ATLANTIC TRAGEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 227, 24 September 1940, Page 6

ATLANTIC TRAGEDY.

The thodght of the British refugee children is to most of us like a blow. We had no reason to believe that the Nazis would refrain from torpedoing a ship which might have children aboard, but against reason and experience we hoped that they would. It is now horribly clear that they will sink any and every British ship that they can approach. Such tactics! are valued by the Nazis for their psychological effect, as part of their " war of nerves.' . They are in the same vile class with the bombing of hospitals and the machine-gunning of civilians on roads. They are calculated to spread the thought that the Nazi methods of killing are so violent, varied and übiquitous that resistance is useless. The calculation is completely false, for the effect of such slaughter is to arouse and sustain the desire for revenge, to deepen the determination to root out the ruling gang of Nazis who order or condone these deeds. Meanwhile it would be idle to deny that the tragedy in the Atlantic raises a question mark before the child-evacuation project. It presents every parent who has contemplated sending children abroad with the cruel choice between exposing them to the continual risk of bombs at home and the risk of torpedoes/ at sea. It presents the Government with the hard question of determining how great a degree of risk it is justified in taking with children committed to its charge. Some risk there must be, for the Navy is not so strong that an impenetrable escort can be provided for every ship. There is consolation in the thought that some thousands of children have been sent overseas without mishap, but this will not still the doubts of parents fearful that their owu children may be among the ill-fated minority. It is impossible at this distance to know all the circumstances which must be considered by the authorities. All that can be said is that the promise to receive children remains open, and will be honoured even more heartily because of the knowledge of the perils through which the children who do arrive will have come.