The Dominion TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1916. THE DEMAND FOR REPRISALS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2689, 8 February 1916, Page 4

The Dominion TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1916. THE DEMAND FOR REPRISALS

Lord Rosebery's plea for a policy of reprisals as a reply to tho Zeppelin raids will no doubt meet with wido support. Many people believe that the knowledge that every Zeppelin raid on undefended British' towns would be followed by a strong counterstroke against themselves would modify the enthusiasm of those Germans who take piide in the slaughter of non-combatants and women and children, and have a wholesome restraining influence. The French have already made a start on these lines,, and it is only natural that the British publh should -be calling upon the Government to adopt similar measures without further delay. The indiscriminate bombdropping indulged in by the Zeppelin raiders is. a gross violation of the laws of war, and justice demands tha,t it should not be allowed to go unpunished. A system of reprisals yj'ay punish the innocent as well as the guilty. Can such a course be justified! It is claimed with confidence that such reprisals can be justified both on moral' and practical grounds. The late Lobd Alverstoke, Lord Chief Justice of England from : 1900 to 1913, was a humane man, and yet he was prepared to advise a re- | sort to retaliation, "as for instance in the case of slave traders or savage nations where people could in no other way be brought to respect the power of the British Empire." In view of the unspeakably brutal and lawless manner in which Germany has deliberately chosen to wage this war, we are surely justified in treating' her as a "savage nation." It is impossible to appeal to the moral sense of a nation which recognises no morality in its dealings with other countries. The only way to lestrain such a State from criminal acts is by instilling into its mind a' wholesome fear of conscquences. It is laid down in the "German War Boole" that there exists no express sanction for the observance of the laws of war, the governing idea being "the fear of reprisals. Referring to the proposal of Bareue in the French Revolutionary Convention that no quarter should bo given to English soldiers, Macaulay declares that "no Government, however averse to cruelty, could, in justice to its own subjects, have given quarter to enemies who gave none. Retaliation would have been not merely justifiable, but a sacred duty." Reprisals for Zeppelin raids should not be undertaken in a spirit of panic or savagery, but should be regarded as punitive and preventive measures deliberately adopted to show our enemies that the indiscriminate murder of British women and children by Germans will be followed bv sure and adequate retribution on tic Germans themselves. The moral justification for reprisals has lately been discussed in the London Tablet from many points of view. "AVhat good can it do to our innocent dead to know that there are innocent dead in Germany?" This question is put by Professor Sanday. The editor of the Tablet, in a reply which goes right to the heart of the problem, remarks: "It pan' do no good at all. But why ask such odd questions 1 We are not thinking now about our innocent dead, but how 'to safeguard our innoccnt living." The real motive for reprisals is not revenge, but the protection of the innocent and defcnce-

less. It is difficult to see how any normal-minded person- can withhold approval from tho Tablet's contention that "if it is a case of choosing between the apparent cruelty of killing German civilians in self .defence and the certain barbarity of refusing to do anything, or less than our utmost, to protect from deliberate and unprovoked murder the children about our ltnees, we dccidedly pre-

fer the former alternative." Letters have appeared in the Tablet challenging this position, while others have very strongly supported it. The advocates of reprisals,, have the best of the argument. One coriespondent puts th© average man's point of view clearly and concisely. He admits that the shelling of an unfortified town without noti<« is contrary to one of the rules of war; but if that rule is violated by the enemy, and if it can be reasonably inferred that an effective method of stopping

him in that course of aggression is to shell some _ of his unfortified towns, oven with the incidental infliction of death on some non-com-batants, then it seems very difficult indeed to demonstrate! that such a course is morally wrong. This is a level-headed and moderate way of putting the case. The writer would have had strong justification if he had chosen to adopt the positive, instead of the negative, position, and held that in the circumstances mentioned reprisals would be morally right, or even, as Macaulay puts it, "a sacred duty." If the measures we adopt in retaliation for Zeppelin raids succeed in convincing our enemies that foul fighting does not pay, we may not only check these horrors in this war, but may do service to civilisation by discoui aging other nations in future wars from resorting to methods of savagery. Severe retribution may be expected to produce increased respect for inter'national law. Germany has? shown that so long as her rulers_ believe that they can commit criminal acts with impunity ethical considerations will not weigh with them for_a moment. They will have no hesitation in taking the fullest advantage of our unwillingness to pay them back in tlwjir own coin. Some of their weapons are so foul that we fcoulci not possibly use them; but there are forms bf effective retaliation that we can and should adopt.