ASKING FOR PEACE

Taranaki Daily News, 28 April 1916, Page 6

ASKING FOR PEACE

WHY GERMANY MUST COME TO LONDON. A TRIUMPHANT CONCLUSION 1!V AN AMERICAN CRITIC THAT GERMANY MUST SURRENDER ON BRITISH TERMS OWING TO NAVAL CONQUESTS-COLOUR THE SEAS TO INDICATE THEM.

Ho the British people even to-day realise what they nave done to Germany? So vast has been the activity of' our Army and Navy, so widespread their sweep, that it is not easy to keep in focus what has been done.

We have had no outstanding writer who has given us. a balanced account month by month of what Britain has achieved— no one who, like Mr. Frank H. Simonds in the American Press, has marked progress for us, balancing the conflicting events of the hour. Mr. Simonds has been an acute critic of the Allies, but for us the main thing is that in his latest summary of the balance sheet of the Great War he declares in the American Review that "Germany must ultimately go to London and ask for peace," because our Navy prevents any other course. There is a' touch of the inevitable in Mr. Simonds' conclusions which will be heartening to those who cannot see the English wood (hearts of oak) because of tiie German trees (masts in Kiel Canal).

WHAT SEA POWER HAS DONE. Mr. Simonds states frankly that the importance of our sea power may be overlooked, and that "too much store may be set by the land operations alone." _ "The world has permitted its attention to be fixed upon land victories which have not been decisive, when the victory of sea power had not only been immediately decisive, on its own element, hut was daily contributing to reverse the actual situation on land."

Mr. Simonds points out llut it took the world two years before it appreciated the fact that in the Civil War the \orth had won the war, "however lonpr it might take to enforce the decision" on the Southern States. Here is Mr. Simonds' picture of what our sea power has donejfor us—and for Germany: "Up to the present British sea power has accomplished all that Nelson accomplished for his country and a little more, that is to say it has established the British supremacy on water beyond question, it has abolished the German commerce from the sea, it lias destroyed the German warships and undersea boats that have ventured within reach, it has given to British commerce and to British transport the safe use of the sea. Despite the sensational details of the sinking of a few great liners, it is well to remember that the actual percentage of loss of British shipping from German activities is far smaller than 'hat inflicted by French privateers in the Napoleonic time, and never did the British in the earlier wars with the French succeed in paralysing so completely an enemy commerce as they have now. ABOLISHED GERMAN COMMERCE.

"Following the earlier precedent. British sea power has made it possible for British expeditions to operate in Europe and outside of it.

"Outsid" European and Mediterranean field sea power lias enabled the I British to Sjii.her up all but one of the [German colonies; with French and Japanese help, the remaining colony, too, German East Africa, lies within the grasp of the British whenever they "choose to seize it. The Great Britain of Asquith has dealt with Germany as the Britain of the Pitts dealt with France, both of the Monarchy and the Empire. It has abolished German commerce, appropriated German colonies, sealed up German harbors tn trade, and it has prevented the Germans from inflicting a;;y material loss upon the British in their own kingdom and from effectively interfering with their trade or their transport.

"To-day Britain is giving financial aid to Russia and to Italy, she is giving military aid to France and she is engaging Germany's Turkish ally. Her troops, her money, her fleet are all available for use, wherever German activity calls for Allied effort. By no means all of her ventures have been successful, but in the Napoleonic War there were several Gallipolis, notably on the Island of Walt-heron and in the case of Sweden. OBSTACLE TO PEACE. "The real obstacle, to peace, at the present. moment, lies ill the fact that Great Britain has so far been the sole nation to profit by the ivar, and her profits have been absolute. Germany has made conquests on land, she has most of Belgium, a corner of France, much of Russia, and (with her ally) Serbia and Montenegro. But Germany has lost the sea. Not a German ship can put fo sea, and Germany cannot return to the ordinary business of life until she can again begin to ship her manufactures by water and draw her raw materials by the same rente.

"Thus, in effect, Germany lias occupied \varsaw, Lille, and Belgrade, only to lose Hamburg arid Bremen, which are to all intents and purposes in British hands, since they cannot he used by Germany.

WHY THEY MUST COMIC. "After eighteen months Germany has captured nothing that can give iier a basis for bargain with Britain. And what Britain holds makes all of Germany's conquests of little value. She is in the position of a burglar, who lias entered a house and eolleeted the silver but cannot get out to dispose of it. "Now, unless Germany can outlast Britain, or find some way to exercise compulsion upon Britain, she must ultimately go to London and ask for peace, because she must ultimately resume her sea commerce, she must ultimately use the oceans. "Nothing is move idle Umn to suppose that there is a market or a future for Germany as a self-contained empire, even if that empire extends from Hamburg to Bagdad. The very character of German industry makes* the sea the necessary way of transport, and it is from her trade beyond the frontiers of her allies that she draws the revenue which keeps her great poulation living in a restricted area.

SEA POWER AND ENDURANCE. "I do not believe that the German people are starving or in immediate, danger of starving. Perhaps after a year or two more of war there will be real suffering where there is now only hardship. But hardship there is, hardship which is revealed in a multitude of ways. There is, too, a shortage of certain things essential in war, for ■which substitutes be found in most cases, although

not, for example, in the case of rubber. Still it is possible tn believe that another year or two of war would not o.\lmii.«l German materia! or reduce Germany t» starvation.

