The Star. TUESDAY, JULY 17, 1917. EDITORIAL NOTES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12061, 17 July 1917, Page 4

The Star. TUESDAY, JULY 17, 1917. EDITORIAL NOTES.

WOMEN POLICE AND NEW BRIGHTON. The ladies who waited upon the Hon O. "VV. Russell yesterday with a request for the appointment of women police to patrol the New Brighton beach were no doubt actuated by the highest motives, but their zeal in well-doing appears to have exceeded the limits of discretion, and even common sense. The suggestion that patrol women should have the power to inspect tho holiday-time dwellings colloquially known as "baches" deserved a very sharp rebuff, which Mr Russell was too polite to administer. The idea that the ordinary rights of citizens should bo set aside and that women police should be permitted to inspect private houses in search of something vaguely described as "evil" on nothing: moro tangible than suspicion, is too preposterous to "be entertained for a- moment, and \v is a. matter for surprise that Mr Russell did not tell tho deputation so outright instead of shouldering the question on to the municipal authorities. Undoubtedly there are directions in Which women police can perform 1 useful work, but the cause of right-living is not likely to be advanced by the iavestiture of beach patrols, or any .other patrols, with the powers so'ught by the ladies of the W.C.T.U. There are personal rights, even extending to breaches of conventional morality, .which do not come within the contrlbJ bi tho law, and however much tho existence of such non-moral practices Infcy shock well-conducted people, there is no legitimate excuse for intorfcrenco unless the Criminal Code is actually infrjfaged. If such breaches of the law take place at New Brighton or anywhere else the local police and tho Municipal power possess sufficient authority to interfere and prosecute, and if additional police are required they shcfcild be provided. And it is by no (means proven that the New Brighton beach is the scene of such lurid misconduct as is suggested in the deputa-

tion'a request. Tho local Borough Council, which has some right to bo heard on tho question, condemns the ladi'es' allegations as an unj'astifiablo dnsult to tho district, and very properly points out that if tho conditions are such as arc described the Police Department and tho municipality aro Cj'aite capable of dealing with the matter. Tho council now asks for definite information to substantiate tho "W.C.T.U.'s charges, and judgment riuvy therefore bo suspended until some specific evidence is-brought forward by tho ladies. In tho meantime it can scarcely H believed that conditions at •New Brighton ore ,".ich as to warrant that district being tingled out from cVetl tho cities for the appointment of special guardians of morality. do we rec.Ann the v/ar OERIOUC-LY? ■.yZ v Itnvc on maqy ocwions v «o:n----ofaiiicd I'utX at L'li'.t a -..actio:» ol' ihu

community persisted in regarding the war far too lightly, that they refused to recognise the immensity of the task that is before us, and how necessary it is that everyone, man and woman, should put their shoulders to tho wheel, determined to do whatever in them lies to achieve the end for which so many valuable lives have been sacrificed. In this distant part of the Empire we know relatively little of the distress and deprivation which th© "war has brought in its train. We are living in a land of plenty, where there has been nothing in the shape of rationing, where except that tho purchasing power of tbe coins of the realm has appreciably diminished, things are much the same as they were three years ago. New Zealand is verily a land of Goshen. The toll of war has, of course, been felt: there are few families which have not suffered bereavement, either of relatives or friends, and the 7500 dead New Zealanders who lie in France, in Flanders, at Gallipoli, in Mesopotamia and in Egypt, have left many sorrowing hearts. But :n lands nearer the fighting lines the people have a nVach closer acquaintance with tho horrors inseparable from the battlefield, as they have felt the pinch of want and have been under the necessity of taking up work with which they have had no previous knowledge. In the great struggle to meet the exigencies of the situation the women of the Allied countries have come forward with a magnificence of spirit which has astonished even their warmest admirers, and without murmur they have gonft into fields of work which were formerly regarded as suitable for men only. And they have done their work so well that it is improbable that they will ever again forsake some of these new spheres of activity. That thoy have acquitted themselves admirably in their new vocations is the "unanimous opinion of all who have been afforded opportunity to judge their performances.

