L'ENTENTE

Taranaki Daily News, 12 April 1916, Page 5

L'ENTENTE

A DIGNIFIED SPEECH. BY PRIME MINISTER. WIN OR LOSE TOGETHER. ANSWER TO GERMAN CHANCELLOR. THE KING'S WELCOME. Received April 11, 5.5 p.m. London, April 10. King George, at Buckingham Palace, in welcoming the French delegates to the inter-Parliamentary Conference, said: "I rejoice that we 'are united to Prance by an intimate alliance and mutual confidence. I trust that this alliance is destined to be peipetual. Your visit will enable you to see the strenuousness of our efforts to provide the requirements of the army and navy, and you will learn the depth of my people's sympathy for the sufferings which the ferocious invader has caused France, also the warmth of our admiration for the splendid valor and constancy of the whole of the French people. Never has the undaunted spirit and unquenchable hopefulness, of which French history is full of glorious examples, shone with more brilliant lustre, and the Allies are determined to prosecute the war until the menace of aggression which lias so long darkened Europe's sky, and threatened the prospects of peaceful progress th& world over, is finally removed.

Received April 11, 9 p.m. _ London, April 11. Mr. Asquith presided at a dinner given to the French D ariiainentarians. There was a representative gathering of politicians.

Mr. Asquith, in proposing the health of the guests, said that the relations between France,and Britain had for many years past been established an unshakeable foundation, and they had now become relations of intimacy and affection. Herr von Bethmann-Holhvcg declared that on December 9 he expressed his readiness to enter into peace negotiations, in which we were to assume the attitude of a defeated foe to a \ictorious adversary; but we weie not defeated and are not going to be defeated, and the Allies were bound by n solemn pact that they would not seek or accept a separate peace. The terms whereon we would conclude peace are the accomplishment of the purposes for which we took up arms. THE ALLIES' AIMS. The Allies intend to pave the way to an international system of securing the rights of all civilised States, and intend to establish the principle that international problems must be handled, free of negotiations, on equal terms between free peoples, unhampered and unswayed by the overmastering dictation of a Government controlled by a military caste.

That is what is meant by the destruction of (Prussian militarism, nothing more and nothing less. We, are in the struggle as champions, not only for treaty rights, but for the independent status and free development of weaker countries. Cynicism can hardly go further than Herr von Bethmann-Holl-weg's claim for Germany, of all Powers, to insist, when peace comes, on giving the various races a chance for free evolution along the lines of national individuality. FUTURE OF BELGIUM.

Herr Hollweg says that Belgium is not to become a Franco-English vassal, but is to become Germany's neighbor, a new development, indeed, of tha theory of the rights and duties of neighborhood. Mr. Asquith continued: "My answer is very simple. The Allies desire, and are determined, to see that old Belgium must not be allowed to suffer from the wanton and wicked invasion of her freedom, What has been broken down must bo repaired and restored. The attempt of Germany to Prussianise Poland for the last twenty years has been both a strenuous purpose and a colossal failure of the Prussian policy, and no one knows this better than Herr Hollweg. The wholesale strike against the Polish children together with the barbarous floggings, arrest, arid imprisonment of their mothers, form one of the blackest chapters even in the annals of Prussian culture. With this record Herr Hollweg sheds tears over what he terms the long-suppressed Flemish race." THE NAVAL POLICY. Mr. Asquith said lie would not dwell on Herr Hollweg's attempt to justify the submarine policy. "We carried out our naval policy in the spirit of international law, and I need not dwell on Germany's flagrant violation of the law and dictates of humanity. We are fighting side by side with our allies in a great cause, with clean liands and a clean conscience, confident that we have the will and power to vindicate the liberties of Europe." M. Pichon, in replying, said that Britain and France had entered the war together, and liad fought together, ind together they would win, France admired the Englishmen's nobility under arms.