The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-08-21
JAPAN'S SACRIFICES MUST
 NOT BE IN VAIN

Special Cable to The Times Democrat
 London, Aug 1S.-The Times edi- torially says of the peace negotiations at Portsmouth. N. H.:
 No task of graver moment was ever laid upon the shoulders of diplomatists than that which has been committed 10 the representatives of Japan and Rus sia. Upon the issue of the conference between them hangs the continuance or the ending of the most terrlple struggle of modern times. It may pc doubted if any authentic record tells of tbe presence of such numbers of trained soldiers arrayed against each other in the field as those confronting each other today. It Is certain that never before have armies and naVies joined battle which were equipped Wtth engines of destruction approaching Tn their deadly effectiveness those em- pIoyed by the combatants who race each other in Manchuria. The work of slaughter has already gone on for eighteen months, interrupted only by the physical difficulties of the country and of the climate, and by the impos- sibiIity of bringing up ammunition rast enough for the demands of fresh en- garemetns. It will be resumed with out delay so soon as the season allows. and continued on a greater scale and over a wider theatre than before. Peace alone can arrest it,. or such an assured prospect of peace as would Justify the successful belligerent in consenting to an armistice.
 'Tt is the business of the plenipoten- tiarfes to make peace, if the temper of the warning governments and nations allows. and the whole world waits with bated breath to learn the outcome or their deliberations. All mankind earn estly hopes that solid and a speedy peace may be the fruit of the confer ence. but that hope is chilled by refec- tion on the obstacles which impede set clement on the only terms that Japan can lay down She has staked not merely her future greatness, but her life as a people on this war Defeat, had she suffered it, would have wiped her out for generations. perhaps for ever. from the high place amongst the nations she has so hardly won.
 Now that a series of victories by sea and land, which are perhaps without precedent in the annals of war, has crowned her arms, she has resolved that her success shall not be barren. Her sacrifices have been very heavy; they must not be in vain. They must bring her security as well as peace. She must have all the substantial guaran- tees which her statesmen, her soldiers and her sailors deem essential that never again, so far as human wisdom can foresee, shall she be compelled to
  sfres peace but the peace for which she is fighting and for which she is will ling and able to go on fighting if need be. must be a stable peace, and to be a stable peace 1t must deprive her de- feated adversary of all prospect and possibility of revenge.
 "Is Russia honestly ready to make such q peace as this, such a peace as the inexorable necessities of self-de- fense force Japan to demand? If she is, the settlement should he speedy.
 '"The terms of settlement can not bo the terms Russia might have had be- fore the war, or the terms she might have had before the successive disas- ters she has suffered: but they will be easier than any terms Japan could af- ford to give should she inhict on Gen eral Linevitch another Mukden or an- other Liao Yang. or should Vladivostol1 undergo the fate of Port Arthur.