THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1916. WHEN PEACE SHALL COME.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16610, 5 February 1916, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1916. WHEN PEACE SHALL COME.

It will not have escaped notice that the Imperial Chancellor has been at pains in the Reichstag to depict Britain as the obstacle to a termination of the war. According to the Chancellor, Great Britain among the warring nations is alone averse to peace. Dr von Bethmami-Hollweg soems to have admitted, however, an entire absence of official overtures on the question, and his representations concerning the attitude of the allies of Britain will cause' no perturbation. The warring nations that are most anxious for peace, because they realise that they have reached their point of highest advantage, are the Central Powers themselves. They are apprehensive of the future. They appreciate the danger that British sea power will be a determining factor in the war. Therefore they arc pained at the obstinate continuation of the war by Great Britain. The German Government would like nothing better than peace overtures from the Entente Powers. The exasperating thing is that these overtures do not come. The German

Chancellor's hints havo been broad enough. If we turn back to his speech in the Reichstag on December 9 we find him talking palpably for the benefit of the enemies of Germany. " Mast not our enemies now more and more recognise," he said, " that they have lost tlio game ? Must not the (thought arise among many of us who see that the war can no longer end at our expense, why still more sacrifices, why does not the German Government offer peace? As a matter of fact, none of our enemies has approached us with peace proposals, and, indeed, they believe it to be to their interest falsely to attribute pcace proposals to us. This is due to (Jheir unparalleled self-decep-tion, which wo would have still further aggravated if peace proposals came from our side instead of theirs. If I am to

speak of our peace conditions I must first see the peace conditions of our •» enemies. In the first intoxication of tho belief of an easy victory our enemies set up exaggerated war aims, and proclaimed tho impending destruction of Germany. In England, in order to attain this idea, they we're willing, if necessary, to continue the war for twenty years. In tlie meantime, however, they have become somewhat anxious as to tho duration of tho war for such a time, but, nevertheless, the final ambition, despite all events which

have occurred, remains good.'' For German consumption this is doubtless excellent. The German people would not readily weary of being told that behind the phrase " protection of small States" Britain and her allies hide an irrepressible yearning to finish for ever "the grea,t State whose development has been observed so long with envy and distrust." We are brought back by the Chancellor's misrepresentations to the beginnings of the great struggle. It is interesting to hear a distinguished neutral comment on the subject. In a Inotable speech recently delivered at Toronto University Mr Joseph li. Choate, at one time American Ambassador in London, put the position of Germany in relation to the peace of the world with relentless lucidity. Referring to his presence as United States delegate at the second Peace Conference at The Hague irt 1907, Mr Choate said;

We sat four months cheek by jowl with tho Germans, the Austrians, the Turks, and all other outlying nations. We all thought that we had done something at the end of the four months to advance the cause of peace, to prevent the breaking out of war, and, if war must come, mitigate the horrors of war. It seems that our success was only for the moment—it was only .transient. Everything we did at that conference, every provision that we enacted for the purpose of preventing war or mitigating its horrors, has been trampled upon and violated, and all our agreements have been torn into shreds of paper and

thrown to the winds And Mr Choate, neutral though he is, leaves no room for doubt as to where, in his mind, the arch-enemy of peace and the trampler upon the articles of The Hague Convention has been revealed. His words strike home as a reply to the German Chancellor: "It is no use crying ' Peace, Peace,' when there is no peace, no possibility of peace until the authors of this awful war are brought to a condition where their adversaries and the'whole world can see that hereafter they will obey our rule, the rule of good faith, the rule of keeping contracts, the rule that when they make a treaty they must stand by it whether it is to their interest or not, and put an end to this awful theory which they have propounded and which they have acted upon, that whenever their interests required they could throw all treaties and contracts to the winds." A powerful indictment of the Kaiser appeared editorially in the New York Times recently under the title " What is He Fighting For?" Peace would come, it is suggested, if the German people were told what they were really fighting for. This recalls that the German Socialist organ,- Vorwarts, recently expressed an awkward desire to know the truth for once and to learn the aim the Ger-, man Government hoped to achieve by means of this war. "Battle after battle is fought," said Vorwarts, '' the armies are led against each other in new theatres of war, and yet the people are not told what has taken place and what must be achieved in order that the peace bells may ring. The only information vouched us is that ' the others ' must beg for pea-ce, as we are the victors. Unfortunately, however, the others do not feel defeated, so that no result is arrived at." And "the others" aim only at peace of one sort, the peace that will come when, to quote the New York Times, Germany, under the force of pressure without and hardship within, undergoes a change of heart, thought, and purpose.