THE COLONIST. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1918. THE BEAST AT BAY.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14892, 15 October 1918, Page 4

THE COLONIST. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1918. THE BEAST AT BAY.

At the time of writing the position reached in the negotiations between the Central Powers and President Wilson on the subject of peace is obscure. The Allied 'Governments are conferring and the reply eventually returned to Germany will be a joint one. The intimation that Germany declines to accept certain details of President Wilson's requirements is a matter that should bring us relief rather than disappointment. There is something inexpressibly odious in the idea of the Allies negotiating with. Germany otherwise than at the point of the bayonet with the hangman's noose in reserve to fulfil its appointed function. Germany's military schemes have no doubt so far fallen in ruin that she will agree to anything to avert the final catastrophe which threatens her, but her agreement will be a German agreement, a. mere scrap of paper, to be tossed aside at the first opportunity, as all other German agreements have been. Therefore her acceptance of President Wilson's conditions must be backed by the most solid and cogent guarantees, of which the evacuation of occupied territory must jbe the least, and then the points enumerated in the prolix Presidential speeches must be merely the starting point of peace discussions and not the J end. The President's language might be interpreted to cover everything that would go towards making up the peace arrangements which the quite exceptional circumstances of this war demand, but he was obviously merely stating general principles of which Germany could not be allowed to be the interpreter. Knowing Germany for

what she is, the world looks askance at her new-born anxiety to democratise her institutions and otherwise qualify under President Wilson's conditions for admission to the conference table, and the natural suspicion is intensified when her peaceful professions are accompanied by a further outburst of frightfulness on sea and land equalling in infamy the efforts of the old regime. The Allies will be disposed to reply to Germany that there can be no thought of negotiating with a nation which pezpetrates abominable outrages with equal facility under the government of militarists or so-called democratic statesmen. It would be better for humanity that the war should be carried to its conclusion and peace imposed by the sword rather than there should be a negotiated peace which would allow Germany to f-scape any part of the consequences of her crimes; and toy all appearances that course would entail a much longer postponement of the end. Germany's unconditional surrender should be the only ground for an armistice.