SWISS PROPOSALS FOR A DURABLE PEACE

F

OR some time a Swiss Committee, with Dr. Otfried Nippold at its head, has been at work trying to hammer out a durable peace-not detailed terms for the ending of the war, but the broad principles on which at lasting peace may rest. The scheme is not burdened by any demand for an immediate peace. On the contrary, it On the contrary, it is fully admitted that "at present the sword alone can decide." The object is to prepare for peace when it does

come.

The main proposals may be summarized thus:

(1) Neutral countries should participate in the deliberations of the Peace Congress, as the conclusions reached will affect all nations, and not merely. the belligerents.

(2) Alliances of all kinds are considered bad and should be abolished.

(3) Federation, for the present, is dismissed as impracticable, mainly on account of the difficulty of creating and effectively maintaining an International Executive, and also on account of the difficulty of including the defeated belligerents.

need of defense, it has become synonymous with defenselessness. Conscription is responsible for the race in armaments; it has transformed society into an armed camp in which military service is the chief thing. Civil society has in time of peace to find the money for militarism. The result is obvious to all-gigantic armies-inhuman bloody war! Even the most zealous anti-militarists are counted in, and become, through forced service against their will, a menace to their neighbors. Here we see the very core. Conscription is not a weapon of defense, but militarists see in it the best weapon of offense. When militarism is in power it does not trouble as to attack or defense; aggression masquerades as strategic defense, and conquest as the only way of securing a State. Conscription means, for good or for evil, the giving over of a nation to militarism. Professional militarism fattens. on it and becomes a power above the State. It means the automatic maintenance of preparations for war and the danger of war. Let militarists take all the consequences and try whether they can maintain rivalry in armaments upon peaceful lines. The abolition of universal forced service means the securing of peace.

THE NATION'S CENTENARIANS

Serbia, according to statistics printed in England, is particularly the country of centenarians. In that land, one man in every 2,260 has lived to be 100 years old, the total male centenarian population of Serbia being 575.

Ireland ranks next in the longevity list. In the Emerald Isle, out of every 8,130 of population, there is one centenarian, the total number of centenarians being 578.

Out of every 43,000 Spaniards one is a centenarian. Norway has twentythree centenarians, or one in about 96,000. England, Scotland, and Wales

have about one centenarian to every 177,000 of population.

France has 213 centenarians, or one in 180,750. Sweden ranks seventh with twenty only, or one in 250,000. Germany has one in 702,000. Denmark only claims two, or less than one to 1,000,000 of its population; and Switzerland, with all its reputed healthiness, seems not to possess a single centenarian.

A SOLDIER'S DIARY.

The following has been taken from the diary of a soldier, a private fighting in the Great World War.

Aug. 2. On again. Exhausting march. Many bombarded villages, several completely destroyed. Bad food. Bad treatment of stragglers, especially of one-year volunteers.

Bad food, quite insufficient. Bad treatment of stragglers, insulting language. They are given extra guards. The officers lounge in carriages. The men are indignant at it.

Aug. 3.-March in burning heat through demolished villages. No water. All the wells are destroyed; cholera and flies. Loathsome dirt. It makes one weak. One dreams of fresh springs and wells. Brutishness.

go no farther. Always the same brutality of the N.C.O.'s towards the men who are going lame. Low spitefulness. Abuse.

Aug. 6.-I long for peace.

Aug. 7.-March of from 17 to 18 miles. Everywhere graves, bodies of horses, unburied or only half covered Flies, dirt One

lives like a beast in the filth.

Disgusting conduct of the officers.The officers divide the presents from home among themselves. They take away the tent canvas from the men, and have fine tents put up for themselves in which they wrap themselves up comfortably. They go on the spree,

comfortably.

they steal the bread and wine out of the wagons, and all the while they are drawing big rations.

Aug. 9.-We are now three miles from the front.

The 3rd Company has come back; all the men I knew in it are either wounded or killed. The men's stories are very depressing, they are horribly tired and their morale is low. Only the officers are in good shape; their number is astonishing considering the losses in men.

Aug. 10.-Drill this morning, after a cold night under canvas. It is a trifle in itself, but the endless annoyances, the threats of punishment for the smallest blunders make life unbearable. In presence of the haughty and independent attitude of the officers the men seem like mere ciphers, like a herd of cattle. Aug. 11. In a dug-out close to the front. Rumor that we are going to change our theatre of operations.

The officers look splendid. They are gay, and always making jokes. The

men on the other hand march with their heads down, buried in their thoughts, without speaking.

