GERMAN BARBARITY IN AFRICA

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 63, 9 December 1918, Page 5

GERMAN BARBARITY IN AFRICA

OFFICIAL EVIDENCE FOUND AT : WINDHUK. ' • i The British. Administrator of the caiV; tiiied German colony of South-West < Africa, in a report published as a Bine! Book, 'gives appalling evidence of German; misrule—largely based on official docn-i ments found ill the Government offices at Windhuk. There was no law for the! natives, who from the beginning wore; chcated, and more and more brutally. ! treated and subjected to fiendish cruel-' ties, torture and murder. They weredeliberately goaded into rebellions, in j tlio ruthless suppression of which the : tribes involved were virtually exter-: roinated. One official order vres that; no Herrero—man, woman, or child—was; to receive mercy—"Kill every one of them, and take no prisoners." The oiil-'i cial German figures, of the population: toll a plain tale:— ' 1904. 1911. H.creros 80,000 v 15,100 , Hottentos 20,000 9,800 j Berg Damaras 30,000 12,800 ' Settlers who had natives working fofj them were allowed to treat them with!! inconceivable cruelty. Native women; suffered abominable treatment at the; hands of the European officials and set-) tiers. The universal feeling of the j natives is against being returned to Ger- 1 man rule i With regard to the fate of the Gemail, colonics, Jlr. Balfour: recently stated:—; "Here, again, is a point upon which'! there can be no-misunderstanding,, and'; upon which the Germans stand on one! sido and we stand, on the other. I sajtf it is impossible to coucoive that any con-' versations can bridge over a difference j so deep, or restore t'o the power of Ger-,' many those unhappy populations whicjt: shs has misused and give back to GeiM;; n.anv the control of those naval basea j which would make her the controller,j; not merely of the lmes of comuiunica«! tion which join one part of the British!! Empire to another, but would make her ; tho mistress of tho lines of communica-, tion of the civilised world." !