rectification in the Balkans will require unheard-of quantities of diplomatic oil before it can be _ coaxed into smooth running. Poor Russia, torn and driven by all the devils of Gadara is still—nobody knows what, the great unpredictable. China is all agog with fear and hatred of Japan. India is seething with unrest, the demand for Home Rul<? having become so pronounced that a recent cable message suggested the beginning of an exodus of Europeans. And the most settled countries are threatened with outbreaks of violence and the breakdown of all stable government. Such a general condition of things is sufficient to keep us from soaring too high in our peace* jubilation. #*****■» But one thing at a time. The man who has survived a disastrous earthquake or escaped a charging tiger by the skin of his teeth will not depreciate his deliverance because he is to start on a long and perilous journey the next day. Such a Ions: and perilous journey is before humanity 0 now, but, all the same, we have escaped the deadly spring of the specific tiger among the nations, and have made as suitable arrangements as we know -how to prevent the repetition of his characteristic performance. And there is this to be said, that many of the movements th-vt are giving us so much anxiety to-day are at-least right in their motive, however woefully they may be misguided, and | whatever criminal violence may be associ-, ated with them here and there. They are at least a revolt against every form of degrading slavery, and they are entitled to°that credit, though they are often so reckless in their diagnoses, and take on such ugly forms, that they are hardly distinguishable from the enemies of humanity. But the evil thing that but recently cast its baneful shadow over the nations was one of tho most deliberate and dangerous conspiracies against human freedom ever conceived and engineered. * # * * * * * Before the war Germany did not believe that tho peace of the world could be secu'-ed and maintained in any other way than bv an irresistible military domination, and was sincere enough, as may be well understood, in her claim that she was aiming at the establishment of such a peace. She openly regarded as a pack of soft-headed ninnies the statesmen, social reformers,- and others who sought universal peace through universal franchises and r-o-as-vou-please methods generally. As a policv in war, Germany might foster the devilries of Bolshevism, though _a victorious Germany would have had it in hand in a few week-i. But the world has made up its mind nnal.lv and for ever that it will not have a peace dictated by military despotism. The alternative may open up weary vistns of turmoil and anarchistic violence, dislocated trade, and disordered finances and social conditions; but what matter if we can keep the soul that would have been crushed out of us under the victorious Prussian? Good! but it still remains for us to do in the right way what Germany proposed to do in the wrong way. Soul is an expensive commodity, and if we elect for it and are going to tight for it, we must not be surprisod that, Slaving vancmished the Hun, we iind ourselve.s'tlu'eatcned by other enemies quite as repulsive, and who equally demand trie surrender of everything we mean by " soul." *******

The recently published ' Collection of Reports' on the Bolshevik horrors in Russia, issued by the British Government at the command of the King, will surely modify the tone of the men in these parts who have been at no pains to conceal their sympathy with Bolshevism, though for decency's sake they have tried to make out that they alone were in possession of the "true ia/its," and that for the most part the cabled accounts were mendacious concoctions. More sickening horrors have never been perpetrated in this world, and the attempt to explain unci almost excuse them as a reaction against Tsarism is an insult to the public intelligence. With all the crude measures and repressive severities practised by the autocracy, it would bo impossible to match the horrible atrocities of Bolshevism without going back nearly 400 years to the first Tsar, Ivan the Terrible. And yet to this day organised Labor lias never ceased its demand that the allied forces be withdrawn from Russia in order that Bolshevism may have full and free scope, and be unhampered in the orev of savagery through which, presumably, it is hacking its way to equality, brotherhood, and the sweet reasonableness of the coming democracy. It is impressive to recall Germany's tremendous 'onslaught upon modern civilisation. -Somehow conceiving themselves an imperial people—a super-race predestined by Nature and Providence to the domination of the world—they cultivated an attitude of hostility to everything nonGerman, which was revealed in a cynical and bellicose literature. The entire resources of the nation were commandeered, organised, and disciplined for the glorious military -task that lay ahead ; the national mind 'was sedulously habituated to the thought of conquest and the dazzling future that lay Wore a victorious Germany. Undeterred and undaunted by the colossal nature of their self-chosen task, and after incredible preparations, this great Power steered straight for the crash of nations, and in a few months came so near realising its highest hopes that it had the whole world in a flutter. It had calculated upon so stunning opposition by rapid blows, and scaring it by its barbarities, that it would) be quickly paralysed- The heavy and rapid blows came, and the frightfulness was duly delivered; i but the. collapse didn't come. The Kaiser knew he was staking everything upon the throw. No such tremendous alternatives ever excited the brain of imperial gambler. It was "world power or downfall." We now know. ****** * I still consider Bernliardi's book ' Germany and the Next War' a most valuable document on the pre-war political attitude and mentality of Germany. In spite of the fact that his prognostications were often ludicrously "out," he is not to be discredited as an exponent of Germanism. His egregious errors in political diagnosis were those that were current in Germany at the time. It is interesting