Own

All the same that did not prevent him from firing on his own men.

Aug. 15.-In pursuit of the enemy. Worn out by excitement and hunger. Exuberant cheerfulness of the officers. Colonel, major, captain, laugh boisterously. Their faces beaming, shining with fat. For us, hardships, dirt, hunger Long march until until 5 o'clock. We halt in enemy trenches dug in the open country. Hardly have we settled in when shells rain on our heads. The enemy as they retreat dig these trenches to entice us into them, which gives them a fixed target.

The young soldiers are grossly treated by the old soldiers, who answer them in monosyllables and hardly deign to look at them. We are treated like criminals and worse. All of a sudden, for nothing, one is threatened with a beating. The commissioned ranks, from Major Stillfried downwards, set the example. Everybody is discouraged. Men of peaceful nature

are crushed.

Passionate desire for peace, amounting to physical pain.

And why should one die? Why?

Aug. 18.-Spent the day in holes. Slept; nothing to eat. In the evening made a line of trenches joining up the shell holes. The soldier has no personality, he is a machine, and that is what he is trained to be; as soon as he is left to himself he is idle, stupid, and a blockhead. He has only one idea, eating and sleeping, and his brutishness is only limited by barbarous punishment. He never knows of his own accord what he ought to do and everything he does he does with frightful clumsiness.

Aug. 19.-The day before the fight I saw, on the march, a color-sergeant beat a recruit with a stick. This morning the same sight. He smothered him with blows, and an old soldier helped him. Abuse. Captain B said in so many words, "Tan them as much as you like. so long as they obey."

March all night without a halt. Major

C is ferocious. Soldiers are tied to trees for eating biscuits and apples, or lying to an officer.

Aug. 21. The officers have tents and tables like tourists, and have an abundant spread.

Aug. 25.-Started about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Soon deployed in skirmishing order; moderate gun and rifle fire. Lieutenant R is never there when the firing is going on. When the danger is over he rushes impetuously to the front. The whole company laughs at it. He is a grotesque sight. The section leaders grumble and are worried; they don't know what to do.

Aug. 28.At midday the color-sergeant of our company hit a soldier of the active army with a stick.

Aug. 29.-As soon as the attack opened, the officer commanding the company, Lieutenant R—, stayed behind, and nothing more was seen of him; not only so, but the section leaders and the non-commissioned officers stayed behind. The sections and groups advanced without leaders. Indescribable jumble. We had heavy losses, but one no longer notices them.

Aug. 31. Our leaders yesterday remarked, "You shall have something to eat when you have taken the trench."

Sept. 1.-We are worn out. Marches.
Sept. 5.-Food absolutely insufficient

The old soldiers and non-commissioned officers stick to the travelling kitchens and stuff themselves. The old hands, too, know how to get themselves looked after, but when recruits want a second helping they are driven away with jeers, and often enough a beating into the bargain.

The color-sergeant is a dirty bawler, always uttering threats, never a good word, always ready to use a stick, and he doesn't spare it when he gets the chance.

Every morning drill with the usual accompaniment of abuse and threats. In itself what is required of one at drill is not so bad but it becomes a real torture on account of the system. Everything one does is wrong, blameworthy, and liable to punishment. Always threats of extra drill, not the slightest idea of reasonable instruction, no explanation, no practical examples, nothing but threats and annoyances.

Every day we have to sing stupid songs, always the same, instead of getting them out of the "Song Book," and we go singing through the village like children.

This morning, when we fell in, I made a wrong movement, as the sun prevented my looking to my front. Immediately the color-sergeant put me down for punishment. Afterwards the lieutenant called me up in front of the whole company and overwhelmed me with nonsense. The whole morning I was threatened, and at last was put in the rear rank. As a result of our marches many of us have sore feet. Every day the color-sergeant checks some of the lame men, threatens them, and puts them on extra fatigue. Even those who have swollen feet of which the battalion doctor has advised them to be careful, are made to march incessantly, and if they flinch they are threatened with extra drill in the after

noon.

Sept. 27-One gets stunted intellectually. One has no longer a single idea except to keep going physically.

Always the same longing for peace, and before my eyes the spectre of the French front close at hand, with the horrors of its artillery fire.

Left D yesterday evening about 6 o'clock, very hard march of six to nine miles without halting.

Lieutenant R has been drunk since yesterday.

We are in a village empty of inhabitants, half destroyed by artillery, quite close to the front.