The Dominion. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1918. A TERRIBLE INDICTMENT

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 305, 13 September 1918, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1918. A TERRIBLE INDICTMENT

In tho face- of the ghastly record of diaboliciil cruelty contained in the report of Mb. Gorgks, the British Administrator of South-West Africa,, can any honest man dare to invoke tho authority of justice in support of tho plea that Germany should get back her colonies when the. war is over? AVoiiii such an arrangement be just to tho unfortunate natives?. Docs justice demand that tho Allies should give Germany an opportunity of completing her work of extermination , ! Have the Horeros and Hottentots no rights except the right of enduring slavery in fig most degraded forms, and of being tortured and outraged and massacred? Has not a. nation which has persistently, deliberately, and systematically.- treated its subject races as mero things, inferior to bsasts of burden, forfeited evory moral claim to "protectorates" over native peoples? These questions clamour for an answer from those misguided Britishers who urge in the sacred name of justice that the victims of German brutality should bo handed back to their persecutors. We are sometimes told that the Germans will hate us if their colonial Empire is not restored. Perhaps they will, but they cannot halo.us more whole-heartedly than they hate us now. But however violently the enemy may rage, the Allies would do a great wrong , if they did not mako use of tho present opportunity in order to free tho natives of the Kaiser's protectorates from the tyranny of their former masters. Dr. Solf, tho German Colonial Secretary, recently declared that a nation's right to colonial possessions should depend upon the merits it has shown in the matter of the protection of the native peoples entrusted to its care. Thus, out of her own mouth, Germany stands condemned, for judged by this principle she has no shadow of a claim to be a colonial power. Mr. Gorges' report shows what German "protection" means. It means extermination—and extermination by methods of sickening brutality. Dr. Sou?-holds that "States which endeavoured before the war to respect tho humanity of the coloured races have won the moral right to be colonial Powers." Docs £>r-. Sour base Germany's "moral right" on Trotha's extermination order: "Not a Herero nia-n, woman, or babe is to receive mercy or quarter —kill every one of theW? In the light of 3uch facts as these it is almost unbelievable that any nor-mal-mindcd man or woman could advocate the return to Germany oE her lost colonies. It is hardly necessary for Mr. Gorges to tell the world that the natives of South-West Africa are strongly opposed to being handed back to the tender mercies of thegentlo German. The remnants of tho race naturally object to boinj? kicked and flogged out of existence. One of the most horrible aspects of this disgraceful is tho fact thab the sufferings of tho natives were not due to spasmodic outbursts of lust or greed on the part of officials or settlers, but were the result of deliberate policy systematically carried out. Deunbur'o, when Colonial Secretary, declared that "tho State is always asked to carry a whip in its hand," and von Liebeut, Governor of German East Africa, has placed on record the opinion that "it is impossible in Africa to get on without cruelty." The German way has been to goad the unfortunate natives to rebellion and then to slaughter them. The killing of these defenceless people seems to have been regarded as an exciting form of sport. This is how a writer in a German newspaper describes an ambush in East Africa:

Wo surprised the rebels at Ribata ns they wero attempting to cross tho river There was a lonp, nnvrow bridge therewhich they hail to cross, bo that ko could pop them off comfortably. There wero .seventy-six dead, besides those torn to pieces' by crocodiles. ... In the middle of the river wns a sandbank where they wanted to rest, but liero, too, our shots caught them. That was a sight! I stood by the river behind a fallen tree and shot 130 rounds. Tho prisoners were always hanged.

The detcstiblc Trotha, whose brutalities ;> !■•• referred to by Mn, GonGES, -i wont to describe himself as ' ; Great General of tho .Mighty iimperor." Mr. Evans Lewin, in his pamphlet on "German Rulo in Africa," asserts that the treatment moted out to tho Hcreros by this infamous wretch is "one of the greatest crimes ever committed by a European commander against an African race." No attempt was made to negotiate with tho rebels, and tho horrors of the campaign "form an example of ferocity without parallel in modern African history." Captain Dominik was another apostle of Evltur. He established German rule in the Oamcroons with pitiless barbarity. On one occasion this official permitted his soldiers to drown in the Nachtigal ILinids fifty-two little children who had been left after it general massacre of a village. The children were placed in baskets and thrown into the rapids to provide sport for the brutal soldiers. This crime is well authenticated, and has never been denied. And tho Germans have erected two statues of this callous brute! Tho story of forced labour in tho German African colonies is almost as hideous as the accounts of

the wars of extermination. The charges of cruelty to the labourers aro proved by revelations made in the Reichstag by deputies, including Hcnit Er.ffliiatGEK, who is just now talking unctiously about peace and good will. A most remarkable and significant indictment of German misrule is made by Dr. Sou? himself, who is afc present trying to convince the world of Germany's moral right to bo a colonial Power, based upon the merits she has shown in the matter of the protection of tho coloured races. Addressing the South Camcroons Chamber of Commerce in 1913, he said: It is a sad stnle of things to t-eo how tho villages arc bereft of men, and how women and children carry heavy burdens; how tho v.'holo life of the. people appears on 'tho ronil. What I saw on the high roads nt Jaunde and Eholowa has grieved me most deeply. Family lifo is being destroyed; parents, husbands, wives and children are being separated. No more children are born, and tho women are separated from their husbands for the greater part of tho year. Theso ivro wrong conditions and difficulties which must cease. Tho caEO against Germany has been proved up to the hilt. Her colonial administration has been convicted of crimes that shock the moral senso of the civilised world. The Germans do not admit that the moral law has any application to their relations with other peoples. They openly claim to.oc the "mas-ter-folk above the inferior peoples of Europe and the primitive peoples of the colonies." Their policy towards tho coloured races is the logical outcome of the doctrines of their materialistic philosophy. Nietzsche lays it down that tho morality of the ruling class should have for its principle that one has duties only to one's equals; that ,one may act towards beings, of a lower rank, towards all that is foreign, just as he thinks fit. This teaching flatly contradicts the Christian conception of the fundamental equality of human nature which forms the basis of modern law, polities, and government in civilised countries. Tho Allies would,commit a crimo against humanity if they sent the primitive peoples who have been liberated from the German yoke back to their former bondage to a nation which ruled over them without any sense of moral obligation.