The Tabor independent. [volume] (Tabor, S.D.) 1913-19??, 1916-08-17
The Long Road to Peace.
From the Lon don Spectator.

as ruler of the triumphant wolf state OF
the world, The king Infamous for stolen
states n ~plundered provinces, had tri-
umphantly disproved his own anti-MSch-
iavel. He had shown. or seemed to show,
the Who'll world that his honesty was the
paying policy, that faithlessness to your
In a king was the best substitute for
conscience. Never had there appeared to
be a more signal triumph of evil over
good, and the world at large was con-
scienceless enough, callous enough, and
Indifferent enough to acquiesce in Freder-
ick,s claim to a victory for "the nesation
OF God erected into a system"
The allied powers are not going to fol-
low the example of Maria Theresa and
her supporters for several good and suf-
ficient reasons. In the first place, they
are a great deal more frightened than was
any continental power which took part in
the Seven Years war. BY the time the
war came to an end no power any longer
really dreaded Prussia. The powers We're
with a Wounds but still formidable tiger
who has retreated into a cave. The hunt
er calculates that In the case of a beast
so badly injured. 1t will be better policy
to leave him MANNED in his cave than to
endure the very ~disagreeable risks of GO
Ing in and giving him the coup de grace.
Again; the powers thought, and events
were right, that they had so completely
steriliZed Prussia that there was no dan
ger of the war breaking out again. But
HO OHe can reel Inat In the present case.
We know well that to discontinue the war
on any, terms except those we have
sketched would merely mean giving the
Germans the opportunity to prepare for
yet, stronger attacks on the freedom Of
mankind. Besides, we live in a democratic
age, and democracies when once reused
are far more resolute in policy and far
harder in war than autocratic or aristo-
cratic governments. 1t takes a democracy
to deal the hammer strokes required to
fight a war to a finish. 1t may be that
ton, that they are indolent in peace, that
they are supine in protecting their inter
ests; but when once they get under way
in a national war they are not turned
aside from their purpose by diplomatic
n%iceties, or by farfetched considerations
that 1t may not be sound political strategy
to push victory too far. Their minds once
set, they endure to the end. But the peo-
pies Of Britain, France, and Italy are
democracies, and so for var purposes are
the people of Russia
Though, for the reasons we have given,
we must expect the rulers of Germany
to fight till their very last ounce Of
strength is exhausted, to fight as those
who have no alternative, they can only
p~rotract the war for a few months. They
cannot prevent the inevitable end. And
at least we shall have the satisfaction Of
finding that when the final catastrophe Is
reached the settlement will be easier, not
harder. But before the catastrophe comes
we must steel our hearts for the hardest
fight Of all. Macaulay, in describing the
emu OF the seven FEARS war, speaks OF
1.-THE desperate bounds of the hunted tiger
which occurred at the moment when "the
circle of pursuers was fast closing round
him." We are just beginning to see those
desperate bounds, and we must be pre-
pared to meet them. We must remember
that in all probability the German army
and the German people will in the last
month or two of the war develop a
strength and energy which win seem mir
a~culous. But the exhibition of such de-
moniac power will be a sign not of renewed
strength but of approaching dissolution.
We shall suffer, n In all probability suf-
fer greatly, in this last struggle; but we
must and shall hold on, remembering that
1t is always the last pull on the rope
which is the hardest, n that II must be
endured even II 1t cuts the fingers to the
bone. The energy of faith and good will
must in the end beat the energy of despair,
1t IL the allies whose cause is good, and
who are preparing, not for the renewal
Of a system which would make human life
a hell, but for one which, whatever may
be its faults-and of these there will no
doubt be plenty-will give some place in
the world to truth and justice, and above
! all to liberty.