Manawatu Evening Standard. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1917. THE CENTRAL POWERS AND PEACE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLII, Issue 10106, 13 October 1917, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1917. THE CENTRAL POWERS AND PEACE.

Ik the Central Powers are really earnest in their desire to obtain a peace settlement they are certainly not go mg the right way to work to get it. '1 lie terms they indicate their willingness to aecepl are so impossible of acceptance by tin' Allies that they might just a.s well have been lelt unstated. On Wednesday, we were told on the authority of a Berlin paper, that Germany and Austria bad agreed to make a peace oiler on the basis of no territorial aggrandisement, and the surrender ot Belgium and French territories, with no indemnities on either side. Hie same day we had the Cologne Gazettes Namglorious forecast ol Germany s Inline, as the partner with Russia and Japan in a ■■syndicate lor the division ol me world,” with the intimation that ‘‘Great Britain must be dolealed betore Germany can become a lull partnei in the concern. On Thursday, side by side with Dr. Michaelis’s statement ot the position, came the cabled report ol the Pan-German Congress, with its defiant resolution that "‘Germany s tiontiors must be vastly extended _ both in the east and in the west. ’ i be Geimaii Chancellor declared that Gei maiiN was lighting tor her Iree development on the Continent ol Europe and oncuseas; that she must strive to avert the threatened economic ollensivo against Imr, and that her ships must be ireel.N allowed to enter the world’s ports, otherwise German cannon and Gorman submarines must (smtinne their work. An uiterance ol that kind does not savour very much of the peaemakmg spirii.. It rather confirms the statement by Dr. Redding, a Prussian deputy, who. ;it a political demonstration bold at Saarhrneken a few months ago, declared that ‘'bill that Germany wanted was a German peace.” It is further in I keeping with the terms embodied in the peace programme ol the German Socialists, first published in ]9lo, which have never been revised or modified. Briefly stated, they embody (1) The security of Gorman independone and the entirety of the German Empire, ‘‘which implies the rejection of all annexation plans on the part of our opponents, including the French plan to roincorporate Alsace-Lorraine with France, no matter in what form that end may he sought.” (2) Security for the free economic development of the German nation, including “the ‘open door,’ that is ■equal rights for commercial and such like activities in all colonial territories.” (3) The inclusion of the most favoured nation clause in the articles of peace of all the nations now at war. (4) The freedom of the seas to he guaranteed by an international treaty, I he rigid of capture at sea to lie abolished, etc. j There were a few othr things included in the programme, but these

.should suffice to show the reader how closely the bulk of the Gorman Socialists are in agreement with the views of the German Chandler, who is discreetly silent on the question of annexations and indemnities. To understand the Gorman mind on the subject, and the contradictory statements that are sent out to the world concerning Germany’s willingness to conic to peace terms with the nations she so wantonly assailed, it it necessary to remonjher that duplicity and deceit are the every day weapons ol German warfare, and that what Dr. Michaelis has himself termed “the will to truth” in his glorification of the Gorman Chancellor's, Bismarck and Betlunann (“Von Bismarck bis Bothmann,” hy Dr. Paul Michaelis, Berlin. 1911) is sadly lacking in Germany, as Dr. Michaelis himself admits.

THE GERMAN PROTESTANT MANIFESTO. It lias also to he remembered that everything coming from Germany in the shape, ol news has to pass the censor, and that the German press is under a very strict censorship also, nothing being allowed to appear with the approval 'of tlie authorities. It is not ut all surprising, therefore') to find that side hy side with the messages to which reference has already been made, there should bo another, telling of a manifesto issued by a number of Protestant clergy in Germany, “extending the hand of fellowship to their co-religion-ists in enemy countries.” The exact terms of the manifesto should prove interesting reading, in contrast to the appeal “to the civilised world ’ made hy the professors and clergy of Germany in the early days of the war. That appeal, signed hy (amongst others) the following Professors of Protestant Theokn/y, viz.; Adolf Deitzmanu. Berlin; Wilhelm Hermann, .Marburg; Vdolf Von Schlatter, Tubigen; and Roinhokl Seehurg, Berlin, affirmed that it was not true that Germany had trespassed in neutral Belgium; that it was not true that the life, and property of a single Belgian citizen had been injured by German soldiers, exept in solf(1 efence; that it was not true that German troops had treated Louvain brutally, but that German troops, “with aching hearts,” had “been obliged to lire part of the town in punishment” for the excesses of the wicked and ungrateful Belgians; that it was not true I that Germany paid no respect to interj national law in her warfare, and so on, land it ended up with the petition that | the civilised world should “Have faith in us and believe that we shall carry on this war to the end as a civilised nation, to whom the legacy of a Goethe, a Beethoven, and a Kant is just ns sacred as its own hearts and homes. “And, for this,” the appeal concluded, “wo pledge you our names and honour.” Yet at the very time th manifesto was penned, the world was ringing with the grim stories ol tragedy and the atrocious deeds of which the Germans had been guilty in Belgium and Franco, with the sack of Lonvain. the murder of its citizens hy the drunken German soldiery, and the. ontj rages committed on defenceless women and children, both there and at Aerschot, Termonde, and a seon v of other places. The Protestant clergy of Germany, who alternately denied and justified these things, now offer the hand of fellowship-blood-stained and calloused —to “their co-religionists in enemy countries.” It is all part ot the German plan for gulling and duping the outer world, conceived clumsily enough, and, therefore, destined to fail of its purpose, in convincing neutral nations of German magnanimity and righteousness, because such attributes are whol'v foreign to its nature. The smug self-satisfaction with which Dr. Michaelis may have viewed his stagemanaged announcements, is. however, likely to irive wav before the tmeomnrising attitude of Mr Lansing and President Wilson, who declare that America will not make peace with the HohenKollerns. The Kaiser’s day is fast ending, and the loiv'cr Germany is in coming to terms with the ARie«. • ' he greater will he the Hv exacted, j from both the Kaiser and !ii i - people.