THE COLONIST. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 1918. GERMANY AND THE SLAVS'.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14653, 6 March 1918, Page 4

THE COLONIST. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 1918. GERMANY AND THE SLAVS'.

Mr. Balfottr declared in the House of Commons the other day that the final disposal of the Russian provinces and of Roumania- would form part of the eventual peace settlement, and that no treaty conditions forced by the Central Powers upon Russia and Roumania would be recognised b.y • tie Allies. It is important that this position should be maintained and emphasised by Allied statesmen at every opportunity, for if these peoples should be allowed to dispose of their destinies as Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria require them to do, the future peace of. Europe will be exposed to a far greater menace than by even the pretensions of Napoleon. What Germany is endeavouring to do is to deprive all the Slav world of economic freedom by seizing its exits to the seas, and at the same time to put' under her own control more than a third of the Slavs of Europe through her peace terms and those of her Allies. In a long" and interesting article in the "New York Tribune," Mr Frank H. Simonds discusses the nature and effect of the appalling conditions which the hopeless^ cranks who are temporarily in possession of power in Russia are willing to accept as the basis of peace to enable them to pursue their queer schemes of human regeneration. Mr Simonds points out that in the present war, when Germany and Austria assailed Russia, they were able to throw the military resources of 28,000,----000 Slavs within their own frontier against the great Slav State which they were attacking because it had ventured to champion the Slav cause in the Balkans. Without/the aid of these Slav troops Austria would have been overcome long ago, for she had but .22,000,000 of German and Hungarian subjects who were loyal. In the next struggle with the Slav, bound to come if the Slav world is now placed in Teutonic chains, Germany will have more than 20,000,000 additional Slavs from which to draw troops. Thus we shall see a Central Europe in which 75,000,000 Germans will control line fate and fortunes of well-nigh 50,000,000 Slavs and 12,000,000 Roumanians, use them for cannon fodder, use them to advance the cause of the German against the

Slav, use them to make still stronger the German power in the world. And outside of Europe Germany has fastened her power upon 15,000,000 people in European Turkey, who are also in her scheme of things to supply economic resoi.tces and cannon fodder equally. Thus, in fact, 75,000,000 Germans are to rule 90,000,000 of other races, Slav, Hungarian, Bulgar and Turk. This.is the present German plan. It requires no discussion to set forth the peril to /the whole world of this plan. More ijh&n all else we are at war witlv the German idea which ronceives thas power is the sole consideration in international relations, which conceives thafc the German, as the member of a superior race, is permitted to rise any means to the end of asserting this superiority. Actually Germany is seeky ing to entrench herself in such fashion as to remain master of the political and

economic future of 125,000,000 Slavs, including those within and outside of Russia, and 12,000,000 Roumanians. She is operating vnder the cover of Ttussian formulae, which sound Utopian notes, to seize the territories and the liberties of 16,000,000 Slavs along the Baltic and the Vistula, together with the Baltic seaboard of all Slavdom, she is seeking in the Balkans ot destroy the only barrier to ter expansion into Asia. It is probably true that the twfc of permanently holding in subject*. <r 125,000,000 Slavs is feyond the capacity of the German, but temporary possession of these millions may enable hiir to wreck the western world, dominate Europe, and plunge the whole work! into a quarter of a century of strife :md of anarchy. To make peace with Germany in her present mood and on t>;e present basis' would te to write another document like that Napoleon forc^l Europe to sign at Tilsit in 18^7-, a document which made him master of tte Continent and insured eight yeara more of struggle and of horror before Waterloo destroyed the empire -wWh Tilsit had legalised, and put a term to tie ambitions which had there been accepted by Europe. If the Slav* rr© permanently conquered and by the treaty of peace which ends this war placed under a (German yoke, there will be new wars at no distant time, jirnil Germany will be able to bring millitns and millions of Slav troops westward to .complete the ruin of Franco and u> undertake the final conquest of Great Britain. While Germany claims thf> right to seize Slav territory either in the Balkans or along the Baltic there can be no peace which is not a mockery, no peace which is not, in fact, r. prelude to another conflagration, in whichl Germany's chances of victory will be far greater. Germany is seeking an early peace which shall leave her sufficiently strong to organise Eastern Europe and to control her millions of conl'jered Slavs. This fe her goal, an<i we may in the next few weeks see that she is willing to pay for it in western 1 concessions of unexpected magnitude. But if as a reward for these concessions in the west the Allies permit Germany to dominate the east, we shall end the war saddled with a new Eastern question far more threatening than the old, .and a new German perif a ttousandfold greater than that which troubled Europe for the last quarter of a century before the storm broke. ,