The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-07-06

From the New York Commercial.
 TIT is highly desirable that the influence
 of the United States shoud have it's A due weight in arranging a permanent peace between the belligerent nations of Europe. But it must be obvious that this influence may easily be frittered away in advance of tine time for It's exercise oy lending itself to fussy and meddlesome attempts to anticipate the day of settle ment It should be plain to the least in teligent of pacifcists that this day is not yet in sight There is still too wide gulf between the conceptions formed by the warning nations of the results of the war, to be brdged by any friendly offices of ours. The manifesto of the German so cialsts with all it's moderation of tone was an appeal to Germany to be generous in her hour of victory; French, Russian and British opinion is in complete accord that whatever advantages Germany's position in the field may give her, they are advan- tages which are merely temporary, and that the first requisite of peace must be German acknowl edgement of hopeless and irretriveable defeat. It is rather worse than foolish for neutrals to discuss .he situation as if peace could be arranged on the basis of the status quo ante bellum. There can be no 'as you were" settle ment, even in presence of the economic, military and financial exhaustion of all the combatants The Europe that went into the war can never again be re- stored, and to proceed on the assumption hot if e.,n ha for the declaration of an armistice and not for the making of peace The allies know more about Germany than they did; and if 1t were yearly becoming less possible before the war to conserve national self respect in presence of the periodic rat ting of the sabre of the German war lord, it is now deemed to be incompatible with the very existence of other nations to have to live side by side with an unchas- tened and unregenerate German people.
 The world failed to realize the full sig nifcance of the teaching of the German
 professors, from Treitschke to Delbruck
 that sovereignty rests with the man or body of men whom the army obeys: that no German officers could ever tolerate the rule of a war minister drawn from the Reichstag. But there can be no ex- cuse for misapprehending it now-rone for refusal to see that the German sys- tenn is based on the postulate that demo- cratic government is fraud. and that with the supreme power in the hands of a single man Germany possesses the best
 government in the world
 
 In the last analysis the question which this war has to decide is whether the
 whole is to become the prey of that nation which, believing itself the strong est, refuses the rest all right of existerce. or whether every nation great or smell,
 possessed of it's own individuality, has the right to live, while respecting the free dom of the others. Any peace that left
 this question still open could be but
 temporary one. and all the interests of the United States, present and future demand that it should have a settlement
 as nearly permanent as can be possible in mundane affairs It should be refnem- bered that the present war was in it's origin punitive expedition against the Servians for having the assurance to sympathize with their brother Serbs a-1 Greats in Austria Hungary. It has re gently been revealed that this 'expeditlen would have been made a year earlier put for 1taly's refusal to join the German l powers in war of aggression. The war has already shown how hollow and srau'l-
 ulent was the case for keeping the South Slavs of Bosnia, Dalmatia, Croatia and Slavonia subject to Austrans and Mag vars on the ground of inferior civiliza- tion. It has further demonstrated that | until the various races of Austria Hun gary obtain political self government and cultural liberty for their languages and | schools there will never be peace in iu- rope. It has been said, with obvious jus- tice. that if peace were patched ID
 which left the boundaries of Austria,