THE PROSPECTS OF PEACE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8152, 31 May 1906, Page 3

THE PROSPECTS OF PEACE.

It is said all over tbe Continent (remarks tbe {Spectator) thai tbe new attitude of the United States, which so recently struck down an ancient European Monarchy as it were with a pat of the band, tends heavily in favour of peace. It ia quite true that the statesmen of the Union still profess that one of their first objects is to abstain from in* terference in the affairs of Europe;' bat still they do not remain at a distance from tbose affairs, and THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN interference and the action of a re presentative like Mr White in tbe Conference at Algeciras is not to EaroDean diplomatists easily perceptible. A six-foot poleeman may be sthe best-tempered man in tbe world; but if be is looking on at a riot, and wishing tbe riot to stop, tbe rioters are apt to measare his shadow as a very palpable element in the situation. He might strike in, and if he did he might alter the "balance of power" , AMONG THE FIGHTERS most materially. America has no army, say all the Intelligence Departments, but for defence she has two millions of men who know how to rise a rifle, and if resolved to offend, her wealth would enable her to create a great fleet -with most annoying rapidity. She must be counted on as a heavy concrete argument against tbe reckless pursuit of objects of ambition. With America, Great Britain and Austria honestly devoted to peace, with the GERMAN PEOPLE seeking wealth, and with serious uncertainties and anxieties as regards the control of the great markets of Further Asia, no one will break up tbe truce of God without! much of tbat kind of reflection which always induces able men to wait. The doubter whom the poet represented as reproaching men with being "sioklied o'er with the pale oast of thought" recognised that while so sicklied tbey would be indisposed, or even incapacitated, for violent action. Europe, we think, is safe, as least for while, from any "coups de tete/'jwe may hope also from any "cones de poignard."