Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1917-09-26
SOCIALIST SAYS
 GERMANY IS RIPE
 FOR REVOLUTION
Deposed British Labor Leader Would Sow Seeds
 of Revolt in Kaiserland.

l Germany is ripe for revolution was I expressed by Arthur Ben Henderson, l deposed labor representative in the British war cabinet, in an interview
 here in the Weekly Dispatch justify ing his attitude in favor of the Stockholm conference.
 Nothing is further from my mind,"
 he said, "than concurrence in peace settlement that would not be final, democratic and lasting. An incon- elusive peace would be dishonorable peace, and we have no desire to par ley with unrepentant military despots. The final peace must be a peoples peace, and one of the terms in which there can be no compromise must be the final and complete abolition of irresponsible autocratic government. q consider democratiZed Ger many an indispensable condition, and
 the most effective way of bringing this home to the German people
 would be through the representatives
 of the working-class organizations.
 "In my opinion, military victory
 of the allies will not be sufficient.
 It might enable the allies to secure
 satisfactory and honorable peace,
 but it could not guarantee lasting
 peace. This can only be secured by
 the good will of all the peoples con-
 cerned. l want to supplement mili-
 tary effort by properly organized
 and wisely directed political propo-
 ganda.
 Both before the war and during
 actual hostilities the German people
 have been tricked and deceived, and
 even now they are by no means cog niZant of the vital facts and de-,
 velopments of. the international situa- tion. They will continue to remain hoodwinked and ignorant until the
 war ends unless the allies find means of placing in their possession a con- ,plete and undistorted statement of the facts.
 '"To my mind the only satisfactory channel of communication is through the German Socialists, and particu- llarly the German minority Socialists. I would rather consult with the Ger man minority socialists than with the official government representatives after the war, even though Germany has been completely defeated in military sense. For it is to the last ing credit of the German minority Socialists that, though they formed part of nation built up on military victories and inculcated from birth with a worship of militarism, they have in the midst of the greatest war of history stood aloof from their owp government and denounced in un- equivocal language it's crimes and designs of conquest and domination.
 "The German Socialists are the strongest political party in Germany. When they learn that the people of allied countries are determined that there shall be no compromise between .autocracy and democracy, and that they will have to set their own house in order before their country can fig ure in the visiting list of the allies, there may be big results.
 "I do not accept the view that the the overthrow of absolutist govern ment and the Characterization of the machinery of government is an after war problem, and I have reason to know that this also is the view of some of the best Socialists of Ger many.
 t"I do not accept the viwe that the form of government in Germany is one for German people to decide for themselves. So long as German inn perialism stayed in Germany it re- mained a problem for the German people themselves to solve. But inn it thrust it's unwelcome and devastating feet across the frontiers of Belgium and France and Serbia, it became a menace to all peoples, and they are all now vitally concerned in its total extinction.
 we have it in our power to strengthen enormously the hands of the Socialists in Germany who are anxious to break forever the power and authority of the Kaiser and his chiefs. Tho German people are ripe for something. They are great privations r and sacrifices out of all proportion to the small military satisfaction obtainable from the fact that their armies are1 still lodged in foreign soil. Hunger. death and reverses have now taken up a permanent lodgment with them, and the phantom of starvation and disaster is already Tapping his wings overhead.
 "The soil is fertile in Germany, ready for the sowing; the sower is to hand. All that is lacking is the seed, which we can supply in abun- dance.
 "So I am in favor of a conference in order that we may hand over to the German Socialists unlimited SUD- plies of seed for the revolution for which am convinced Germany is ripe"
 HIGH PRICES AND SICKNESS.