SAFETY OF DEMOCRACY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3313, 12 September 1917, Page 6

SAFETY OF DEMOCRACY.

PERILS OF PREMATURE PEACE. LONDON, August 7. Mr W. A. Holman, Premier of New South Wales, speaking at Sheffield, said that as one who all his life had been a pacifist, he had been compelled to adopt the view that the peace of Europe and the safety of democracy could only be secured by the arbitrament of the sword. ■■ "The war," he continued, is a war of pacifists against militarism. It is a war ot peace-loving people.B of the world agamat the war-loving peoples. We want the war carried to a final and victorious conclusion in order that democracy may devote its energies to the activities of peace. If w$ accepted the peace for which the so-called pacifists clamour we should have to devoto all our energies to further preparation for war. Germany would tell her people that the teaching of Bismarck was and] that she had defied the world without punishment. Instead of having conscription aa a-temporary measure we should have i£ as a permanent institution. Educational, social, and industrial reforms would be de* layed 100 years, and the rattle of the Gear* man sword would be heard at the slighted opposition to German policy."