Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, TUESDAY, SEPT. 17, 1918. AUSTRIA'S APPEAL.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 14711, 17 September 1918, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, TUESDAY, SEPT. 17, 1918. AUSTRIA'S APPEAL.

The enemy's peace offensive is fld vanoed a further ■ stage • to-day ; by the publication of ii definite offer from Germany itp Belgium and of an admisericorrlinm appeal from Austro-Hurigary to liie belligerent nations. The people of Relgium,, both ' within ' and without thcspliore of German . influence, have had sufficient experience of .. the bad faith of the Hnns not to trust themselves to another scrap of paper, and it may be sa : d- from the outset that our gallant little Ally will not be moved one iota by the clumsy attempt to again t make Belgium ■'■serve Gercitnn eiids. As for Austria-Hungary, her . special pleading will be taJcen lor just ;\vhat it is worth. ■Nobody denies, as tlio f circular points out,, that the whql-p world: longs for peace. Those of us, however, who Jire fighting tor liberty have a grim determination to expect), or accept, no peace which does not assure the accomplishment of that end. The Allies intend^ to iiAsure the liberty of all nations, big and little, ; to work out their own destiny as they may, and also that the peoples- now under subjection, , including the 1 peoples of the states of the Dual Empire, shall he free to rcprganise as.the-yimay desire. There must also be full reparation to the small 'nations such as " Belgium' and Serbia which have suffered most. ; Germany's, neglect to mention reparation, m her offer to Belgium puts thqt offer quite out of court. Until our enemies accept the view above stated it is useless to talk of peace, and we are glad to note that United States legislative opinion has promptly turned the proposals down.' i there is not much chance of peace until Germany is prepared to be dealt with substantially as she' dealt with' France m 1870, which, is a very fair precedent, and it is quite useless for the Austrian ■Government to attempt to create an atmosphere m 'which proposals ■ can be discussed. Whilst there is no great reason as yet to suppose that the Germans are prepared' to admit a military defeat, we believe that Austria would be only too ready to -throw down her arms, but is kept .m a state of belligerency by the bullying domination of Prussia and by the promise that 'if she' endures but a little longer German diplomacy will win a satisfactory peace. We are told to-day t hat the recent overtures have been made as tlie result of a conference at German headquarters! at which, the Austrian representatives demanded " further peace proposals should be made, but that Germany has "dueered" Austria's proposals by making others quite unacceptable to the Allies and by the" Kaiser's arrogant Essen speech. The chief concern of? the -Austro-Hungarian Government, which means the Hapsburg dynasty, is thW the Dual monarchy should not be disrupted-. When things comedo a final settlement,, however, that will be a matter for the peoples of the monarchy ' to determine. If. Austria-Hungary as a monarchy is a natural growth, the people will not wish to disrupt it and. nobody will try to compel them. But before assuming that the nations comprising the monarchy are contented *■ we shall need to hear from the peoples of Bosnia and.Herzegovinia. and the Poles ahd the inhabitants of the Trentino. The Slavs of Hungary must also be consulted. ' Those who have issued the Austrian manifesto, published to-day,' are hot. speaking as the true representatives of these peoples, for the very reason that Austria at present is not being constitutionally governed. She has a Ministry,' but it is nob responsible to Parliament; she has a Parliament but ,it is not representative of the- people- . Her political leaders cannot speak for the nation because the i nation has^no .power to influence their words or actions. Mrs Julian , Grande, that accomplished- Nelson lady, who is resident m SwltzerlancL- and contributes such interestinu-. articles to the Christy ehurdh Press, throws, somV, light on the Austrian internal-^situation iii a recent letter from Berne. She says that a (distinguished writer! fllttl politician whom she mot m Switzerland tlie other day confided to her the truly terrible condi.tioii of the -country .and' when." asked why 'Austria did not conclude a separate peace said : "We cannot.*' We. are m the grip of Germany's mailed fist. German troops are mixed with ours. Our finances 'are m the hand,* of the.- Germans', and we are altogether at their mercy." Confirmation of this, Mrs Grande tells us, can be found frequently m, the, Austria-it press, censored as it is. It is Useless to talk of Austria as a separate country independent of Germany. She' is nothing of the sort., She is almost daily more hopelessly involved m the olutohes of Germany." The Burgomaster of Vienna, Dr Woiskirchner, openly confessed at a recent meeting of the Vienna City Council, that he had to telegraph to LudendoriT, Hertling, ' and the Bavarian Prime Minister, imploring them to do something to procure food for the City of Vienna, and sayijig that if he did not receive help and at once, he could no longer be responsible' for the maintenance of publio order. Ludendorf? graciously replied in^a telegram which was read at '.the' t meeting, assuriirig Dr Weiskirchner that he would-be only too delighted, to- heli> liim .but Geniriany was already doing all .; she could. 'Here, therefore, is . an . e^anrple of the pitch .to. which Austria vis • reduced' ! It is not the Austrian' Emperor to whom an appeal is made, but the German Commander-in-Chief, tl>e German Chanoelldi 4 , ' 'and the Bavarian ;Prime Minister. 'Irt the absenpe o| a ■properly' ooristituted '■•■ Government," backed by a majority of' the House; Austria, is 4n & worse, case politically than she has ever been before,, 'worse i even' than m 1848, Owing to insurrec r j tions, and 1866 (Sadowa): Orr those 1 occasions the people were at any rate held together by loyalty to' the dynasty, hut now there is not evert that bond uniting them. ~ The yourig Emperor Charles no longer has the sympathies of hiis people, and consequently does' not represent them. He hag, many enemies and- apparently, no friends. The Slays suspect him because they ponsider a) Gerrftati puppet;, the; Germans suppect him because he "is 'married to an Italian woman ; while the: Socialists look- on both' Emperor and Empress as Itools of the Jesuits and consequently agents of ■the Vatican. The "ramshackle fabric of the Hapsburg monarchy, the Daily Chronicle remarked the other day, has survived so many shocks and predictions m this Arar tliat some people • have come sceptical of its ever cpllapsirtg. But m '.truth, t'hp ' qp'i|'c[itions |6r i^ cojlapse lyave not bpen jjatisfied, prior t9 the oiirrent' 'year, These eondtyionya^f (1) Art effectiive npder.stnrtdirtg ketwpen thf« three principal Slav peoples, whose senile' ol nationality tlie monarclly "outrages—that Ls, ' the Poles, the Czechs', amd the Jugo-Slavs ; (2) : -an ; effective espousal of their cause by tlie. ' Allied I Powers ; including Italy. Tlie first "con- 1 dition and the second-re ally go, more closely tpgethjai* than J might appear} for a reconciliation, bptween Italy "« and thp Jugflr-Slav^ was necessary befCre the latter coiil'd uniite on an anti-Hapsburg policy ; and a .fiiTp. "declai'ation ,'by tlie Allies m favor of a united 1 Poland was needed to make the Austrian Poles give Up their bird-in-the-hand> pogitiqn ip '■ pursuit of tlie bird m the .'busili. It is these forces of disruption, steadily at work which make the prfesen.t rulers- of . Austria-Hungapy co eager to create &\

peace atmosphere. But all their pleadings will be m vain. They are treated to-day, as our telegrams show, by the British and American press with derision. There <;m he no peace until defeat is .acknowledae-d and offers of reparation are ni-rle.