As far as women aro concerned, the v.-nr lias done more to secure their emancipation than the agitations of the past century, including the window-smash-ing campaign, and tho application of the dog-whip, which did something to deprive her of the right of being regarded as the gentle sex. In France, in Serbia, in Belgium, the women have dono magnificently; in Russia regiments of Amazons are now marching against tho enemy, and in England tho women have played a part of which they hare every reason to feel proud. Speaking to a reporter yesterday of Tier experiences in Great Britain during six stirring months, Lady Ward paid a very warm compliment, and wo feel sure a well-deserved one, to the women of the Mother Country for the pari they have played and are playing in the muse of Empire. The women of Britain, like those of the other Allied countries lying close to tl:a Mono of action, have a full conception of th 0 intensity of the struggle; they have seen the devastation caused by the air pi'rates in undefended towns, and they have heard the boom of tho great guns across th e Channel. Volun-. tarily thousands of women have given up lives of ease and comfort for laborious drudgery in hospitals, in factories and in other spheres of activity in the national interests. They have don G their work cheerfully and thoroughly, and the va'uc of tho services which they are giving is recognised by all classes of the community. Lady Ward paid a warm compliment to the whole-souled enthusiasm which marks the efforts of all and sundry in the Home Land, and tho readiness with which they have come forward. Hero in tho colonies the. women have dono an immense amount of valuable work in tho interests of tho men at the front, but it cannot bo denied that tho women of the Home Land have played a much more strenuous part, and have willingly offered deprivation, such as abstention from theatres, parties and other dissipations, i n order to assist the groat cause. Here the same spirit of self-denial is not in evidence. Situated as wo are far from the smoke of battle, it could not ho expected that wo should regard the position '- mo I! 'g ht « s those in" the Mother Country, but Lady Ward's words should do something to mako us realise the true position, and the urgent necessity for still greater sacrifice.

ARGEN7INA AND THE WAR. The daily expected entry of tho Argentine Republic into tho war as an act'ivo partner of the Allies i s an inevitable development of the strong antiTeuton .sentiment throughout tho States on South America's Atlantic seaboard, a sentiment accentuated lately by the indiscriminate torpedoing of merchantmen under neutral colours. Tho decision of tho United States to align itself with the Entente, naturally has had an enormous influence upou the policies of the South American republics, and since then the wanton provocation of Brazil and the diplomatic break which followed" brought: tho war still nearer to the doors of tho SpanishAmerican States, formal declaration of neutrality had been made by the Argentine Government, with the advenh of each new participant since 191-1, but Germany's disregard of neutral rights and tho policy of general destruction of shipping, combined with a boorish indiiterenee to protests, have left the republic no honourable course but to take up arms in defence and to mako common cause with those who are endeavouring to remove tho Teuton menace from the world. Economic complications also aggravate tho feeling against Germany, and it is becoming increasingly clear to the people of tho Argentine that their interests will best be served by entering into alliance, defensive and offensive, with the Greater Amerir.-jii l . As for the republic's militaiy strength, it is known that her fighting to.'xe is the best in South America. On a war footing Argentina has an army of about, a quarter of a million men, aUhough the peace strength is culy some -'u.UOO. The compulsory scr- \ ico svj'lClh has prevailed for many years. Tho law provides for universal service from the ages of twenty to forty-live yours—one year with tho colours, nine in the army reserve, ten years in the national guard and five in the territorial guard. The infantry are armed with a new model Mauser, and the held artillery has an excellent arm, v. Kvi:;.j quick-iiring 7.-1- cm. gun.

The Navy consists of four battleships, four armoured cruisers and forty other craft, with a personnel of about 7000 officers and men. The assistance which the republic would bo able to give, therefore, is considerable, both in the way of an expeditionary force for Europe and in the patrol of Atlantic waters.

