The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Præevalebit. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1916. NEED FOR RETRIBUTION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXVI, Issue 3564, 26 September 1916, Page 4

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Præevalebit. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1916. NEED FOR RETRIBUTION.

rAs a result of the latest Zeppelin raid on England, eight women and three children have been killed and 65 women and children injured:—probably many of them crippled for life. There is no mental, compensation for the relatives of the victims in the fact that the crew of one of the Zeppelins have been burned to death, and that the crew of another have been captured, though it is satisfactory to know that at least 40 German fiends will never again be in a position to murder defenceless women and children. The time has definitely come when action should be taken to exact retribution for these brutal raids. It is a revelation of the w ( ide gap that separates the British notions of honour, and fair play from the German creed that murder is justifiable under under any cirr cumstances, when scarcely any demand has been made that German towns shall .be bombed by our aircraft. No crime that the Germans could commit would justify such reprisals, for they could not have any/ military significance. But some steps should be taken to make these raids more hazardous for the Germans. 1 Under existing circumstances the crews .run the minimum of risk whilst in a position to do the maximum o£ damage to property and injury to life. The proportion of women and children in England just now is necessarily larger than that of men, arid consequently the percentage of deaths amongst these non-combatants is very much greaterf than amongst men. It is therefore necessary to add to the aerial defences an assurance by the Government that the crews of raiders shall be immediately executed. Germany's aerial warfare in England has exacted a terrible toll in innocent lives. Under the most favourable circumstances it is impossible' for the raiders to make certain of confining their bomb-dropping operations to works of military importance; and so the raids are sheer adventures for the sake of murder. Hitherto, the crews of these,assassins of the night have had only to face the risks of capture or the remote possibility of destruction in the air. Since the beginning of the Zeppelin raids only three of them have been brought down on English soil; the crews of two have been burned to death arid the crew of the other were' captured. In addition, two other Zeppelins have been wrecked by British gun-fire close to shore, and their crews were taken prisoners. Of 15 Zeppelins engaged in the last raid, only .two were brought, down, and if stern reprisals are: not announced the remaining; 13 will probably return in a few days. to. avenge their comrades' death and capture. It is possible, of course, that such.a threat.will not deter the Kaiser ordering, further murder raids. But in i;hat case the crews would know what to expect in case of capture. The men who man these airships cannot be regarded as soldiers. They are not engaged in warfare as it is understood by honourable men and nations, but in a Campaign, of deliberate murder of innocent women and children. And as human law provides only one punishment for murderers, not v/pngeance, but simple justice, demands that;these assassins of the air ;;shall pay the penalty ,of their crimes. Commenting ou Germany's ruthless war methdds, the London " Daily Chronicle" says:—"This unending catalogue of breaches of the laws of God and man, unparalleled in their scope and variety, un- 1 exampled in their cruelty, their treachery, and their brazen premeditation, is a catalogue of the sins of a Government—a Government whose monarch in war-time is an autocrat, and whoso effective direction is at all times shared by that monarch with a comparatively narrow clique of military and civil heads." To which the London "Times" adds these grave words:— Cf The time

of protests, it is felt, has gone by. The Press demands an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth as being the only ' law' recognised by the enemy."