WAR AIMS OF THE ALLIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16561, 9 June 1917, Page 8

WAR AIMS OF THE ALLIES.

DECLARATION IN FRANCE.

BRITISH ENDORSEMENT.

"FIGHT ON UNTIL ATTAINED."

(Received 5.5 p.m.) Renter. LONDON. June 7. Replying to & question in the House oi Commons, Sir George Cave, Secretary of Stale for Home Affairs, stated the Government, the House, and the country, completely agreed with the statements of the allied aims named in the French Chamber of Deputies. He promised to convey to Mr. Bonar Law a suggestion that the House should show its entire accord with the French statement. Mr. Philip Snowden asked: Do we understand the allies are prepared to continue fighting, regardless of other consideration*, until these aims are attained? (Cries of "Yes.") Sir George Cave replied that Mr. Snowden must take the answer given as absolute.

DEFINITION BY 31. RLROT.

DEMANDS NOT MODIFIED. A. and N.Z. Cable. PARIS. June 7.

An interpellation was introduced in the Senate by M. Regismanset, who invited the Prime Minister, M. Ribot, to define the general policy of France. He said the Senate was unanimously indignant when seven Frenchmen proposed to go to Stockholm to confer with the Ger. mans. It wished to share the Government's responsibilities, being unable to admit that Frenchmen should show the least sign of halting when the country was still invaded.

M. Ribot replied that German Socialists from the first had been conscious accoraplies of crimes against humanity, and even now approved the atrocities by their culpable Bilence. It was morally impossible for Frenchmen in tie middle of the war to confer with such enemies. Such confabulations in foreign towns only created an illusion of peace that was dangerous. " Never at any moment," continued M. Ribot, "especially when the struggle is hardest because the end is approaching, can we leave such an illusion in the public mind. The army of France requires all the country's strength, especially the moral strength. As befit? free men we do not seek captious equivocal formulas. We rejected the trap laid in the seductive formula which did not originate in Petrograd, but was imported from elsewhere, and the birthplace of which was only toe obvious.

"The words 'No annexations' cannot mean that we hive no right to demand what belongs to us. namely, Alsace-Lor-nine, which has never ceased to be French at heart since the abominable act which violated justice and right in 1871. But what is meant by ' No indemnities' ? If it be a question of humbling the conquered we will have nothing to do with it, but no French Government could renounce reparation for damage and atrocities. After the unprecedented devastation of our territory it is not an arbitrary act, but an act of justice which is our aim. We are convinced that we will find these ideas reflected in President Wilson's Not* to Petrograd. We are thus in complete agreement with the conscience of the civilised world."

M. Ribot added: "We must demand guarantees to safeguard our children from the return of such horrors. Shall we find them in territorial acquisitions or temporary occupations of territory, or neutralisation of territory ? All these questions will be considered when the time comes. Our best guarantee will be the reformation of Europe, in which all nalioi-s shall belong to themselves, where no single man can let loose such evils. If necessary the Germans should consent, for I believe in the power of ideas of justice. All those who fought together to the end will find that they need not separate after victory; they must form a League of Peace in the true democratic spirit which France had the honour of introducing to the world. We nations in arms must form a Society of Nations in which the future of hemanity will lie. All nations which are not nations of prey must unite to prevent others disturbing the peace!" ißeceived 5.5 p.m.) PARIS. June 7. After hearing M. Ribol's speech, the Senate adopted unanimously a vote of confidence in the Government affirming that peace was possible only on the lines laid down in the speech.