LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 76, 24 December 1918, Page 6

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

PUNISHING THE GERMANS

Sir,—While I cannot say that I am in hearty agreement with Dr. Gibb in his views regarding the punishment of Germany and the Germans, I must confess that L consider Mr. Sievwright's strident protest against the doctor s attitude as all too violent. We can (and ought to) punish the "guilty" Germans without mllicting undue humiliation on the guiltlets Germans. ■ A 6 Dr. Gibb, suggests, our, first consideration should be the securing oi conditions (internationally guaranteed) which, will put an end (if possible) to war. "Loyalty" is right in affirming that tho Allies do not entertain a thought of exacting "lex talionis" conditions. Germany must be punished. Such punishment as some people suggest would, however, keep German workmen—industrialists generally-hard at work for years to come, and workmen in the countries ot . the Allies correspondingly idle or unemployed. It would, of course, play into the hands of capitalists in the Allied cuuntries, for Germany would require huge loans to keep' her industrialists •'productively" employed, in order to meet her'obligations—those incurred by the exaction of indemnities and others. , Those who are clamouring most loudly for indemnities are, I fear, those who are thinking almost exclusively of reparation and reimbursement for tho "money" expended in connection with the war! Let there be indemnities by all means, but let them be earmarked for (in the first instance) indemnifying liberally wives and children suffering from the loss of, or .injury to, their breadwinners, and parents suffering from the loss of, or injury to, their sons. Any further indemnities might well lie reserved as a perpetual endowment for national education in the countries of the Allies—and not for furnishing relief to capitalists who have been paying (in arithmetical ratio) for- the war with one hand and pocketing the proceeds of profileering (in geometrical ratio) with the .other.—l' am, etc., , r ,„ .