Notes

New Zealand Tablet, 15 April 1915, Page 34

Notes

Belgium and the Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize is not to be awarded in this year of war, but two French Deputies are inviting their colleagues to sign a petition praying that the prize should be allotted to the Belgian people. They urge that Belgium, in upholding the principle of the inviolability of treaties, has rendered pre-eminent ser-, vices to the cause of peace and justice—a suggestion and a contention that .have very much to commend them. I Where Submarines Fail The fatal defect and essential weakness of an exclusively submarine warfare against enemy commerce is well illustrated in some facts set forth in a recent issue of the Fall Mall. After pointing out that Germany stands in need of certain thingscorn, oil, copper, cotton, ' among othersthe London paper continues : 1 Last week he torpedoed a big neutral tanker, carrying oil to Amsterdam. Yesterday he sank a British steamer with 800 tons of copper on board. A few days ago an American ship laden with cotton for Bremen was sung by a mine off Borkum, and among the latest victims of the Krbnprinz Wilhelm was a four-

masted Norwegian, ship laden with wheat. Gould the Germans have mad© good prizes of these ships, and brought them into port, they would have done, a very real service to the cause of their country. But such a thing is impossible unless their battle-fleet can clear the sea-routes. Their campaign of destruction can at best have only a negative result, which we can afford to regard with a good deal of equanimity.’ Professor Kettle’s Fore-vision Professor T. M. Kettle, who is now about to go to the front as a lieutenant, was in Ostend at the time when war broke out and in Brussels for the first five days of the fighting. His forecast— published at the time— of the character and final outcome of the struggle then opening has lost none of its interest, but has rather been confirmed, after eight months’ fighting. ‘As for our attitude of mind and temper, we have got to brace ourselves to the prospect of a blind war and a heavy Avar. The moral strain imposed by the necessary restriction of news will begin to show its severity as soon as we know that Irish, English’, and Scottish soldiers are lying dead somewhere. The war itself we are going to win simply because we have no choice between victory and extinction. I see no reason to expect a diplomatic termination of it in its earlier stages. The only hope of that would centre on the detachment of Bavaria, Wurtcmberg, and Saxony from Prussia. That, I believe, rather than a revolution, or the disappearance of t.lie Kaiser’s dvnastv, will be the ultimate issue. Meantime, the awful duty of the sword lies on this country. Nobody who has ever seen, and walked, and talked with the vast German hosts, massed for manoeuvres, can exnect anv summary triumph. Against Belgium one can well believe that. the troops fought. without auger, convictions or <h'n. Against France it will not be so. A long war, a war of Apocalvptic bloodshed and destruction, issuing in the deepest peace that Europe has ever known ; the redemption of small nationalities and of the common people; the cud of sabrerattling and armed camps, ami masked diplomacy; the return to earth of reason and all humane arts: that is.

the fore-vision that possess rnv mind. ft is a price greater than (lie Iron Cods ever before demanded, but it is the price of their abdication.’