Feilding Star, Oroua and Kiwitea Counties' Gazette. SATURDAY, MAY 10, 1919. PEACE AND PRUSSIANISM.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 3784, 10 May 1919, Page 2

Feilding Star, Oroua and Kiwitea Counties' Gazette. SATURDAY, MAY 10, 1919. PEACE AND PRUSSIANISM.

Tiik human element, was strongly in evidence at the ceremonial presentation of tho terms of peace at Versailles. Ami there, in t'lio act of peace, as elsewhere- in the act of war, the German was the pridefttl blonde beast. It must have given the American delegation,- which has stood friendly towards Germany during the armistice period—mainly hecan.se they were pleased at the conversion of the to republicanism—to have had such a demonstration of Prussianasm a.s wire insultingly given before. tho Allies by that most ignoble Count Kantzau, an aristocrat who fills the post of Foreign Minister and was put up as tho mouth-piece of a Social-De-mocratic Cabinet to insult 11 its principals of the Poaco Conference. .Hantaan fulfilled the human application of the axiom that a. silk purse cannot be niiido from si ewino'.s ear. The insulting attitude of the Germans at Versailles tempts the average* reader of the report to express his regret that Germany was not mortgaged to the Allies for 100 years instead of 30— or until every Inst penny of every nation's coet of the war wn« repaid as an indemnity. The question naturally arises: Have tho indemnities been made heavy enough within Germany's means of payment? No less an autho rity than Dr. Friedrich Natmiann, the German whose book, "Mittel-Eiiropa," contains his dream nf h vast. Germanic Empire in the East, declared to an American who interviewed him in February last in Weimar that "in 20 years Germany will be back where she was in 1914, competing for supremacy over the world's commerce and trade. Ii is Germany's logical destiny to be the factory of Middle Europe and of the Far East." We are supposing that the economic experts of the Allies in conference in Paris foreeaw something of the Nav.mann idea when they framed the clauses in the peace terms which give the old and new nations of Europo right-of-way through Germany in the matter of traffic and trading. We are inclined to the suggestion that tho Allies will have to exercise the utmost vigilance in their dealings with the Germans in regard to carrying out the tonus of the treaty. The enemy of 1914 will be the enemy of 1920 and later. He does not admit his defeat militarily, and he certainly thinks ho can play trumps in the economic game. The arrogant and unscrupulous traits of the war period when he thought he was conquering tho world are still Fritz's characteristics in these peace-making clays. The mord ready Fritz is to sign tho peace treaty, the more astute and vigilant the Allies will have to be—because Fritz will no more honour the Versailles scrap of paper than he did the treaty with Belgium—unless Force is kept continually at his elbow. Fritz "knows that the Allies are liable to get tired very quickly of vigilant oversight—and then comes Germany's opporfuuity to dodgo tho issuo and evading her obligations. That, of course, will largely depend upon the composition of the Commissions of Reparation and of Finance that are set up by the Allies to see the terms carried out. We should feel confident of the result if the Allies appointed Marshal Foch Generalissimo of the Peace Treaty, for then there would be no manner of evasion even attempted by the record treaty-breaker of the world. On a second reading of them, the peace terms look satisfactory—if they are meant to be carried out in the letter as well as the spirit of them. There is a mass of detail in them, and it is not to be wondered at that they were so long in the making. They cover a multitude of interests, so that we can only pick out special features, and then make only a few cursory comments upon them. The great national interests involved tempt further comment, but space cries Enough for today. We shall have to return to the subject yet again and again.