PEACE MOVE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LII, Issue 249, 16 October 1918, Page 5

PEACE MOVE

AMERICA'S REPLY TO GERMANY DETAILS -OF PRESIDENT WILSON'S STATEMENT. (Australian and iN.Z. Cable Association.) WASHINGTON. Oct. 14. President Wilson), in his reply, says: —The unqualified acceptance by the present German Government and the large majority of the Reichstag of the terms laid down by the President of the United States m his address to Congress on January 9th, 1918, and eubsequent addresses, justifies the 'President in making a. frank and direct statement as to his decision with regard the German communications of October Sth and 12th. It must be thoroughly understood that the process of evacuation and the conditions of armistice are matters which must be left to the judgmentand advice of the military advisers of the United States_ Government. The President feels it his duty to say that no armistice can be accepted by the United States which does not provide absolutely satisfactory safeguards and guarantees of the maintenance of the present supremacy of the United States and her Allies in the field. He feels confident that he can equally assume that nothing but this "will also be the judgment and dcvision of the Allied Governments. The President also feels it his duty to say that neither the United States Government nor the Governments with which it is associated as belligerents will consent to consider an armistice so lon>g as the armed forces of Germany continue the illegal and inhuman practices in "which they still persist. At the very time at which the German Government approached the United States with proposals for peace its submarines are engaged in sinking pas- , senger ships at sea, and not ships alone but the very boats in which the passengers and crew seek to make their way to safety. And in their present enforced withdrawal from Flanders and France the German armies are pursuing a course of destruction which lias always'been regarded as a direct violation of the rules and practices of civilised warfare. •Cities and villages, if not destroyed, are stripped of everything they contain, even the inhabitants. The nations associated against Germany cannot be expected to agree to a cessation of arms I while acts of inhumanity, spoliation, j a;nd desolation are being continued which they justly look upon with burn- ' ing l hearts. j The President's words that autocracy must cease constitute a condition . S precedent to peace if peace is to come jby the action of. the German GovernIment itself. The President feels bound to say that the whole process of peace will depend in his judgment upon, the definiteness and satisfactory character of the guarantees which can be given. ! This is a fundamental matter. It is indispensable that the Goverrunents associated against Germany should know beyond peradventure with whom they are dealing. President Wilson wiM make a separate reply to Austria (Rec. Qi-t. 16. 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, Oct, 15. It is necessary, in order that there bo no possibility of misunderstanding, that the President should very solemnly call the attention of the 'Government of •Germany to the language.and plain in- . tention of one of the terms of peace which the German Government has now • accepted, as follows :—"Destruction of every arbitrary power anywhere, that can be separately, /secretly, and of its single choice disturb the peace of the world, or if it canfaot presently be destroyed, at least the reduction to virtual impotency of the power which, hitherto controlled the German nation of the sort here described." It is within the choice of the German nation to alter it. The' President's words just quoted) naturally constitute a condition precedent to peace, if peace is to come by the a-ction of the German people themselves.