THE PEACE PROPOSALS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 8408, 6 January 1899, Page 3

THE PEACE PROPOSALS.

i 9 i (Electric Telegraph-Copyright— Unitod Press : Association], St. Petersburg, Jan. 5. It is believed that the Czar visits the King of Italy and Emperor of Germany at Koine to plead for bis disarmament scheme. London, Jan. 5. ■ The Cobden Club have issued a manifesto on the arbitration and disarmament proposals, asserting that both are realisable - on an exclusive basis of community of trade interests, but that a policy of protection is antagonistic to the scheme. 1 la the manifesto issued by the Cobden Club a declaration is made that it is necessary for Great Britain to be prepared to maintain its existing trade rights in the territories which other Powers may annex. (Received Jan. 6, 1040 a.m.) Rome, Jan. 5. - The Pope has suggested the appointment of a permanent committee of arbitration in connection with the Czar's international disarmament scheme. The Czar has embodied the idea in his programme.

The scheme of the Peace Conference (writes a St. Petersburg correspondent of the Daily News) is due to the personal initiative of the personal ruler. It was conceived in a mind imbued from childhood with a horror of war ant! that passion for peace which distinguished his father. It was fostered by the continually increasing evidence as to the fatuous and suicidal j results of the policy of beggar-my-neigh- i bour, .which culminated in the promulgation of the extra naval programme of the Russian Government last spring, which was ' answered by Mr Goschen's supplementary naval programme of last summer. It found a congenial environment in the personal and domestic entourage of the Czar, and, finally, it was launched with all the ' splendid audacity of youth. From first to last the idea was the Czar's. Ho imposed his will upon his Ministers, feeling confident that ho could never make a more ' fitting exercise of his autocratic preroga- " live. He thus confronted and confronts Europe, with an initiative of leadership which, while it confounds and dismays the blinking owls of the diplomatic ivy bush, will more and more evoke, as the teal truth becomes known, the enthusiasm of the peoples for the young Emperor of Peace.