Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-12-15 | Page 2 | Germans Believe Great Britain is Ready for Peace

GERMANS BELIEVE I GREAT BRITAIN IS READY FOR PEACE BKRLIX (via London), Dec. 14. The German government received through a neutral government last September an inquiry in regard to its war aUms under such circumstances as to indicate that the inquiry was made with the sanction of the British government, says an official of-ficial announcement issued today. &rhe announcement was in reply to the , statement of the British foreign secretary, sec-retary, A. A. Balfour, in the house of 1 commons on Tuesday, that Great Britain in September had received through a neutral diplomatic channel a communi-cation communi-cation to the effect that Germany wor.ld be glad to get into touch with G:.eat Britain in regard to peace. The statement state-ment follows: At the beginning of September the German government, through the medium of a neutral government, govern-ment, received an inquiry relating to German war aims. The communication commu-nication of the neutral government was couched in such form that, according ac-cording to international usages, it might be supposed with certainty that the neutral inquiry was made with the knowledge and sanction of the British government; moreover, more-over, the circumstances under which the inquiry was made allowed the conclusion to be drawn with the greatest probability that the British cabinet had been informed of this step, and that it had been sanctioned sanc-tioned bv at least the most important impor-tant of its allies. The German government was ready in principle to answer the inquiry, and to do thin two courses were open, an indirect or direct reply. The decisive objection against an indirect reply to the medium of the neutral power was that any onesided one-sided presentation of the German attitude, even to a neutral mediator, media-tor, might constitute a one-sided restriction of German policy without with-out any guaranteo in regard to the opponent's attitude. That being so, a direct verbal reply through the intermediary appeared to. be the most opportune course to follow. The trend of subsequent events, however, forced the conviction on the German government that on the part of our opponents nothing was being done to facilitate such direct reply to the inquiry. Regarding the utterance of Great Britain mentioned by Foreign Secretary Sec-retary Balfour about its readiness to receive any communication from the German government, the first news of this reached the German government only in Mr. Balfour's statement to the house of commons. A further step in this affair was not made on Hie German side.