|
The essence of the claim of Labor is that no peace
| arrangement entered into by rival groups of Imperialists
| can be other than a temporary bargain in which
It is this willingness in every country to defend the | Fatherland which has given each group of rulers the | means to carry on the war. And having the means to war | they war for purposes which are theirs. In no way can | their projects be regarded as the purposes of the | populations as a whole. The proof of this is to be | found in the conditions associated with each declaration | of war aims. Von Hertling does what Lloyd-George does. | Each considers it in keeping with the principles of | democracy to announce to Parliament what the Cabinet has | decided on. That is the end of it. Whatever discussion | ensues is either a fool-endorsement of everything that | has been propounded or is publicly paraded as enemy | propaganda. Thus the inner council of a few men run the | war in each country. Even in Australia the same | bureaucratic authority is being exercised. When in New | York Mr Hughes made a speech which purports to state | Australia's attitude towards the Pacific Ocean. For our | own part we are to a great extent in agreement with what | the Prime Minister stood for. Our point is that he | spoke without first having ascertained what it is the | public of this country believe in. Parliament has not | yet elaborated any policy in respect to war aims, let | alone formulated a basis of peace. Whatever be the | destiny of the Marshall and other pacific islands, it is | not making the world safe for democracy for democracy to | be silenced regarding its opinion on the subject. This | is the crux of the issue between the diplomats and the | people. The former having decided on an objective find | political mouthpieces whose voice is accepted as the | fiat of the nation instead of being regarded for what | is, viz: the instrument of imperialism.
| To end this state of affairs is now the urgent
| pre-requisite to any clearing up of the whole war problem.
| When we are told that what is wanted is a clean peace,
| we want to know whether our own hands, or the hands of
| our diplomatic and other rulers are clean, or whether
| they are tied by secret treaties and agreements. No
| answer can be made to this question until the whole
| caste of secret intrigues has been banished from the
| government of each country. They made the hostile
| coalitions out of which war became an automatic
| inevitability, and they are now responsible for the
| points of conflict which keep it going. The latest
| declarations of Von Hertling and Czernin on the one side
| and Wilson and Lloyd-George on the other are only
| irreconcilable in respect to those questions which a
| democracy would not permit stand in the way for a single
| hour. Once the discussion between the belligerent
| diplomats is extended beyond broad and general
| principles conflict is certain. Five out of the
| fourteen of President Wilson's peace terms deal with
| general principles, and of these five, four were
| unequivocally accepted early in the year for Czernin and
| Hertling with scarcely any reservation. Of the other
| points dealing with territorial readjustment, a good
| deal was also accepted by both the spokesmen of the
| Central Powers. It seems clear that if only the
| belligerents would drop from their stated war purposes
| the projects which amount to the annexation of
| territories, no insuperable bar blocks the way to the
| war's cessation. To the eternal reputation of Woodrow
| Wilson he has stood steadfast to this dictum. He has
| not entered into entanglements with regard to the
| Trentino and Turkey, nor does he contemplate any
| adherence to the 1916 programme of economic isolation
| being imposed on any of the parties to the war. In his
| own words a general peace
|
It is a vital element to the accurate interpretation
| of the Labor attitude towards the war to realise that it
| can only end in a people's peace if it is being fought
| as a people's war. In that sense it must be a war not
| between nations, but between systems and classes; the
| dividing line is not geographical boundaries but class
| interests and in the final struggle the division will
| not be national but social. It is for this reason that
| Labor works might and main to bring the peoples of the
| belligerents together. Here is the inspiration of the
| Stockholm Conference and of the Wilson discrimination
| between the junker rulers of Germany and the
| machine-dominated population subject to Kaiserdom. Its
| vast importance is revealed by the sullen complaints of
| Von Hertling (January 24, 1918) that Wilson's reply to
| the Pope's note
|
In this matter
| Lloyd-George did an invaluable service for the German
| Government by preventing the open meeting at Stockholm.
| Each revelation of the diplomatic authority ruling
| Britain consolidates the German war machine, just as
| each manifestation of the same rule in Berlin confirms
| that located in Downing Street. It is the dunghill from
| which is bred the gospel of the bitter-end and victory
| by might of armed superiority. Labor seeks a peace by
| negotiation because it rejects the policy of the Hun
| everywhere. It regards it as the antithesis of all that
| is requisite to the foundation of the new order. To
| overcome the causes of the war is the only basis upon
| which the peace of the world can be maintained. And
| there can be no peace in the to-morrow if there is
| carried over to the peace era the machinery and the
| projects which are the technique of international
| conflicts.