The Dominion. MONDAY, MARCH 10, 1919. GERMANY IN THE DOCK

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 141, 10 March 1919, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, MARCH 10, 1919. GERMANY IN THE DOCK

In some of their dealings with Germany the Allies, of necessity, will be'guided by circumstances. They cannot, for instance, exact in full the material compensation that she might justly be required to pay and will have to he content with whatever more limited compensation it is practicable and expedient to collcct. There is another aspect of the settlement into which no such limiting principle can be allowed to enter without undermining tho work of tho Peace Conference as a whole. Apart from all questions of material compensation, it is a vital condition of the reestablishment of peace and security in the world that the atrocious crimes of which Germany and her vassals have keen guilty should be visited with appropriate penalties. It should be self-evident that this issue admits of no paltering or half-measures. There is talk ana high hope to-day of setting up a League of Nations which will uphold justice in the world and safeguard peace.- All talk on the subject would be empty and all hopes which centre upon it vain if the nations associated at the Peace Conference admitted their inability to judge and punish the infamies which have been perpetrated by Germany and on her behalf. Tho purpose of the League has been admirably summed up by President Wilson in the statement that it is a combination of all nations against wrongdoers, but obviously the combination would exist only in name if at the outset of its career the League failed to deal in exemplary fashion with evildoing in the international field such as the world had never seen,before. There is all possible force in the contention that failure to crcite the League would connote failure to establish peace on a secure basis, but it is also true that failure to vindicate the moral law by adequately punishing the crimes of the Germanic Alliance would cast doubt on the sincerity of purpose of the League at the outset of its existence. There is no escape from the conclusion that if the initial crime of provoking tho war and the deeds during more than four yeavs of "beasts who talk like men" are condoned, the moral foundation ujion which to rear a League of Nationswill be lacking. These considerations are a measure of the oteps taken by the Allied Powers to determine responsibility for the war and for enemy crimes. For the moment these matters are under review by a sub-commission presided over ty the Prime Minister of New Zealand, and to-day's reports show that this body has completed a definite stage in its investigations. The sub-commission finds, as might have been expected in view of the overwhelming evidence available, that the Central Empires and their allies brought ■ about the war- deliberately after careful preparation. It finds also that acts of which they were guilty in conducting the war "beggar all previous calendars crime and have no parallel in history." The abominatious of enemy war practice which the sub-commission has _ set out in thirty separate and distinct groups are only too familiar, but the account given of the methodical investigations of the sub-commission is welcome as an indication that the Allies intend to spare no effort in bringing the authors of these atrocities to account. It is anticipated that a tiibunal will be set up to deal with accused individuals. Elementary justice demands that this should be done promptly, and that the tribunal should nave unrestricted freedom to mete out the extreme penalty _ which is the only fitting retribution for thousands of enemy crimes. An announcement of special interest in connection with the sub-commis-sion's report relates to the indictment of the ex-Iva.iser. Although it is regarded as impossible to indict him as being responsible for atrocities, it is believed that he is answerable on a charge of violating the neutrality of Belgium. The case for trying the Kaiser on this charge should he much strengthened bv the reported discovery by the Belgian police of complete documents containing detailed instructions to the German troops for the work of destruction in Belgium. Whatever the decision in this particular matter may be, the moral sense of I the world would be outraged if the ex-Kaiser and other criminals, highly placed in the days when Germany sought to subdue the world by frightfulness were allowed to escape trial and punishment. In great part the punishment of enemy crimes must fall on guilty individuals. The moral standards of the world will be permanently degraded if pitiless justice is not meted out to the human brutes who have committed numberless infamies on land and sea and in the air, and equally to the responsible leaders and rulers who sanctioned and endorsed these crimes. But, however rigorously they may deal with individual criminals, the Allies will fail in their duty unless they tak" full account also of the fact that they are dealing with a criminal and unrepentant nation. Since Mv< object of the Allies is vindication and not revenge, the outlook to-day would be very different if the German people had given any indication of honest repentance and of a sincere desire to as far as possible make amends for the evil they have dona in the world. As far as can be judged, _ however, their whole anxiety is to escapo tho consequences of the crimes of which as a nation they have been guilty, and unless appearances are strangely deceptive this anxiety is accompanied by supreme indifference to the fate and welfare of the victims of these crimcs. Much is heard from Germany of the necessity of filling German stomachs, of giving free scope to German trade, and of abstaining from the imposition of economic burdens which would bear upon the German people with crushing effect. But nothing is heard of contrition for tho awful havoc ' .wrought by, German armies m Bel-

gium and France and other countries once happy _ and prosperous, much less of a desire to make voluntary reparation to these countries. All the evidence, in_ fact, suggests that the German nation is as brutally selfish and debased in outlook now that it has tasted defeat as in tiie days when it took the conquest of the world for granted. Apart from the imperative _ obligation they are under of punishing individual German criminals, it is manifest that if tho Allies desire to safeguard futnro peace they must treat Germany in no other light than that of a criminal nation, baffled, but quite unrepentant.