When Peace Comes--- What?

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 17065, 18 August 1917, Page 3

When Peace Comes--- What?

THE POSITION OF THE HOHENZOLLERNS.

LOUD TALK PROVES NOTHING,,

British people are rather given to shouting when they're stirred," anrt so what often passes for enthusiastic determination is simply an effect ot noise. Just lately, and for a year or two past, we have been clamouring against the House of Hohenzollern. There has been reason enough. The Kaiser is the soul of Germany's transgression. Had it not been for the inordinate and unscrupulous ambitions that sway Mm and the people nearest him, there would have been no Avar. Every infamy of German hate has carried the stamp of his approval. He'cannot evade his responsibility. It is he who has desecrated sacred places, exalted cold brutality ' into a science, driven the innocent into unimaginable hells, foully outraged young girls and decent women,. abominably murdered poor old people who have done no wrong. Should such a man be permitted to continue to ravage and menace th c world? Would the Allies be justified in consenting to any peace terms that left the Kaiser and his blackguard son in their present positions as regards the German people? At the time the answerwer from British people would be an emphatic No! But British people hnve short memories. The matter is here discussed in the London Daily Chronicle, by a prominent British journalist and sound democrat.

IS the "No Peace with the Hohenzollerns" cry merely another stunt for office boys from the regular factory, ,or is it Business and War? . Tiiis question deserved consideration ■ p V'ore America's formal entrance into , the war. That momentous event has given it, as I. shall presently show, an ' added significance. It will not have escaped the most casual reader that President Wilson, in. the great speech which announced war .with Germany, drove a tremendous between the Hohenzollern autoc?racy and the German people. To most Englishmen it will seem that Mr. Wilson unnecessarily laboured this, point. In this country :we do not believe there to be any real difference between the spirit of the Prussian Court and the spirit of the Prussian people generally. The guilt of making the'

0 war and the everlasting infamy of the manner in which it has been waged must seem to the close observer to be the crime of a people almost as much as that of a Court. But Mr. Wilson's adroit wedge, though it makes a difference in favour of the German people which they do not deserve, at any rate gives them the chance of disavowing their leaders and teachers so soon as adversity shall have sufficiently chastened them. THE TWO CHIEF QUESTIONS. Two matters chiefly to be considered by the Allies before demanding of the .Germans the oyerthro- of the Hohenzollern dynasty are: 1. Can we demand such terms'? 2. Ought we to demand them? The first question is easily disposed

of. If we can win a victory sufficiently decisive as to obtain the other terms which the Allies have already set out, there will be no difficulty in adding to them marching orders for the Hohenzollerns.

The plea of the pacifists that such i demand would unite the German people to resist to the last men and the last ditch, and so indenitely prolong the war, may be entirely disregarded. When the Germans are ready to surrender the other things they will have to give up they will make no bones about throw ing to the lions the Kaiser and his litter. It is not conceivable that such a proposal would prolong the war by a week. In saying this, I do not wish to belittle the loyalty of the German people to their Emperor. I have spent some years, in Germany, and I do not believa tliere is no country on earth in which the attachment of the people to the throne was so general and enthusiastic as it was in Germany when war broke out.

Rightly or wrongly the German people believed that their reigning house had led them in glory and expansion on the field of war, and to prosperity and pre-eminence in the paths of peace. Utter failure in this war will undeceive them, as Napoleon'sl colossal failures undeceived the French people. Conquering, he had been their idol more than any Kaiser has been in Germany, but when defeat and disaster overwhelmed him, and France with, him, they readily fell in with the demand of the Allies that no member jf has family should have anything to lo with the Treaty of Peace. We can, therefore, demand an end of this dynasty if our victory is absolute. WHAT GERMANY WOULD DO. The question of whether we ought to insist on such a revolution is more complex. They are difficult to answer who contend that any might, in utter defeat, throw him over at the point of the &ivord, though left with a free choice they might still keep him at the head •of the State. All the Allies, now including Amer-in'-n, profess democratic principles. Would it be in accordance with these principles to dictate to seventy millions of people their future form ,of government ?.

