THE OAMARU MAIL TUESDAY, JUNE 1, 1920. AMERICA AND PEACE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIV, Issue 14702, 1 June 1920, Page 3

THE OAMARU MAIL TUESDAY, JUNE 1, 1920. AMERICA AND PEACE.

The United States occupies. an unenviable position in its relation to Ger many. It is legally at war with that country, and would be at peace in order to facilitate the restoration of friendly relations and promote commercial intercourse. But it cannot attain the end it desires, and the stumbling-block in the way is distinctly political—the base effort to gain a party advantage in the coming Presidential election by transforming the great international question of a peace settlement into a paltry game of battledore and shuttlecock.The Republican majority in the Senate having rejected the Peace Treaty with Germany formulated by the Peace Conference with the aid of the United States delegates a document that, bears the signatures of those delegates —adopted the unprecedented and extremely ludicrous course of making peace by resolution. Both Houses of Congress proceeded to put that proposal into operation, and resolutions were duly passed. But President Wilson forthwith exercised his power of veto, and did so in,dignified terms, deI daring that such a peace with Germany as the resolution proposed was or ought to be inconceivable, as it was_ inconsistent with the dignity of the United States, the liberties of her citizens and the verv fundamentals of civilisation. To set aside the President's veto requires a two-thirds majority of Congress, that is of the two Houses sitting together ...and voting as one. That majority has not been obtained, or, m plain terms, Congress has refused to override the veto, and the President s decision stands good. According to some American papers, that result was anticipated from the beginning, and the whole miserable farce was only a part of the party game. One newspaper denounced thejjpeace by resolution*, process as "a device contrived for the fond purpose of improving the political situation of the Republican Party," while another declared that the ' resolution was not presented with a sincere desire to end the state of war with Germany legally existing," but "to make voters believe that a Republican Congress offered to end the war, but a Democratic President wouldn't permit it." There was a whole flood of journalistic adverse comment on the miserable business, and onlv a small amount of commendation, while some Republican newspapers tamely and lamely defended the resolution as the only means by which the United States could get out of the war, and a few went the length of pronouncing the method sane and sensible. The situation in which the great Republic has beeri landed is so ludicrous that one is led to marvel that such a sight could be presented in a civilised country, or, indeed, anywhere outside of comic opera.