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Timaru Herald, Volume CVII, Issue 16445, 17 January 1918, Page 4

Trotzky and bis party must be very dense if they cannot appreciate the rebuke they have received from Dr Hoffman, one of the German delegates to the Brest latovsk conference. Trotzky has been insisting on the right of the populations of territories now under German occupation to determine their own future, and that no poll on the question could properly be taken until the German forces had been withdrawn. Dr Hoffman did not need much astuteness to point out that the Bolshevild do not permit the principle of freedom of choice to govern their own dealings with tlieir own people. Trotzky has perhaps been too busy to do any thinking for himself. That rebuke should have set him thinking furiously, and no wonder no date was fixed for continuing tha negotiations. It is evident that th® demand for influence-free polls cannot' lso urged again, until the Russians have made peace with themselves, and have got into decent order the house they themselves occupy, and until they do they cannot hope for a reversal of the German decision, stated by Dr Hoffman, that none of the armies of occupation will be withdrawn. In. circumstances Trotzky cannot hope for a peace that does not mean disgraco for Russia, and gains of territory for Germany.