The Evening Star THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1942. WAR CRIMINALS.

Evening Star, Issue 24332, 22 October 1942, Page 4

The Evening Star THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1942. WAR CRIMINALS.

Thu Governments of the United Nations, it ’is reported, are taking; steps to form a War Crimes Investigation Commission to draw up a list of war criminals and collect evidence against them in the occupied countries. The statement accords with pronouncements that have been made by the British Lord Chancellor (Lord Simon) and President Roosevelt. As long ago as January nine ex-Governmonts in exile, meeting in London, placed the ipunishmcnt of war criminals, “through ait organised justice,’’ among their principal war aims. Everyone must hope that the brutes who have defamed the name of man by their cold-blooded villainies will be made to meet with individual justice, though, iu the case of the most notorious of them, no penalty could possiblylit their crimes. The ipurpose of the retribution which is now threatened was well expressed by Mr Churchill in his latest speech ~as being “ that an indelible warning may be given to future ages, and that successive generations of men may say: ‘So perish all who do the like again.’ ” Unfortunately, the difficulties of doing individual justice on so many malefactors are not less thaii its desirableness. It was for that reason, doubtless, that the Atlantic Charter, drawn up by Mr Churchill and Mr Roosevelt iu August, 1941, and signed later by all the United Nations as the basis for post-war reconstruction, made no mention of the punishment of war criminals. _ It would be an outrage which is inconceivable if the archmiscreants of Nazism, the Berlin or Munich junta and their chief satraps in control of the occupied lands, were allowed to escape the penalties of their infamies, but the list of those deserving of punishment only begins with them. “It never has been possible,” Sir George Young has pointed out, “ to hang a whole people, because no one could ever build a big enough gallows.” It is one thing to say—to quote Mr Churchill again—that “ when the hour of liberation strikes in Europe, as strike it will, it will also he the hour of retribution,” but how much longer would the process of retribution be likely to last, if it is to he dependant on judicial process? The attempt to punish war criminals after the last war was discussed and played with for more than a year, and then it was abandoned, no one being any longer interested. The new commission must work out a more summary procedure, which will get the business as soon as possible over and done with, makingthe least prejudice to a “ new order.” Even so. it is only ringleaders who can he dealt with. “ The United Nations.” President Roosevelt has said, “ did not intend to carry out mass reprisals.”