•■(MI (lie oilier hai;d. it must be recognised llwl Germany* men are limited, (■flic lias already lik-I, t,evcn men for one of (lie British, and her population is but (ii, 1)11(1,01111, against more than liO.fllAl, (HID for ltrila.il! and Ikt white colonies. Financially the war is costing her, with advances) lo tbe allies, almost dollar for dollar with the British, ami she lias no such resources of accumulated capital as Britain upon which to draw. She is, in fact, mortgaging her future beyond imagination, while Britain is still drawing upon her past. The rapid decline of Gorman evedit in the open markets of the world, the neutral markets, is perhaps n fair evidence of what the world thinks of the German financial situation.

"All these circumstances should be ap preciated in their proper proportion. If Germany can get to Paris, if she can get to Petrogrnd, she may yet dispose of her land rivals and readnjst her own financial problems. She may yet conquer the Continent, as Napoleon'did, but she has so far failed to eonqlier any great opponent, even temporarily. She has failed to cripple any great opponent materially,'and she has lost for the period of the war, so far as one can sec, the use of the ocean.

TO SURRENDER TO BRITISH TERMS.

"Vet, if she cannot find a way to break flic British blockade, the fact is self-evi-dent that Germany must persuade Britain to raise it. To do this is to surrender on British terms. Such terms, at the very least, would carry the evacuation of Belgium, of France, of Russia, llie. restoration of the status quo ante in Europe, with probable provision for French re-occupation of Alsace-Lorraine, Italian occupation of Trent and Trieste, and the surrender of Turkey to Allied mercies. Of course, Germany would not now consider such a peace, but the thing that I desire to make clear is that British sea power has become absolute; it bars the way of every German port; it is hampered by 110 British loss of territory essential to' the Empire, in fact, by no loss of British territory whatsoever. ''So far as the seas go, Germany is a besieged nation; and the besieged nation, like the besieged garrison, must break the lines of investment, ultimately, or surrender. Not only has Germany so far failed to do this, but she has failed where Napoleon succeeded. He conquered his land foes, occupied their capitals, and paid the costs of his war from their treasuries. All this Germany has been unable to do."

THE END IS ASSURED. I "Unless the Germans shall find a way to break the blockade or compel the British to raise it, there seems to me no reason to doubt that the end of the war is assured. It is a fact that Germany lias so far failed in every attempt to reach Britain; and her failures have been so costly that it is difficult to believe that it is any longer within German power to compel Britain. "Bear in mind, always, that this war is, in its main issues, a contest between the Germans and the British. The dispute between the French and the Germans is limited to a single province. Russia and Germany could arrange their differences by bargain. Italy could be bought off by a payment in territory. But it is not any question of relatively minor importance that separates Gerinany and Britain. On 1 the contrary, Germany lias asserted that Britain has deliberately set out to thwart her expansion, to check her natural growth, and that it is only on the ruins of British sea power that she can erect that empire which is necesssrv to her existence.

IF YOU COLOU THE SEAS. | "Great Britain on her part, slow to I , rrceive the challenge, has now taken it j up as she took up the challenge of 1101. . land, of Spain, and of France, both under bonis XIV. and Napoleon. Tn every one of these cases Britain did not pause with a victory or abandon hope when she was left alone to fight. She fought to the end and to the destruction of I Iter foes, so far as their marine ambitions were concerned, because she saw in these ambitions a peril to her own existence. To-day she has accepted the flcrman challenge as Rome took that of Carthage. She is bending her energies and ,hc-r power, not to throw Germany back within her own boundaries m Europe, but to put an end for a generation at the least to all peril at sea. She is fighting, not to destroy the German nation, but to destroy Germany as a rival naval power and marine competitor. 'On the map. the German conquests make a formidable showing, but how much more impressive is the showing of the British conquests if you color the sons io indicate them. Some day Europe will talk peace, but what.value..will peace have for Germany if it does not include in -the terms the right to use the seas? But how is Germany to persuade Britain to concede this right, if she cannot conquer it? Docs anyone suppose that Germany will be able to exhaust Britain before she is herself exhausted? This'is absurd, because Britain is still able to carry on a portion of her industrial life, qnd her resources in capital far exceed German. "As for ruin, when peace is made, if the British are able to compel the Germans to give up their merchant marine, even if they are only able to forbid German ships the right to use their harbors and their colonial ports and naval stations as ports of call, in concert with tlieir allies, German shipping will be out of the race and the British will replace tlieir only rival in the carrying trade of tiie world, and find her new wealth to replace old. "Phophecv is idle and I do not mean to _ prophesy,' concludes Mr; SimomK "IVhat Ido mean to emphasise is, that eighteen months after the outbreak of the war, sea power has so completely bested militarism, that the situation that exists, unless Germany can find some way to modify it, by success over the British, insures German defeat exactly as Napoleon's defeat was insured when he failed to dispose of sea power and faced the Continent in arms."

"By npxt fall Britain will certainly have as many men under arms as Germany, and they will be physically far better men, because Germany's best have already been removed from the firing line, like those of France, Russia and Austria.

"Coincident with this is the growth in Britain of a realisation that victory means for the Empire the end of the gravest peril since the Napoleonic era, and a determination to abolish that peril not by a mere victory, but by''terms of peace, which shall dispose for a long period of years, perhaps for ever, of a rival 011 the sea.

'•'The British have woke up, as they have not woke up before since the war began. They have appreciated the value, of their weapon of sea power, and they are now preparing to make good all that Admiral Malian has written of the possibilitios of sea power, and to repeat against William 11. the absolute successes won aaaiust Nauoleon.*