to consider a few of his opinions after the experience of the last five years. (The book waa written in 1911.) For instance: "It is very questionable whether the English Army is capable of effectively acting on .the offensive against Continental European troops." *'Such a war . . • must be a war for our political and national existence; ... a war of desperation. A war fought and lost under such circumstances . . . would jeopardise the whole futuro of our nation; would throw us back for centuries; would shako the influence of German thought in the civilised world; and thus check tho general progress of mankind in _ its healthy development, for which a flourishing Germany is the essential condition. Our next war will be fought for the highest interests of onr country and mankind. "Phis will invest it with importance in tha worlds history. 'World power or downfall' will be our rallying cry.". "This victory trill not be gained merely in the exclusive interests of Germany. We shall in this struggle, as so often before, represent the common interests of the world. . . . in auch a contest we should not stand spiritually alone, but all on this vast gh&be whose feelings and thoughts are proud and free will join us in this campaign against the overweening ambitions of one nation." " Bismarck, by bringing about our wars of unification, . . . fulfilled the long-felt wish of the German people. . . . U is difficult to imagine how pitiable the of the German people would have been aiad not these wars been brought about by a deliberate policy." "The dominion of German thought can only be extended under the tegis of political power. . . . Our first and positive duty consists, therefore, in zealously guarding the territories of Germany as they now are, and not surrendering a foot's breadth of German soil to foreign nationalities. On tho west the ambitious schemes of the Latin race have been checked, and it is vei» hard to imagine that we shall ever allow this prize of victory to be snatched again from our hands." ******* France is only less unhappy than if she had been beaten Her fears for the •future almost outweigh her joy over victory and tho solid advantages promised by the peace settlcmrKnt. Realising that Gveat Britain and America saved her from annihilation, she is perfectly entitled to the reflection that Heaven alone knows what she saved them from, with the difference that, while no armed enemy set foot on their soil, much of her fairest and wealthiest territory has been devastated and ruined in the process. The French Press may bo pardoned an occasional tinge of bitterness on the subject. An influential .writer, "Pertinax," in an article under the title 'What England and the United States Must Not Forget,' expresses the view that Great Britain is yielding to the tendency she has always shown after overy big European war to "withdraw from European complications, and that she is burning with the desire to .jet back within her seagirt isle and become 'herself again. America, who for the first time has intervened m En rope, has preceded Great Britain in this direction. "It is ..easy to underhand the policy towards which, both London and Washington are leaning. As few engagements as possible, hands as free as possible! \ gelatinous League of Nations substituted for solid alliances." The writer draws an affecting picture of France's colossal losses in men and her generally Moa&hed-up condition. "Pert-bias," says the London ' TimesV political correspondent, "is not alone .'u drawing, a contrast between the present positions of Great Britain and France. The French, without any distinction of party, rightly or wrongly, believe that in the war Great Britain has managed to maintain, if not strengthen, all tho bulwarks of her Empire." # ■> ■ # * * * * Those who are lamenting the disappearance of the Coalition Governments that came into existence to meet the stern requirements of the war period have small encouragement from Professor M. Elie Halevy, of tho College of Political Science, Paris, who recently lectured at the Bedford (England) College for Women on ''English Freedom as Understood by a French Observer.' "In England," said M. Halevy, " I see order founded upon liberty, liberty evolving into order ; and tho two comer stones of English liberty, as I understand it. are the party ays! em and what 1 'have- called civic asceticism.- "It was interesting," says a listener, "to hear a, romnotent and disinterested observer., a specialist in English history, expressing a hope that the coalition system might- be but a pissing phase in English politics, on tho ground that the party system had proicd ilwlf in the past the guarantee or English libE.;Hv. Coalition during such a crisis as the war was permissible, and, indeed, inevitable; but now that the war was 'satisfactorily finished tho sooner the free play of the party system came into operation the betto- for trcedom. The party .system M. Hele.-y defined as government by tall; according to agreed ruler, founded upon -courtesy and good sense.