PRESIDENT WILSON'S REPLY.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14893, 16 October 1918, Page 5

PRESIDENT WILSON'S REPLY.

AN ARMISTICE REFUSED.

CESSATION OF OUTRAGES A CON-

DITION PRECEDENT.

AUTOCRACY MUST CEASE

(Australian and N.Z. Cable Association)

(Received Oct. 15, 9.30 p.m.) Washington, Oct. 14. President Wilson, in his reply, says :— The unqualified acceptance by the present German Government and the large majority of the Reichstag of the terms laid down by the President of the United State in his address to Congress on January 9th, 1918, and subsequent addresses, justifies the President in making a frank and direct statement as to his decision with regard lo the German communications of October Bth and 12th.

It must be thoroughly understood that the process of 'evacuation and the condition's of armistice are matters which must be left to the judgment and advice of the military advisers of the United States Government.

The President feels it his duty to say that no armistice can be accepted by the United States which does not provide absolutely satisfactory safeguards and guarantees of the maintenance of the present supremacy of the United States and her Allies in the field. He feels confident that he can equally -assume - that, nothing but 'this will-also be the judgment and decision of the Allied Governments. : ■

The President also feels it his duty to say that neither the United States Government nor the Governments with which it is associated as belligerents will consent to consider an armistice so long as the armed forces of Germany continue the illegal and inhuman practices in which they still persist. At the very time at which the German Government approached the United States with proposals for peace its submarines are engaged in sinking passenger ships at sea, and not ships alone but the very boats in which the passengers and crew seek to make their way to safety. And in their present enforced withdrawal from Flanders and France the German armies are pursuing a course of destruction which has always been regarded as a direct violation of the rules and prats I tices of civilised warfare.

Cities and villages, if not destroyed, are stripped of everything they contain, even the inhabitants. The nations associated against Germany cannot be expected to agree to a cessation of arms while acts of inhumanity, spoliation, and desolation are being continued which they justly look upon with burning hearts.

The President's words that autocracy must cease constitute a condition precedent to peace if peace is to come by the action of the German Government itself.

The President feels bound to say that the whole process of peace will depend in his judgment upon the definiteness and satisfactory character of the guarantees which can be given. This is a fundamental matter. It is indispensable that the Governments associated againstGermany should know beyond peradventiire with whom they are dealing.

President Wilson will make a separate reply to Austria.