PEACE PROBLEMS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume VI, Issue 265, 25 October 1916, Page 7

PEACE PROBLEMS.

London, Oct. ]4. The third article by the . Commonwealth Primo Minister, Mr. Hughes, in the “Sunday Herald” is entitled “The Only Real Peace,” and commences:— Men ask when will the war end? It is the eternal question, and there are, no satisfactory answers. 1 say, when Germany’s last glimmer of hope has disappeared. and the doors of desire are barred against her. Then we shall have the peace we desire, and must have. If by a miracle the war ceased tomorrow, we are .so little prepared that the first fruits of peace would be as disastrous as the war. The problems of peace are infinitely greater and more complex than those of the war. The war brought hope, food, clothes, and decent life to millions to whom peace has given a mouldy crust and filthy rags. It would be better the nation should set them, as David did Uriah, in the forefront of the battleline, than condemn them again to such hopeless misery and long-drawn-out death. “We must use these millions as wealth-producers. Fighting men will not return to stuffy factories and offices. British manufacturers will not go back to the hopeless, chaotic, pre-war conditions. Their national pride has been cut to the quick at the revelation of Germany's machinations and cunning, and British foolish cocksuredness, credulity, and apathy. “The hearts of most men have been touched. They will not de iherately recreate pre-war conditions. The nation, as a whole, is plastic, ready for the hands of the potter. The rubbish and meanness of .the old Britain must becleared away.* the foundations of a new Britain well and truly laid, and everything made ready for the coming peace. I Britain is spendiijg five millions daily on the war. She can afford a small surn for national reconstruction.”