The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1916-12-27
Nd PROSPECTS OF PEACE
BEFORE 18 MONTHS
Peace Can Not Be Made without Rus
sia and She Can Not Accept
German Terms.
ALLIES WANT DISARMAMENT.

Washington, Dec. 26.-Special cor
respondence-The presidents note to
the British and German governments
is a rhetorical means OF saying what
has already been said in Europe.
Lloyd George has told his people that
there will be no conference-at the
Hague or anywhere else-befOre the
kaiser has formulated the terms upon
which he is willing to make peace.
The British premier went further
than this. He exposed the terms up
on which the Allies are willing to
make Deace-and there are three
points involved. One, complete resti-
tuition; two complete reparation;
three, adequate guarantees for the fu-
ture. Russia and France had already
said this before Lloyd George made his
Speech and they said it more empna-
ticaIly especially Russia, where the
czar, the Duma and the council of en-
pire spoke in identical terms.
All this may be readily translated
into terms Of action. Complete resti
tuition means that Belgium goes back
to the Belgians, that Serbia goes back
to the Serbs, that Montenegro goes
back to the Montenegrins, that Roma
MIA goes back to the Roumans, that
Poland and Lithuania go back to the
Russians, that the Balkan boundaries
remain as they were traced by the
treaty of Bucharest. To this should
be added a further restitution, the
righting of an ancient wrong: Alsace
and Lorraine go back to France.
Complete reparation means that
Belgium is to be reconstructed at Ger
man expense, that Northern France
is similarly to be set in order as II
was in 1914, that devastated Serbia
is to be reconstructed, that overridden
Montenegro is to be restored to the
Petrovitches, that the money Wrung
from Belgium by her German con
querors is to be paid back, and that
every atonement which is materially
possible is to be made to the suffer
ing people whose right to autonomy
and to neutrality has been beaten
down
mean that German disarmament is b
condition precedent to even discus
sion of peace, that something more
than "a scrap of paper" must be had
to safeguard the days that are to s..511e
Germany cannot accept these terms
now The Allies cannot take less
now And there can be no peace
now.
Furthermore, the pact of London
forbids a separate peace on the part
of any of the Allies. Germany has
tried before to break this pact. She
made a very definite offer of peace to
France a year agc limiting at the re-
storation of Alsace-Lorraine and the
evacuation of Belgium except for Ant
werp France rejected those terms,
as she has now rejected the more ne
bulous terms of 1916.
No peace can be made without Rus
sia; and Russia cannot make peace
on German terms. Russia is the only
great empire in the world which has
no open window on the sea, which
she must have in order to develop
her enormous and untouched agricuf-
tural and other natural resources.
German terms would bar Russia from
both the Baltic and the Mediterranean.
The Entente terms will intimately
give her the Dardanelles. And Rus
sia, in man-power and in capacity to
command it, holds the whip-hand in
the controversy. There is new
Prime Minister in England, the French
Premier has been granted new ana
wider powers, a new Minister for For
eign Affairs serves the Czar. All three
of these men have spoken for their
imperial and their popular masters.
Their words range all within the same
octave. There will be no peace for
mulated in Berlin as the seat of VIC
tory in this war.
Consequently, neither the hysteria
of the stock market nor the rhetoric
of the president is thought here, by
diplomats, by military experts or by
students of world history, to reflect
anything or to indicate anything
which looks to an ending of the Euro
pean war within eighteen months al
the earliest