THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 1917. PEACE AND NO PEACE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16621, 18 August 1917, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 1917. PEACE AND NO PEACE.

That the Pope should be desirous of bringing the Great War to a close is altogether natural, for this feeling is shared by every belligerent nation and nowhere felt more strongly than in the countries which are making the greatest sacrifices to bring about a permanent peace. Yet it is not possible for every nation to accept the Papal implication that by dealing with Prussianised Germany as though it were a civilised and honourable state we can secure 'the substitution of the material force of arms by the moral forces of right." The Vatican did not venture to assume that the Kaiser was open to conviction on this point when his armies wickedly and ruthlessly violated the treatyguaranteed neutrality of Belgium and ravaged with heathenish ferocity its unoffending people. If the Allies were weak to-day instead of strong, if Germany were as confident in 1917 as she was in 1914, we should not have suggestions of international arbitration and peaceful agreements made with the very evident approval of the German Government. We know what value is attached to international agreements, to treaties and to conventions, by the Kaiser as a ruler and by German philosophy as a doctrine. Yet the importance of the Papal Note depends upon the evident cooperation of the Central Powers in its formulation. It is the case for Germany and Austria presented to the Allied nations through the kindly mediation of the Vatican. It is incomplete until we have the replies of the Kaiser and the Austro-Hungarian monarch, but we know beforehand that they will reply sweetly to proposals obviously put forward on their behalf.

The Note, it will be immediately observed, has not a word to say concerning the cause of the war, though it speaks of " established rules" being fixed assuring the real i liberty and freedom of the seas," of ; Germany evacuating Belgium and " guaranteeing her unhampered independence" and of solving the question of reparation and war costs by " oomplete mutual liquidation." In other words, nations are to trust Germany again on matters vital to their existence, while she remains a vast military organisation controlled by the Hohenzollerns, and -are to join in compensating Belgium for the crime which was Germany's alone. In return for the evacuation of Belgium and of French territory, the German colonies are to be restored and our Dominions are again to be exposed to the constant menace of treacherous, unscrupulous and unrepentant neighbours, whose callous rule has been a curse to the native races, and whose return to possession would be the signal for thoroughly German vengeance. Samoa and New Guinea are again to become German bases from which shoals of piratical submarines would swarm to our trade routes the moment Germany thought it to her advantage to break " established rules." This proposal is too German to be taken seriously, and we need hardly say could not possibly have originated in the Vatican. We have not suffered and sacrificed so much in this great war against a vicious militarism which will destroy all the democracies unless it is itself destroyed Ly the democracies in order that we may buy peace by returning to its master-pirates the keys of our ocean. The Papal |Note ignores the German plot, ! made during profound peace, to | seize New Zealand and to levy tribute on Australia, as it ignores the kindred German plot to conquer South Africa from the German colonies. Armenia is mentioned, but not the Armenian massacre, the | Balkan states but not the Potsdam conspiracy against Servian independence, Belgium and Northern France but not the unspeakable infamies perpetrated upon their helpless civilian populations. So through the Note! We are urged to discuss matters with the Kaiser and his vassal-kings in a " spirit of equity and justice." We may be sure that the Kaiser's reply will be that he asks nothing more. Meanwhile, Haig is hammering at the German invaders, and thereby helping to bring about " a fair and lasting peace," which will not depend upon the Prussians or be at the mercy of a Kaiser. All these peace intrigues, whether laid in Stockholm or in Rome, among deluded Labour agitators or among war-wearied churchmen, have for their sole and only purpose the weakening of the Allied determination before Prussia is deprived of the mastery of Germany and the power or.„ the Hapsburgs broken in Austria-Hungary. Europe will indeed " spee'd to the abyss of her own if she does not end once and for &J1 time this monstrous Prussian menace which knows no law but its own criminal ''necessity" and which deliberately plots and plans for the destruction of democracy and> the tyrannising of the world in the very period when democracy is working hopefully for the reform, of wrongs and for the humanising of society. We have an object-lesson at our doors in the claim of Germany, advanced 1 through the Vatican,(for the return j of Samoa and all other German colonies. These pirates, unable to hold Belgium, seek to* recover a lair in the Pacific from 'j which, when they are again read£7, they can ! strew our seas with Li[isitanias, and visit upon our seamen\ the fate of the crew of the Belgiaqi -Prince. We are to trust, according [to the Note, to " established rules'" 1 ! as Belgium is to trust to a German " guarantee." We are toldi that we should have arbitration aWI, if it is refused, "concerted actioip." The

Allies have " concerted action" now, and are using it with a strength it has taken them three years to attain, but will not take them three more years to employ effectively. German readiness to substitute "concerted action" in the future for " concerted action" in the present, and thereby to avoid the doom which her crimes have called upon her Kaiser, as the head of her military offending, will certainly be reflected in the German reply.