GERMANY AND PEACE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16123, 11 January 1916, Page 8

GERMANY AND PEACE.

CHANGE IN PUBLIC FEELING.

VICTORY DRAWS NO NEARER

NEWSPAPER CONFESSION

A few months ago the great mass of the German people, spoon-fed by their offi-cially-inspired newspapers, really believed the war would end in October, as the Kaiser himself promised them, wrote Mr. Leonard Spray from Rotterdam to the London Daily Telegraph at the beginning of December. Russia, they were told, was about to be shattered, the German legions were to turn westwards, an.d France and

England, deprived of their Eastern ally, would be forced to terms. Disillusion came swiftly— the heels of the Russian

renaissance—in the launching of the third war loan and 'the announcement of a winter campaign.

Then fearing the effect of the reaction on the people, the Government allowed Maximilian Harden to break to them the truth. " Not one of our enemies is disarmed," he wrote. "England, the strongest of the lot, cannot even be considered badly hurt by our blows. All our foes believe, as honestly as any German, that victory will be theirs, and they are determined to do everything to that effect. This must evidently be a war of exhaustion. The human eye cannot fathom the end of it. Nail these ideas into every German brain."

What was the effect of the craniumpiercing operation on its victims? It has become clear in the last few days. It was not that intended— reconciliation of the people to a war of exhaustion, its end obscured in depths no human eye can fathom. No; the German people had been promised peace, and it is peace they are demanding. They know now there can never be a peace imposed by their conquering will. But they still believe in the possibility of " a peace with honour," though not with victory, and they are fearful lest their rulers, blinded '•y the possession of military assets that i..in never be realised, should deprive them of the promised boon. That the desire for peace is now the dominant one among ever-widening circles of the people is witnessed to by every traveller whom you meet returning from Germany. But what is of real significance at the present moment is that this longing for the end of the war, even with no conquests to show in return for the appalling sacrifices of blood and treasure, is finding open expression. True, it is little more than a whisper, but it is a whisper that is daily becoming more insistent, a whisper that has at last passed from lip to lip in the Reichstag itself. Freedom of the Seas. 1 In searching the German press for opinion, it is always necessary to bear in mind the iron censorship under which it works. For that reason a paragraph, or a mildly-expressed comment, is of much greater significance than would be columns of invective in an English journal of the " pessimist" school. There is, therefore, no danger of attaching too much importance to a recent remarkable utterance of the Frankfurter Zeitung, the principal organ of the financial classes. As no paper from that part of Germany has reached the outside world for several days, the original article is not to hand. But—a fact of deep interest in itself—it is quoted at length by the Vorwaerts. Greatly daring, the Frankfurter discusses that officially forbidden topic, the " objects of the war." It quotes first Bethmann-Hollweg's famous declaration, " Germany must so build up its position, so strengthen and fortify it, that other Powers will lose their tendency to enforce tho policy of an iron ring around Germany." Then it proceeds, "The policy of the iron_ ring has suffered complete defeat. I French intrigues will never again prop the ' revenge' idea on to its legs, and as to English guardianship, the war has, before tho whole world, exposed it down to the ground, and brought it into discredit. Therefore, there now remains only the English sea question. The whole theory of. the domination of the sea rests upon out-of-date analogies with former times. It is a question of being guided according to the real conditions and getting rid of all sentimentality, which, just as blind hate, can be as dangerous as blind love." Russia Unconquerable. Having thus neatly disposed of German cant about fighting "for the " freedom of the seas," the Frankfurter proceeds, " Finally, the speedy resumption of the Pan-Slavi6t treachery towards the West is not to be feared. It is true that lasting security is wanting, but we must be careful not to look for this along wrong roads. Certainty, we can, as a matter of fact, never have, and it is because that must be recognised that the teaching is so much to be stigmatised as false which would make us believe that Germany may not put the sword into the sheath before Russia has been torn into pieces. That would lead us along the quite un-German road of a conquering imperialism, which we never intended to follow, and which is at variance with the words, The freedom of the great and small nations.' " It is no matter for wonder that this article, written on the very eve of the meeting of the Reichstag, has attracted widespread attention throughout Germany. For it is a clear pronouncement that Germany has done all it can ever hope to do, that it can never dream of conquering Russia, and that the cry of the " freedom of the seas," in these days when, owing to the deeds and policy of England, freedom for the whole world on the ocean highways is an accomplished fact, is so much humbug. In other words, the Frankfurter Zeitung, standing for the great commercial interests of Germany, tells the German Government to silence its false battle-cries, and raise the standard of peace.