OCR Text |
Show If if How Can Peace Terms Be Fixed? ijjj TTHE increasing talk of possible peace in Europe I 'is good to read. It may lead to a truce for I the winter, but the terms on which a real peace 1 can be secured seem impossible to reach at pres- 11' ent. There will be such demands on the part of 1 Great Britain and Russia on the one hand and 1 Germany on the other, that we cannot see how a I real, lasting peace can be reached, or how the 1 situation which really caused the war can be 1 changed. 1 The only thing that will have any real influ- I ence will be the money question. The lives and I suffering of the men in the ranks will not count. 1 How long can the powers maintain their credit I and at the same time keep up their armaments I' and feed their soldiers, will be the controlling 1 factor. In this we anticipate that Russia will be 1 more obstinate than either of the other belliger- ents. Her soldiers can live on coarsor food than 1 any others and then she has ample harvests. Her i idea like that of Great Britain will be to break j the power of Germany. I And Germany will meet this with just as stub- I born demands. I However, a truce will be welcome, for the 1 longer it may be continued the less anxious will I any of the powers be to renew the struggle. J It would seem that a reconvening of The Hague congress would be the only way to handle M the matter. That congress might formulate a code which all the powers could subscribe to, and I by the terms of the code settle questions which cannot be settled by direct negotiation. Some very broad and very subtile statesmanship statesman-ship will be needed in the immediate near future. fu-ture. That The Hague tribunal affords the best means to make and secure a lasting peace is the more probable when we reflect that while the Jl.iates engendered by the war are most vindictive and fierce, still the knowledge that some millions mil-lions of brave men have been killed and maimed during the past year, that half the homes of Eu- rope and the British isles have been made deso late through unspeakable sorrow and loss and that all Europe is on the verge of bankruptcy because of it, will, despite the anger and hate, have their effect and cause men to be anxious that any repetition repe-tition of the horrors inflicted shall be made impossible. impos-sible. The fact, too, will creep into the minds of men that the mighty losses have established nothing, noth-ing, and make them the more ready to confess that after all mind rules and that among civilized nations there is a better way of adjusting differences differ-ences than by the abitrament of the sword. Hence our belief is that a new code can be drafted that would be accepted. 6 A code that would limit the size of standing i armies to a certain small proportion of the whole people of a country. A code that would in like manner limit the navy of any country to the actual necessities of such nation for the protection of its coasts and commerce. A code that would array the world against any power that should spring a war before offering its differences with it and any other power for arbitration; arbi-tration; that such nation shall not only be pursued pur-sued with war, but by the boycott of all the world powers. A code completed on Hr marked out above would make going to war j osible, and the big bruisers of Europe wou' no nearer to sub scribing to it now than ever before. |