MILD SOCIALISTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16099, 13 December 1915, Page 6

MILD SOCIALISTS.

DEBATE IN REICHSTAG. GERMANY'S PEACE TERMS. CHANCELLOR'S BOMBAST. London, December 10. In the German Reichstag to-day, Herr S. Scheidemann, moved the ( Socialist interpellation asking the. Chancellor of the Empire to state the conditions upon which he was prepared to enter into peace negotiations. The mover was unexpectedly moderate, the Socialists being evidently desirous of taking no action which would embarrass the Government. He said that the Socialists strongly opposed making the war one of conquest, but there j was a unanimous determination to defend the country. They would not hear of the separation of Alsace j and Lorraine. The German people desired that the war should last not a day longer than was necessary to secure the independence of the country. The plan of starvation had failed, for Germany had twenty million pigs and as many potatoes as she was able to use. It was criminal if hostile statesmen endeavoured to delude the nations into thinking that the situation could change to Germany's disadvantage. Germany was able and determined to defend her own hearth, and Socialists, therefore, desired that the first decisive step towards peace should emanate from Germany. Germany Ready to Discuss. The Chancellor, Dr. von Beth-mann-Hollweg, replying to the interpellation, said : " An offer of peace by Germany is impossible while our enemies maintain their hypocrisy and ignorance. All disguises must first be dropped. If our enemies bring proposals proper to Germany's dignity, she is always ready to discuss them. Germany, in the full consciousness of successes, declines the responsibility of continuing the distress now filling Europe and the world. Nobody said she desired to prolong the war for the sake of conquest. " I am unable to say what guarantees Germany will demand in regard to Belgium. Neither east nor west must our enemies hold the means of invading Germany by which they would threaten us more strongly than before the war. We must also safeguard our economic development. This war throughout is a defensive war of the German nation, and its future.

No Peace Talk in Britain. We have gained gigantic successes'and have deprived the enemy of. one hope after another. When the road to Turkey was opened, threatening the most vulnerable point . of the British Empire, our enemies must have recognised that they had lost the game. If I am to speak of peace conditions I must first see our enemies' conditions. Their ambitions are unchanged, despite what has happened. Recent speeches in the House of Lords found hardly an echo in the British press. Mr. Asquith said at the Guildhhall that the objects of the war were the same as at the beginning, including the freedom of the small States, but the small States who believed that are now cured, since when Britain fights for them they fare badly. "The destruction of Prussian militarism would mean the finishing for ever of a great State whose development has filled our enemies with envy and distrust. ' Britain's allies took up this battle-cry. Such cries and the talk of restoring Alsace and Poland and conquering Constantinople are merely bluff. Enemy peoples have been fed on false hopes and now find that victories have not been gained. They have suffered many military and diplomatic defeats, and have been used as hecatombs, yet we stand far within their territories. War of Exhaustion. "We have opened the way to the south-east, and hold valuable securities, but our enemies cannot give up the delusion that Germany must be crushed, and have now placed their hopes in a war of exhaustion. Our provisions are sufficient, and, concerning the exhaustion of men, we have not gone so far as Russia. We do not intend to extend the age limit as they have done. Our losses are smaller than those of the French. " The depth of the enemy's hate is shown in the Barlong case, in which a British warship murdered the crew of a helpless German submarine. The British press hushed up this. The British have been proud of the navy's spirit, but they cannot reply to this murder, which remains a black stain on the navy's history." Herr Lansberg, as spokesman of the Socialists, said that they were ready for honourable peace, safeguarding Germany against frivolous attacks. Whoever attempted to carve up Germany would encounter a united people. The debate was adjourned.