THE SPIRIT OF THE PEACE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIV, Issue 14006, 10 March 1920, Page 6

THE SPIRIT OF THE PEACE.

A SOURCE OF HOPE IN A DESERT OF SUFFERING. . (I3y G. H. Pern's.), One of the three chief authors ol the Peace Treaty was absent from' Saturday's ceremony of' ratification. The victim of Tabors- aggravated by reckless reaction and reckless idealism in about equal . proportions, President Wilson is still a prisoner of the White House doctors. From dizzy heights of power, and adulation, the great moderator has fallen into the depths of impotence. His ideas remain : never, perhaps, were they so really influential as now.. But the largest force behind ihem is broken. The American democracy is dumb to "his appeal; hy far the strongest* wealthiest community in.-the-world ■ refuses to take up its "share in the common burden and, comparatively little injured, remains formally at war. 11l these painful circumstances it may be understood, and ; yet regretted, that one of the remaining elders, at Paris did not seize the .opportunity of reviewing the whole- process of the Peace, and. of stating in terms simple enough to be universally understood its character as its authors see it.' Jf England is not only .to direct her own policy wisely, but in some.-measure- to fill. place, in. liberal leadership that America vacated., the British peoples must be enabled to weigh and measure the facts of the .-world-pro-blem, as it stands in the dawn of a. new .era. . . -■

I "What has hippni"d in the f'nitfjcl I States jn the past \cai is a steiiiwain|mg of the results of an 'tssuo c o immense and complex falling into thp I arena of common paitit>an debate j Yerv tew men aie capable of coinI piekending without aid an mstiumciit !of 440 Articles with iK subs'diarv I documents r ] hev would lnc'itnblv ; foiget "the gieat enterpii'-e" pi lh" mass of detail The onh commentanes on the work of the Pniis Conference Tet available aie moie 01 less docttmaire inspired bv more or less host le prepossessions The ablest of them, that of Mr J "\1 Kevnes— e valuable, criticism despite its onesidedness, —concludes that the Treat\, being designed for the "systematic destruction" of the Geiman economic' system, is equallv abominable and impossible, cannot stand, and must ho «oon levised All these critics have the an of considering generosity as more impoitant

than, justice; :uid the genefl propose is usually at the c«M people, it is' n. eharaeli.>ristlß fault, which, tlio world ovw/I misjudged as hypocrisy. 11$ means only lack of expei'lelf imagination. One such «7i|j glibly about- the Wilsoiiiiui;Js iieinii "asphyxiated in tlnsS| atmosphere of tlm French t# 'latere is a. truth, and there* dor, in such a- phrase; howisji in-tho-street to separate lliojife fatally ea.sv to 'ignore ccrtefe mental facts, and to fill thy your picture with comlbitaHfc assumptions—l say "comfortable cause the blackest British or Ainerica.ii iirmchwfS comfortable than the rcd : m any Frenchman. Belgian, M» hian, Russian, Pole-, or Ckcclkk*

No doubt these critics silica? licve- that, if their own liomcsll ioi-ies andcoal mines had-'MC .stroved, thev would have been* tlw 'to the destroyers than Mi:U eoa-u or even Mr Llovd George, fl so; it is pretjty certnin thabim trvmen would not have support* Their facile pens classify the.} ol' the Conference a.s individual.: is'ts," or "reactionaries,"- wherWj were, in fact, chiefly the different average intercuts a,ud tempers of their if nations. , ', £ The- doctrinaire is (lie most a of romanticists. Ho is more If than a.nv cocolle. Had ho 'baa dent Wilson, he would liii.vo.bl£ the.Conference rather than W* what, lie calls the decree of W outlawry and economic subjects The President himself is"*,! in corn-ago, and has not reapsheyond his national learned inuch in Pans, and,™ native being worse, signed U»? Ho knew that as he andl bw.OJ men would not have K bearJn den of it they had no rights a. eontimicd stale of war «W

world.' j-jJii Had an archangel come** T-leaven to preside over tW? TO dug in Paris, there conM >»K perfect treaty. To- ™s«*-!% bilities of theta.sk is tl>ej«g fairness and wisdom. know- this, and they knew W their old masters, had t**-«fl would have shown no pi«>> f.. it-v of niiv kind. . ~';« ■Tnrvitahly, the treaty is Wg of the forces actually ■*«*}. evita.blv. it is' a rompn""«o# had, and indifferent d?™f&{ for some of us. -dole,-mine**; * p sion thai: the derated. alK>ve nil. lte fc .»>7f itself, the way is thrown openj