PEACE PROPAGANDA.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 February 1916, Page 4

PEACE PROPAGANDA.

It is .somewhat significant that simultaneously with the receipt of news indicating a greatly improves outlook for the Allies, and the serious financial position in Germany, that there should be quite an unusually large crop of messages concerning peace proposals. From Berne comes an extremely droll col lminieation, emanating from the Pe. manent Committee established to pro;

mote pence, to the ell'eet that tie delegates had been told that Germany would benevolently consider offers relating to peace emanating from the Allies. Few people will read this message without smiling at the words "benevolently consider." There will be no need to tax German benevolence in this direction, and it might well be devoted to practical demonstration in many much needed directions. At Lucerne, the German Chancellor has, it is stated, actually opened a peace branch under Princes von Euelow and Hohenlohc and Baron von Knaft, who are to immediately take steps with a view to inducing neutrals to join the movement. Simultaneously comes the news from the Copenhagen correspondent of the Daily Telegraph that "from Germany me hears now only the strong cry of the people for peace." Wo can quite believe it, and every week that the war is prolonged will add to the insistence and bitterness of the cry from that source. Furthermore, there is also contributed to the cable news this morning a remarkable solution of this difficult problem by 'a Leipzig Jurist (Professor Binding), [who airily argues that the Central Powers (Austro-Germauy, etc.), must insist on a separate peace—not on grounds of equity—as they would be in a minority at a general congress, which Britain would dominate. In other words: Germany must, by hook or by crook, be top dog every time. He believes that when a separate peace is once successfully entered upon, one enemy State after another will accept it "when they can no longer hold out." Delightfully simple and logical! Did it not occur to the Herr Professor that by the time the various States could "no longer hold out" there would be no option but to plead for peace? So far as the Allies are severally concerned they have firmly decided not to sign a separate peace, but what is of far greater importance is their determination not to conclude the war until their enemies are crushed. There is only one peace possible and that '.an only be achieved by a decisive victory, and it is for the lasting peace of th* civilised world that the Allies are. prepared to spend their last man and their last shilling.