Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, MONDAY, APRIL 30, 1923. REPARATIONS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 16113, 30 April 1923, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, MONDAY, APRIL 30, 1923. REPARATIONS.

The present week promises to be a most, eventful one. Not only is the N'oar East Conference at Lausanne reaching a climax-, with every prospect of the attainment of pence; not only is the Irish turmoil suddenly subsiding, with again the prospect, of peace; but in the great international crisis in Europe there is some promise of a move toward a,, settlement. It looks as though the prediction made a few weeks ago by the Premier of France is to find realisation. Addressing the Parisian journalists, he declared that Germany would soon be forced to yield to commonsense,. and predicted peace would soon become a reality. "In the moral off< u .ive which Germany has launc'-H ■.'■ n'n.-i us,' lie said, "she has not Hesitated at anything which might help her in a world-wide gas attack. We must oppose simply with willpower and perfect calm. Before long she will end it. She will be forced to guarantee our reparations and definitely guarantee, our security. Thus peace, which has been so tincertain and so long waited, will become a reality." In conclusion the Premier made this prophetic statement: "You can wait —you can and should wait, for the Germans are going to come to France and Belgium with their propositions." The next few days will see the fulfilment, of the prediction. Whether the proposition to be made by Germany will b(- at all acceptable to France, is quite another 1 matter. Tt was indicated on Saturday that the offer would range between 1500 anud 3000 million pounds. Frances' figure hitherto has been 6600 millions, bill, it' is probable that, under certain conditions guaranteeing her security, she will be prepared to considerably reduce that amount. Tt is sincerely to be hoped that, some basis of agreement may be discovered. Obviously the burden upon France of maintaining her great, army and administering t/ho occupied region! of the Ruhr must be tremendous, and whilst every French statesman expresses the determination io remain in possession of that territory until adequate guarantees arc secured, if is probable that, a settlement would be welcomed in Paiis just as heartily as in Berlin, or in any other European capital for that matter, for every nation is affected to a greater or lesser extent by the present position of stalemate. As showing the effect on the commerce of other nations by France remaining as the dictatrix of. the economic as well as the political system oT Western and Central Europe, a writer in the London Observer states : "Industrially the Rhine, though not the longest river in the Old World, was by far the most, important. Beforo the war it carried a larger average volume of daily traffic than any railway in the world. After the Armistice there was to be more free navigation for the benefit of all nations. Instead of that, general international trade at the sole fi.it of France would bo subject to burthens and restrictions of mediaeval severity. Lancashire textiles are particularly affected, and through them even India. The recovery of British commerce and employment by restored intercourse with a great market would be harassed and hindered in a manner never before known in time of peace. Owr position in the Cologne area. is commercially sterilised already. Take the other nations. Switzerland is at one end of the Rhine and Holland at the other: the Ruhr policy means galling embarrassment and loss to both of tliem. Denmark and Sweden are equally hit. Take Russia. Germany was marked out by position and resources to reconstruct transport, mining machinery, agricultural and manufacturing equipment. throughout that Russia which covers a seventh part of the land-surface of the globe. As a result of the seizure of Ruhr—if occupation is to be indefinitely continued—Russia would have to wait longer for reconstruction, and then pay more heavily for it. But again take all the newer countries overseas, the producers of raw material—the United States, Central and South America, the British Dominions. Germany next to ourselves was the heaviest consumer of their staple exports. Brazil, "selling coffee and rubber to Hamburg, bought, more British and American goods with part of the proceeds. By similar means irj the well-known process of triangular trade, Australia and India gain, and we, like other nations, with Ihem. To tlip general world of ex-belligerents and neutrals in diro need of economic recovery the Ruhr policy is an interference and it nuisance felt far and wide. Whether France and Belgium alone can hope to hold that arbitrary position for very long without, challenging determined protest and counteraction by the majority of commercial nations, is for thoughtful men in Paris and Brussels to judge. There is the rest of the world to reckon with." The logic of facts must be pressing hard upon the statesmen of the opposing nations, but it. is Germany which as ihe defaulting debtor is hound to make the first move, and unless her proposals are made in a fair, reasonable and liberal spirt there can be little hope, of peace.

PEACE FOP, IRELAND. : .Tt is a good thing to learn that to-day the Irish rebels lay down their arms. Whether this is merely by way of truce or as a. complete surrender remains to be proved, but it is quite clear that Do Valera and his follower;-, have had enough of being hunted from pillar to post and that they have at last realised the futility of their barbarous murder campaign. Britishers everywhere would be intensely relieved to learn that this insane blood feud had been ended and that the people of Ireland were prepared to settle down and play an intelligent, part in the up. building of our great Commonwealth of Nations under the British sovereign. It is almost incomprehensible that in this ago of advanced civilisation the conditions existing until 10-dav should have been possible. "The state of Ireland," said a. writer in the London l'jmes a few weeks ago, "is appalling and intolerable. Pillage, arson and murder are recorded in almost every day's summary of the news; and the victims are those who are suspected of sympathy with the forces of law and order, whether of the old 'ascendancy' tradition or of the party which is attempting to carry out the treaty in the interests of Irish nationalism." (11 all the difficulties which the latter have to face the most urgent is that known as 1 the problem of compensation. Almost daily we record the insenato destruction of some public building or private house. Every such wanton act is suicidal, for thereby the position of lieland as a bulwark of civilisation is steadily undermined. In every part of Ireland but Ulster, from the. capital to the wildernesses of the western coast, houses have been reduced to smoking ruins, and men whose families have served Ireland to the best of their ability for generations are forced to become homeless exiles from the land of their birth." Another writer, Mr. A. G. Gardiner, in the Star, said; "1 met yesterday a visitor from Ireland who had recently seen the house in which he lived—a beautiful house as I know, for I .visited it in other days — burned to the ground by the rebels." Tie was unarmed and alone when the incendiaries came, for ho knew the house was doomed, and had sent the J servants away. He described the

events of that terrible night with the calm of a man \SIIO had supped so full of horrors that emotion ; was exhausted. I asked him what was; the character and appearance of Iho men who did these things, and lie replied that they were young and well dressed, with clean linen, and the hands of people unaccustomed to manual labor. Artisans? No, lie thought a shade above artisans in the social scale—probably clerks from the neighboring city. In the dissolution of all social order, nothing, he said, was more startling than the moral collapse of the 'respectable' elements of the community. The collective sense had vanished." and each one. was lighting for his own hand. N.o one dared help anyone else less she should be involved in the ruin. 'l'did not have a single offer of help that night,'' he .said, •hit; the next day, when the house was in ruins, well-dressed people came and cairicd away anything that took their fancy—the head of a sundial, bulbs from the garden, and so on. That is the awful thing. The- cement that bound society together has crumbled away,

and we are becoming a. nation of hares in the, midst, of desperadoes,* ready to see our neighbor's house sacked with indifference and oven to profit by it—not the rabble merely, bill people who are educated, well-dressed and respectable. We are a, society breaking up into atoms.," From such .a> fate as that may Ireland, at this eleventh hour, be preserved, and may she soon realise the great inheritance with 'which she has been endowed'as a. member of the family of British nations.