New Britain herald., 1918-01-19

A recent number of the Berlin article by Prof Deissmann on '"Fhe war manifesto of the American churches" in which he comments upon the length of time it has taken s1e Federal Council of the Churches Of Christ in America to issue a state nent concerning the war. In the period imm ediately before the break ing off of diplomatic relations be- tween tho United States and Germany the vast ma 3ority of the churches, aC- cordinG to Dr. Deissmann, were far i.ioTe eager for world peace than for favir9 America entangled in the war.
 "Dnly about 70 churchmen signed a~lanieesto melting to war which was circulated in religious circles toward the end Of 1916 and the beginning ot 1917, whereas TOO of the most emi- rent leaders of Christianity (bishops professors, newspaper editors, heads of the big religious and social organi- cations and prominent laymen) took part in a sort of counter manifesto jnclining toward peace Not until more than four weeks after Wilson's declaration of war did the federal council raise it's voice."
 Dr. Deissman alleges that a wide spread opposition not only to this particular war, but to war in gen. tsral, exists in America. He empha- sizes the curious contradiction to be Sound in the fact that the manifesto, which ardently champions freedom of conscience approves of war whose purpose it is forciby and with blood shed to rob Q nation of 70,OO0,000 people of political freedom of con- science and the independent and peaceabIe development of its own form of government. Will not the enlightened leaders of the federal council soon themselves see the ab- surdity of disguising tyrannical and autocratic catchword in a democratic form ?"
 Still he finds that the manifesto, taken as a whole, does not make an unfavorable impression. It shows that American churchmen have learned during the course of the war much which was hidden from Euro pean Christians at it's beginning and .,which is still hidden from them in part In conclusion he emphasizes the fact that although the declaration of the Federal Council contains typ ically Anglo-Saxon opinions which Germans must repudiate it emanates after all from persons who show conciliatory tendency, and that if . Germans will read it without passion it will only serve to strengthen their own inner convictions"
 The Japanese Mission to Washington.
 The Hamburger Nachrichten (Sept. 2S), writing with reference to the Japanese mission to Washington, says that with the fall of the Russian au- . tocracy the agreements between Inn perial Russia and Japan have become waste paper. Instead of the coloniza- ton of East Siberia, with all of it's at- tendant advantages, it soon became clear that one of the first acts of revo- lutionary Russia was to give trouble to Japan in the east by making great concessions to America in Sakhalin and Siberia, thereby making them the rivals of Japan. The great American } capitalists find in Asia a more favor able sphere in which to exert their influence than in Europe. Only the gigantic war expenses of France and Great Britain have turned the atten- ton of these powers to the American money market, and the future will show on which side the political ad- vantage lies. Tn China 1t is different. - -