GERMAN AFFAIRS. The announcement made in the newspaper "Germania" that an important plank in the policy to bo put forward by the new German Chancellor, Dr Michaelis, will be peace without indemnities or annexations, is the plainest indication we have yet had that the Central Powers are in extremis, and that the Kaiser and his confederates in crime are beginning to understand that tho objective for which they have wantonly drenched the world in blood is impossible of attainment. In a word, the adoption of a policy of this kind by the predatory Powers of Central Europe is almost tantamount to a. cry of "Enough," and it will bo interesting to knew how the German people, who have been taught to expect so much from the war, will accept this confession of their Government's impotence. For three years the German people have been fed up with newspaper and official assurances that Germany was winning, that the future domination of the world was hers beyond all shadow of question. Jt is surprising that an astute peoplo permitted themselves to be so long deluded by tho dissemination of systematic falsehoods. But the scales must now drop from their eyes; thoy must soon realise that) they have for three years been living in a fools' paradise; and that they have been entertaining hopes and cherishing ambitions which were entirely beyond their reach. The latest developments in the Germnn Ileichstag must have served to awaken many to a full realisation of the awful defeat! which, is now staring the country in the face. In most countries the immediate result of the laying bare of an official plot of this kind would unquestionably be a popular rising, and if retributive justice were meted the punishment of tho malefactors should be more swiftl and extreme than in the case of the French Revolution of 1789, or the CjVil War in Great Britain more than two hundred years ago. Thy adoption of a policy of ''no indemnities ar.d no annexations" now propounded by the controllers oi Germany's destinies, and approved by the Kaiser, must send a cold shudder through the land, as the peoplo will now understai.d the unenviable position in which they have been placed by tho swashbucklers who led the nation into the war. What will Germany do? Will" she accept th<?'flaw policy as readily as she did the old one, and adopt it as cheerfully and obediently as she did that of three years ago, when world dominion was promised? ;

We cannot conceivo that the Allies will for a moment: consent to consider Germany's l proposals. -Mr Lloyd George. M. Itibot, President Wilson, and, in fact, all ths representatives of the Allied Powers have declared that Germany must make reparation for her manifold sins, and it is, as the " Saturday Review" recently pointed out, necessary to exact from Germany the full penalty of her crimes. " The people," tho " Review " says, " who maintain that Germany must not bo humiliated, that tho terms of peace must leave no sonso of exasperation m tho minds of tho defeated nation, must clear their niinch of cant. Tho greatest conflict in. human history is not going to end in bhssiul equality between victor and conquered. If we do not v.du ilus war wo aro going to enter a period of naiional humiliation, and wo shall suffer privations and 103503 of every kind. "What is the use of saying that we arc fighting for our very existence, and then deluding ourselves with tho notion.that the war can end in leaving the relative positions of tho great States as they wero when the war bogtn? Our position rcsomble3 that of each of tho chief Powers In a struggle such as this everything is staked, and it is idle to imagine that any single Power can emerge from tho-war with nothing lost and nothing gained.' The judgment of battle v/ili be followed in duo course by sentence, and if the sentence is proportionate to the crime it will bo a heavy one. Of all tho Powers the one least likely to escape is tho chief criminal. Our pacifists and democrats are extraordinarily inconsistent when they say in one breath the Hohenzollerns and «utocrats must perish because they engineered 1 tho war. and in tho next that tho treaty of peace niu.3t not leave any senw of injury behind it. They try to escape the charge of inconsislency by distinguishing betwesn tho Kaieer and his generous-hearted people! But tho distinction is roughly rejected by tho German people themselves, and it is as clear a3 daylight that the whole German democracy set out in 10H with joyful hearts to crush their fellow democrats of France and Belgium, and that, if there is now any little rift within the lute, it ia because tho great war has not prospered. AVe shall always protest against tho weak ar.d sentimental theory that tho Germans arc not guilty accessories of all the German Government's crimes. Tho German Army is tho German people, find the idea that Germany at war"can do.no wrong was not the intellectual crochet of a military coterie, but the accepted creed of a whole nation."

Annexations are inevitable if international justice is to be enforced and if Europe is to be freed from its most menacing problems. There is a further argument, sometimes used that democracies are so peaceful thut annexation is contrary to their nature, and that acquisitiveness is confined to oligarchies and autocrats. History gives no warrant Ut this amiablo belief. j. lie United States was compelled to relieve Spain of Cuba and to take the Philippine Islands for itself, and France, in tho early years of her revolution, conquered and annexed more rapidly than any monarch except, her own Napoleon. This war certainly did not originate in any aims of conquest on the part of any of the Allies, but it has raised every European problem in so acute a form that thero can be no real settlement without many changes of sovereignty and allegiance. If the Allies shrink iiom facing this fact because of any idealist delusions, our men will have fought and died in vain, and wo shall hand down to the democracies, which we are told are to bo universal, a legacy of conflict that will long weigh them down.