Their own poet Heine said of the German people that they iiad slavery "n their very souls, and no doubt the sway of Kaiserdom has owed almost everything to this. But ought the chains to be snapped except by awakened Germany herself?

I think the answer is Yes. And * think so because I believe that the Allies have so tremendous an account to settle with the Hohenzollerns that they will be justified in ignoring German sentiment in the matter.

In the early days of the war Mr. Bernard Shaw wrote a canting and ranting pamphlet, in which he spoke of "the pathetic Kaiser." When this pathetic Kaiser telegraphed to Mr. Wilson that his heart " bled for Loiwain," the American President in 5,11 proibabilitjy knew him for the Imperial liar he was and is. Indeed, the terms of Mr. Wilson's recent speech make it clear that he had taken the measure of his man from the beginning of the wa-r. He definitely attributes the authorship of "j all Germany's crimes to its autocracy ) —to the Kaiserism which rules there, j NOTICE TO QUIT. President Wilson has " bided his time" a long while. It has ta.ken nearly three years of Germany's obscene barbarism to elicit the measureless denunciation which he gave it a few days ago, and which many of us think a couple of yeairs overdue. But my point for the present is that it has come at last, and with America ranged with France and England, the driving weight behind this demand has become irresistible. The Kaiser must go. In some memorable words used when Captain Fryatt was murdered Mr. Asquith announced that the reprisals of the Allies would fall upon those really responsible, however exalted their rank. Mr. Bonar Law has just spoken of our immediate reprisals for the sinking of hospital .ship. Something mny be done "immediately." but it is obvious that no really effective reprisals can be taken short of holding the Kaiser and those near him directly responsible. It h no real " reprisal" for us to murder Germ-in civilians because our own wounded and nurses-have been foulh slain. v Fortunately, the Kaiser has left tis in no doubt whatever as to his direct stud,

personal responsibility for Germany's crimes, from the sinking of the Lusitania to the theft of the last poor chemise and pair of knickers which his swinish creatures have stolen from the French women in the Department of tlie Sorame and sent home to their' fat and frowsy iraus in Prussia and Bavaria. "Only one is Master in My Empire," he announced in a speech just before Armageddon broke out. "You must all have one will, and th-.it. is My will. I will tolerate no other. There is only pne Law, and that is My law. If I order you to shoot down your brothers,, even your parents, you must obey Me without a murmur." There are some timid folk who argne that the destruction of dynasties, by outward compulsion is dangerous from • the point of view, of a possible repercnssirm" in limited and harmless monarchies such as Italy's and our own. In the present state of the world's progress such fears must be overcome. The risk is small, and it must be faced. CONDITIONS OF SECURITY. Even if we cast from our minds the very ideas of reprisals and punishment, there is still a sufficient reason for the overthrow of this evil house. The guarantees for the future will be even more worthless than the scrap of paper about Belgium whilst the Hohenzollerns remain in power. Effectually to guard the future from another long infliction of infamy and horror Europe must be freed from the dynasty: Th-at an international police would keep these malefactors in order

is, as Professor L. P. Jacks sftys, the most fatuous of suggestions. The Prolessor adds: The positions of a Caesar, a Tsar, or a Kaiser, whether his name be Caligula, Nicholas, or William, is a position which no human being is fitted to occupy, and the certain penalty for placing him there, or keeping him there, is madness, horror, and crime. Crimes such as Germany's are the work of despotic dynasties, and of their criminal eiit-.irage, as all the lesser examplesl of similar crimes haTe ever Been since the world began. ... The people are out agr.inst the despots, and when the last despot goes the. end will be won, and all the peoples, friends and foes, freed from the curse which has blighted Europe for ages. Russia has come—most mai*vellous and hopeful of miracles—to the realisation of these truths, and has thrown off the despot's yoke. If Germany can regenerate her soul of slavery and do likewise, well and fair. But if not, then must Europe—and America—take the ta«k in hand and topple the Throne of the Hohenzollerns into the dust-