THE WORLD’S NEED.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 15863, 7 July 1919, Page 4

THE WORLD’S NEED.

It- is obvious that the need of the Allies for peace is second only to that of their enemies. Every country in Europe has social problems of its own which need the undivided attention of' its statesmen. Every country is in need of the certainty of outlook and" conditions which arc impossible in even a formal state of war. The danger is present in neutral as well as in belligerent countries—Switzerland and Spain as well as in France and Italy. But among the belligerents the danger is accentuated by the mobilisation of troops who* desire to return home now that their most urgent task has been finished. They have a grievance against the Government whiter retains them, and they are peculiarly to the doctrine of an international proletariat. Peace is urgently, needed by their respective countries, in the,, first place in order that the works of peace may be resumed at full vigour, and in the second that the four years of war may not be followed by a period of anarchy and revolution. The peace, when it is ratified, will net be accepted in Germany as a peace of reconciliation. German spokesmen affect to regard themselves as having been treated no less unjustly than the French ip 1870. \ There is no sign of a determination to be rid of a false tradition or to accept gifts from the conquerors, as there was in France in 1815.: It may be that a-change

of spirit will come under new institutions new conditions. Tie Germans may realise'themselves'that they are .the better for the absence of the intractable Poles or the irreconcilable people of 'Alsace-Lorraine. There is only one alternative to this change of view, or to some such process of reconciliation. The peace of Europe and the world, the stability of every civilised country, will •be menaced by the existence of a powerful nation labouring under a sense of grievance, and ever on the look-out for an. ally in the same state of mind' as herself. This is a prospect which some statesmen appear to regard as not only natural, but desirable. Others will regard it as destructive of some of the most precious fruits of victory and likely to bring our civilisation to ruin. No one supposes that the League of Nations will bring about a sudden change in German nature, or that it will establish a permanent atmosphere of goodwill between the nations. But it may be regarded as an essential instrument for the preservation of peace, indeed the only possible means of preserving civilisation, and it will fail unless responsible statesmen welcome it in sincerity and with hope. Lloyd George fully realised this when in the House of Commons last Thursday he begged that nobody would sneer at the League, and appealed to the world to try the experiment earnestly.