THE PEACE ISSUE.

Northern Advocate, 14 November 1917, Page 1

THE PEACE ISSUE.

OUTSPOKEN CRITICISM,

"A GAME OF GRAB."

In continuation of his dissertation in the "Daily News and Leader" on the subject of "A Reasonable Man's Peace," Mr H. G. Wells says:—

A second question is equally essen- | tial to any really permanent settlement, and it is one upon which these eloquent but unsatisfactory mouthpieces of ours turn their backs with an equal resolution, and that is the fate of the Ottoman Empire. What in plain English are we up to there? Whatever happens, that Humpty Dunipty cannot be put back as it was before the war. The idea of the German imperialist, the idea of our own little band of noisy but influential imperialist vulgarians, is evidently a game of grab, a perilous cutting up of these areas into jostling protectorates and spheres of influence, from which either the Germans or the Allies (according to the side you are on) are to be viciously shut out. On such a basis this war is a war to the death. Neither Germany, France, Britain, Italy, nor Russia can live prosperously if its trade and enterprise is shut out from this cardinally important area. There is therefore no alternative, if we are to have a satisfactory permanent pacification of the world, but local self-development in these regions under honestly-conceived international control of police and transit and trade. Let is be granted that that will be a difficult control to organise. None the less it has to be attempted. It has to be attempted because there is no other way of peaceBut once that conception has been clearly formulated, a second great motive why Germany should continue fighting will have gone.

INTERNATIONALISM AND TRADE

The third great issue about which there is nothing but fog and tincer tainty is the so-called "War After the War," the idea of a permanent economic alliance to prevent the economic recuperation of Germany. Upon that idea German imperialism, in its frantic effort to keep its tormented people fighting, naturally puts the utmost stress. The threat of War after the War robs the reasonable Germans of his last inducement to turn on his Government and insist upon peace. Shut out from all trade, unable to buy food, deprived of raw material, peace would be as bad for Germany as war.

He will argue naturally enough and reasonably enough that he may as well die fighting as starve. This is a far more vital issue to him that the Belgian issue of Poland or Alsace-Lor-raine. Our statesmen waste their breath and slight our intelligence when these foreground questions are thrust in front of the really fundamental matters. But as the mass of sensible people in every country concerned, in Germany as much as in France or Great Britain, know perfectly well, unimpeded trade is good for everyone except a few rich adventurers, and restricted trade destroys limitless wealth and welfare for mankind to make a few private fortunes or secure an advantage for some imperialist clique. We want an end to this economic strategy, we want an end to this plotting of Governments against the welfare of their neighbours. In such offences Germany has been the chief of sinners, but which among the belligerent nations can throw the first stone? Here again the way to enduring peace, lies through internationalism, through an international survey of commercial treaties, through an international control of inter-State shipping and transport rates. Unless the Allied statesmen fail to understand the implications of their own general professions they mean that. But why do they not say it plainly? Why do they not shout it so compactly and loudly that all Germany will hear and understand? Why do they justify imperialism to Germany. Why do they maintain a threatening ambiguity towards Germany on all these matters?

By doing so they leave Germany no choice but a war of desperation. They underline and endorse the claim of German imperialism that this is war for bare existence. The unify the German people. They prolong the war.