PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 112, 29 January 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

An admirable tail-piece is seb to Count Hertling's insolent and bombastic speech by the accounts of conditions in Gorman prison ; camps which are transmitted to-day. These accounts have a particular and painful interest for the people | of this Dominion in that they are • given by New Zealanders who "them- ] selves endured the appalling condi- ' tions they describe. Even before the story of Wittenberg had become history, Germany had earned un- . dying infamy by her treatment of Allied prisoners, and the reports ; now published contain nothing that , is'really now. But they sh,ow that ; Germany is_ guilty to-day of the j samo atrocious crimes towards i helpless prisoners in her hands as ! at earlier stages of the war, and 1 it is well that all possible promin- 1 enco should be given to this damning fact at a moment when ths ] Imperial Chancellor is mouthing : professions of dignity and morality, i If Count Hertling possessed < the most .elementary regard for j justice and humanity be would not j dare to speak of the "dignity of fcho Fatherland" at a moment when j the Fatherland is starving its prisoners of war and housing tlicm , m mudholes in winter and in ver-min-infested dens in summer. It J is true that the Chancellor's E quality was already exposed in bis f cynical declaration that Belgium ( and Northern Franco are regarded i as pawns, but if no other standard * were available the contrast between 1 his pstentatious assumption of dig- 1 nity'and his country's atrocious ' treatment of war-prisoners would in itself suffice to brand him as the corrupt and unscrupulous tool of the Pan-Germans who made this f war and have ruthlessly developed f it in all its barbarity and horror. , * * * * J The crimes of which Germany lias | been guilty ■ in her treatment of r prisoners of war and defenceless fl non-combatants—men, women, and q babies—can never bo atoned, and it li is far beyond the power of civilised nations to visit such crimes with adequate punishment. But there is already a measure of punishment T in the fact that in these crimcs and f in the vile treachery of which she • has been guilty at overy opportu- i nity in the field of diplomacy and t

international relations, she lias given sucli lurid proofs of ho.iquality that all her attempts at concealment and dissimulation are vain. If, apart from her initial crime in forcing the war, she had fought it as a scli-reapectiiig nation, observing the laws of war and the dictates of humanity expressed in the Hague Convention, the peace intrigue upon which she is now engaged would be ten times more dangerous than it is in fact. If her elaborate attempts to divide and confuse the Allies by drawing them into an involved discussion of detail issues is doomed at tho outset to failure it is very largely bccauso she has sacrificed eveiy title to respect by reducing savagery, bestiality, and treachery to a science. All but 'Ac most iirational pacifists in Aliied countries and in most neutrai countries recognise that Germany has 110 more right to parley on even terras with her enemies than lias a murderer token in the fact. Germany has ■ made her own place by such infamies as are described to-day, and no effort of hypocrisy or dialectic skill by Count Heutling and those with whom ho is associated will recover for her what she has lost. if * * * ' .Reports of peace-talk and popular agitation in enemy countries are supplemented to-day, but without throwing much new light on tho situation. The possibility is not to bo overlooked that tho A us-tro-German authorities may be deliberately promo'-ing or exaggerating reports oi popular disturbances in thehopo of unsettling opinion in Allied countries, but there are fairly substantial reasons for believing that tb.o reports which have lately come through on this subject are largely genuine, particularly _ where the Slav races of Austria-Hungary are concerned. If the position in the Dual Monarchy is within mcasurablo distance of being as serious as it is pictured, it is bound to heavily affect the course of tho war in the near fnturfi. * * * * In commenting on the war outlook, the American Secretary for War fathers the_ view that the Germans are making preparations for an intensified submarine campaign against American transports. This is possibly true, but it should not be overiopked that the transportation of American troops in large numbers has been going 011 for months past, and that the Germans, despite their anxiety to make the best possible showing in their pre6ent peaco offensive, have not yei succeeded in sinking a single American transport outward bound. Tho magnificent success with which the British Navy has protected troop transports is of good augury as it bears vpon the problem of transporting t;he American armies.