The Dominion. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1915. PERVERTED IDEAS OF JUSTICE

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2617, 12 November 1915, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1915. PERVERTED IDEAS OF JUSTICE

When Mr. Massey declared a few days ago that he trußtcd.no conditions of peace would be considered which did not provide fof the fullest possible compensation being paid to those nations which had suffered by the action of Germany in the present war, he undoubtedly gave expression to the opinion of the overwhelming majority of the people of New Zealand. Ninety-nine out of every hundred normal-minded Britishers will accept Mil Massey's statement as a mere reiteration of an incontrovertible principle. But from time to time solitary voiccs aro raised in protest against any suggestion that the defeat of Germany shoiild bo followed by any step to compensate her victims. Tho ideas of this insignificant minority found utterance a few days ago at the annual meeting of the Canterbury Branch of the Royal Colonial Institute. Mr. J. D. Hall took exception to the Prime Minister's words. He said that it was not necessary for Now Zealand to announce so loudly that she would insist upon the payment of indemnities, and asserted that there were some people who wcro not working or fighting-for indemnities or and who did

not believe that money could make good the loss sustained or the lives that had been sacrificed. There is a strange confusion of ideas in the views here expressed. No ono suggests or could suggest that any money payment could ever compensate for the lives sacrificed in this struggle; but that hasnothing whatever to do with the justice of the claim that Germany should be compelled to pay an indemnity which would do something towards reinstating the ruined Belgians and Serbians in their homes and on their devastated homesteads. Surely it is ' grotesquely absurd to suggest that those who claim that our unfortunate Allies who have suffered so terribly should be compensated, as far as it is possible to compensate them, are fighting for dollars. The strange attitude taken up by Mr. Hall does not appear to have received much encouragement from those present at the meeting. Mr. Justice Denniston mentioned Belgium and Serbia, and Me. Wigram held that Me. Massey was quite entitled to support the proposal that these two devastated countries should receive indemnities. It is so obviously in accordance with the fundamental principles of justice that the Germans should be made to pay for the frightful destruction they have wrought that most of us find it difficult to listen with patience to those who argue that it would be wrong to inflict money penalties. .The fact that a certain amount of this sickly sentimentalisrn still exists our midst provides ample justification for the reiteration of the demand that when the time for discussing the terms of peace arrives the fullest possible justice shall be done to Belgium and Serbia. Justice is one of the things we are fighting for, and justice demands that Germany should be made to pay for the enormous destruction of property which has resulted from her unprovoked attack on Belgium, for instance. Who is going to pay I if Germany is not compelled to 1 Or are wo going to leave Belgium and Serbia wrecked and ruined, and allow their brutal ravisher to escape the burden of repairing at lea§t a part of the material loss he has occasioned 1 No amount of money can make good the losses for which Gorman aggression has been responsible, but indemnities can help the Serbians and Belgians to restore their devastated towns and rebuild their battered homes. If those people who stand aloof from common humanity and talk contemptuously about "indemnities and dollars" were better able to realise the awful plight of the places which have been overrun by the brutal Teutonic hosts, they would probably alter their opinions very radically. They would learn to look at the matter a little more from the victims' point of view, and see the necessity of doing justice to those who have been wronged before extending mercy to the wrongdoer.