The Benson signal., 1918-03-23
FIGHT TO. FINISH,
SAY PREMIERS
WAR COUNCIL AGREES THAT
VOWS OF TEUTON'S CANNOT
BE TAKEN.
OENOUNCE SLAv PACT
STRUGGLE MUST BE CONTINUED
UNTIL THE LAWLESS FORCE .
is ENDED.
Western Newspaper Union News Service.

London, March 19.-The Supreme
War Council of the allies issued
statement condemning German polit-
ical crimes. against the Russian and
Rumanian. peoples, and refusing to
acknowledge Germany's peace treaties
The councils statement, which is
issued through the foreign office,
says: s~, ~: 2'~ ~.
"The prime ministers and foreign
ministers of the entente assembled in
London feel it to be their bounden
duty to take note Of the political
crimes which, under the name of Ger
man peace, have been committed
against the Russian people. Russia
was unarmed Forgetting that for
ing against the independence of ma
tions and the rights of mankind, the
Russian government, in a mood OF
singular credulity, expected to obtain
by persuasion that democratic peace
which it had failed to obtain by war.
"The results were that the interme-
diate armistice had not expired be-
fore the German command, though
pledged not to alter the disposition Of
it's troops, transferred them en- masse
to. tie western front, and so weak did
Russia find herself that she dared to
raise no protest against this destruc-
ton of Germanys plighted word.
What followed was of like character,
when the German peace was trans
lated into action. 1t was found to in
volve the invasion of Russian terri
tory, the destruction or capture of all
Russia's means of defense, and the
organization of Russian lands for Ger
many's profit-a proceeding which did
not differ from annexation because
the word itself was carefully avoided.
Meanwhile, those very Russians
who had made military operations i'm
possible, found diplomacy impotent.
Their representatives were compelled
to proclaim that while they refused to
read the treaty presented to them, they
had no choice but to sign it.; SO they
signed it, not knowing whether in it's
true significance it meant peace or
war, nor measuring the degree to
which Russian national life was re-
duced by it to a shadow.
For us of the entente governments
the judgment which the free peoples
of the world will pass on these trans
| h
waste time over German pledges when
we see that at no period in her history
of conquest-not when she overran
Silesia nor when she partitiOned PO-
land-has she exhibited herself so Gym
ically as a destroyer of national inde
pendence, the implacable enemy of the
rights of man and the dignity of civil
lied nations.
POLAND, whose heroic spirit has sur
vived the most cruel of national TRACE
dies, is threatened with a fourth parti-
ton, and, to aggravate her wrongs,
devices by which the last trace af her
independence is to be crushed are
based on fraudulent promises of free
DOM
What is true of Russia and Poland
is no less true of Rumania, over
whelmed, like them, in flood of mer-
ciless passion for domination.
"Peace is loudly advertised, but un-
der the disguise of verbal professions
lurk the brutal realities of war and the
rntempered rule of a lawless force.
peace treaties such as these we do
not and cannot acknowledge. Our
known ends are very different. We are
fighting, and mean to continue fight
ing, in order to finish once for all with
this policy of plunder, and to estab-
lish in it's place the peaceful reign of
organized justice.
CAS- incidents of this long war un-
roll themselves before our eyes, more
and more clearly do we perceive that
the battles for freedom are every
where interdependent; that no separ-
ate enumeration of them is needed
and that in every case the single, but
all-sufficient, appeal is to justice and
right.
"Are justice and right going to win?
| Insofar as the issue depends on bat
ties yet to come, the nations whose
fate is in the balance, may surely put
their trust in the armies, which even
under conditions more difficult than
the present, have shown themselves
more than equal to the great cause en-
trusted to their valOr"