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Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 16218, 24 August 1918, Page 2

At a Sydney gathering a few nights ago the New South IV.‘lies AttorneyGeneral referred to the efforts of pacifists to bring about negotiations with thej enemy. His arguments were so .sensible and so vigorous that we feel sure they will be read with satisfaction and thoroughly endorsed here. The “bully” of Europe, said Mr. Hall, after four years, was beginning to sag at the knees at last. This was the time, not* to talk of peace hy negotiation, but to hit out, and thus guarantee a peace worthy of the name (Applause.) It was because he and those with him on the platform held this view that they were associating themselves with that and every other effort to see that the war went-on until we had the only peace worth having—the peace that would come when the Allies dictated their terms to a beaten foe. If this war were to end to-morrow it would end with Germany still in possession of 20,000 square miles in Prance and in Belgium, 30,000 square miles around Serbia and Montenegro, and a kingdom through Poland and Russia bigger than the kingdom of Germany itself. If this war ended ‘to-morrow—if Germany was prepared to sell out cheap and go back to her own frontier, receiving back her own colonies and adjusting the frontiers of France and Belgium as we would have them adjusted—what would be her attitude in days to come ? What would the German father and the. German mother tell their children? They would say that after four years their country had. defied the ryorld—that they paralysed Russia, made Ronmania Sue for peace, overran Belgium, defied 23 nations for over four years, and made America, France, and England and the other Allies, glad enough to go in for peace by negotiation, while no enemy trod their soil except as prisoners. Did w© think that that would end militarism in Germany? If this war ended to-morrow it would enthrone militarism in Germany for all the years to come; and that would mean that w© in Australia, and every other democratic country in the world, would he called upon to worship the god of war for this and the next generation. He did not fear a German military autocracy in Australia. He feared an Australian military autocracy unless militarism was overthrown in this struggle, because .all the world must live in preparation for war if the militarism of the Central Powers was not now overthrown definitely and decisively.

Dr. Solf, formerly Governor of Samoa and now Secretary of State for the non-existent German colonies, has been giving his views on the future conditions in Africa and the Pacific. It is perfectly plain from his statement that Britain and Germany are still poles asunder in their views and that there ft not the slightest possibility of an agreement between them. Dr. Solf hopes that Britain will not carry the war to the bitter end, but in this respect he has failed to grasp the change in British sentiment since he was governor of Samoa, when his relations with the British were friendly enough. Germany, he says, wants a compromise on colonial questions on tho basis that colonial possessions should correspond With the economic strength of European nations and tho merits they had shown in the matter of the protection of the colonial races entrusted to their care. In the case of Germany, economic strength simply means military strength, and Dr. Self’s theory is that Germany must have exactly as large an extent of colonies as she can secure hy the rattling of her sabre or by actual warfare. At any rate all

Germans would agree that Belgium has no rights to the Congo and that France should bo ejected from Morocco and her West African possessions. Germany, he claimed', had shown great humanity to the native races and had prevented their militarisation in the territory under her control. That any reasonable man should make such a claim shows the great gulf that exists between British and German ideas. In Southwest Africa Germany certainly did not militarise the natives, because /he killed all that she could reach and drove the rest into the deserts to starve. In East Africa the war has been carried on mainly by the aid of native levies officered by Germans. The Germans regard the natives in their overseas possessions which are not colonies in our sense as there are hardly pny German settlers, as so much raw material to be turned to profitable use just as the rubber, nuts, and so forth jare to *be used. The natives may not bo called slaves, but they are compelled to work for such pay as their masters choose to give them and must live where it suits the convenience of German owners of plantations. Germany’s record in Africa is as black as her record in *Belgium, and if the decision rested with the people of this Dominion she would' not have a yard of territory in Africa or the Pacific.