The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1916-12-16
BY STAFF CORRESPONDENT.

BY STAFF CORRESPONDENT.
Washington, Dec. 16.-Germany'
peace proposal is a stroke of policy
bold enough and clever enough to
take the breath of anybody that stud
les the real European situation.
With extraordinary adroitness she
offers terms and frames them that in
America and the other neutral coun.
tries millions of persons will here
after put upon the Allies all the blame
for continuing the war.
Germany offered to make peace, Of
fered to restore Belgium, about which
you make such a fuss, offered to evac.
uate northern France. The practical
value of such play is beyond calcu-
lation. In the United States, for in
stance, it hits the right moment ex-
actly between the eyes,
Yet there are at least six mighty
good reasons why the Allies cannot
possibly agree to any such terms--or
good, at least, from their point Of
view.
Allies viewpoi.t
CD Serbia-To surrender her to
Austria would mean that Austria gets
away with her monstrous and intoler-
able demands, which precipitated the
war. That would seal the fate of
every small nation on earth. 1t would
mean that no small nation had a sin
gle right any great nation was bound
to respect There would be no code
of morals between big nation and a
small nation except the code of the
stronger arm and the longer reach.
(2) Russia-She would have to be
old-bloodedly abandoned by her al
lies to bear a loss of territory they
escaped and to give up forever her
fondest hope of centuries-Constanti
| nople, the warm water outlet, lack Of
which has kept her in the list of back
| ward nations, thereby booming her
people to autocratic rule.
(3) Japan-She would have to give
up her new possessions in China and
/ the South Pacific Those South Pa
cific islands have already begun to
make her rich. Her people would not
let go of them without a struggle
Under the terms of the new alliance
between Japan and Russia, if Japan
should refuse to surrender those isl
ands. Russia would be obliged to sup
port her.
Only a Truce.
a. Nothing is said about dsarma-
ment or miIitarism. The hope that
has buoyed democratic peoples in
France and Great Britain has been
the hope that the war would in some
way put an end to the armed banditti
style of government. These terms
wouldn't do that. They would mean
nothing but truce with every ma
tion arming itself to the teeth and
incessantly expecting attack.
90 Germany would be left the die
tator of the Balkans with supreme
influence in the near East and a
broad highway to the riches of the
rest Of it. With her colonies back
she would become in ten years the
commercial empress of the world,
about which time all other nations
then surviving would be driven into a
new alliance against her.
(6) Worst of all. nothing is done
about the deep underlying economic
cause of the war Germans ambition
to have port on the Atlantic. for
instance is neither won nor put out
of the question. That means it will
! be up again, hristling with guns. The
Allies say with reason that peace
made in this way would be greater
calamity to the world than the war
itself. 1t would have unlimited chanc-
es of catastrophe. On the strength Of
the moral verdict about Serbia. Ger
many could, if she chose, annex Hol-
land and get the mouths of the Rhine
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