FIGHTING FOR OUR LIVES

Gisborne Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 4814, 11 March 1918, Page 6

FIGHTING FOR OUR LIVES

THE ALL-IMPORTANT QUESTION LORD MILNER’S WARNING.

LONDON, February 25. Lord Milner (member of the War Cabinet), speaking at Plymouth on the subject of the Allies’ war aims, deprecated side-talk about details of peace negotiations at a time when the German military party was again firmly in the saddle, and when we were fighting for- our very lives and the verv existence of free nations.

Tlie militarists of Western Europe, proceeded Lord Milner, had but a single object. They openly proclaimed that their intentions were to deal Italy, France and Britain a knock-out blow, thereby securing domination throughout Europe and the greater part of Asia, and enabling the establishment of military despotism throughout the world. It wasn’t now a question of destroying Prussian militarism, but whether Prussianism would destroy us, sweeping away everything for which freedom-loving nations had striven for centuries to attain. Lord Milner foreshadowed greater efforts, and much greater hardships in the immediate future. Therefore he appeared for more perfect co-ordination of effort by all the Allies, the suppression of domestic discord,,, and the concentration of the efforts of men and women of aU classes and parties-upon the supreme object—national salvation. Owing to the policy of the Versailles Council, said Lord Milner, we had) now reasonable machinery t for attaining co-ordination of effort, jhe essence of the new system was that we got a permanent body of experts, who would be always sitting, engaged in the study of war problems from the view-point of the Alliance as a whole. , , Concluding Lord Milner said that he had no fear that there would descend on Britain anything . like the follies and excesses of Russia. Such revolutions destroyed not despotism, but democracy, which was perhaps on its greatest and final trial.