The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-06-18

COpenhagen, June 17.-(Via UondOnl been endeavoring by means of semi official communications. statements Dy the Imperial chancellor, Dr. Won Beth mann-HolIweg, concerning peace over lures; telegrams by Field Marshal Non Hindenburg to the council Of Worh- mems and soldiers deputies; sOcialits negotiators of the Scheidmann t'pe' and other ways to come to separate arrangement for peace or an armistice with Russia, is considering new move. namely, m offer of an armistice for the period of the elections to the
 Russian constitutional convention.
 The Associated Press has this infor-
 nation from a reliable source The
 informant, who has just come rom Germany, says that government agents are desirous of reaching some such arrangement, not only as comph- ment to the Russian council ana to sentiment, but also because GefmahS desires to see some stable government established there with which it would | be possible to enter into negotiations He cited one of the best known Ger man parliamentarians as saylng that the present authorities in Russia are not capable of negotiating and there | is little hope of peace so long as the present conditions in Russia continue. | The German newspapers which have arrived thus far print the Herman socialists memorandum on peace terms 1 without comment, the Vorwaerts alone l accompanying the memorandum with a l column explanation of motives ana l hopes But many of the papers com ment on President Wilson's recent
 speech and his message to Russia, and | on the Norddeutsche Zllgemeine Zei- l tungs semi-official statement thereon, which is treated as an official incl 1 ation to the Russian authorities to negotiate peace on a basis of no in- demnities or annexations.
 | The erection of Russian Poland into ] a buffer kingdom dependent upon Ger many and with Hapsburg monarch, l toward which the Austro- German au- thorities are still laboring, is, strictly | speaking, not annexation, though the 1 intended result is the same. The Ger l man plans, however, go further than | the erection of a German buffer state 1 from Russian Poland
 l German official representatives were present at the meeting. Duke Johann Albrecht, who also is presi dent of the German Colonial society, | before which Dr. Solf, secretary of the l colonies. last week in the name of the 1 chancellor. explained Germany's colo | nial war aims, declared that Lithuan = | ia and the Baltic provinces were nee
 essary to Germany's future as an area
 for German settlement, saying;
 1 Tt is impossible to conceive of
 land more adapted for colonization | than we should have in Lithuania and | the Baltic provinces One-third of the holdings of the nobles will be placed voluntarily at our disposal <one- third of the peasant lands can be obtaine ed l in the same way against compensa- ton. Twenty-two per cent of the soil
 of the Courland belongs to the crown. So there will be plenty of land for set ting peasants, em grants and Ger
 man colonists expelled from Russia
 After the heavy sacrifices of
 this war the revivification of national vitality through German coionizat tion
 in the east is one of the vital questions
 of the German empire
 Subsequent speakers demonstrated
 that Riga and Reval were German
 cities and that Russia probably would have no objection to relinqushing thS Baltic lands. which belonged not tc | eastern but to western culture.
 The German papers have not been permitted to print the news of Won l Hindenburg's peace overtures to the council of workmen's and soldiers
 deputies at Petrograd.