SHOULD WE RETALIATE

Marlborough Express, Volume L, Issue 81, 5 April 1916, Page 6

SHOULD WE RETALIATE

REPRISALS AGAINST ZEPPS

L.\W, ETHICS, AND EXPEDIENCY.

LONDON, Feb. 11

ft cannot be f-aid thia.t the last Zeppelin raid on ISngland has worked uny ch;vna,e..- at all in the mental attitude of the British people towards the air 'menace; :vnd certainly cannot be said to have' stampeded ,the British into wanting an earlier peace.- What it certainly has done is to beget a demand for soino sort of uuniformity in the control of lighting as between different counties and even wider regions. Half the damage done by the Zeppelins Lost week was due to irregular lighting in some shape or fovm, and the Home Office has shown ;juite a new lease of life in recognising this, and in making iis new orders' almost before the local authoritiea of the Midlands could make their own recommendations.

There has been no considerable demand for retaliation against the 'enemy, although this method of stopping the raids has been vigorously canvassed in some quarters for months past. When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle a- month a.go put forward a suggestion that we should retaliate for each raid on England by a large aeroplane raid on some of the nearest German towns, his advice feil on rathor deaf ears. This time the ball is set rolling by a heavier weight, -Lord- Rosebery. "We have too long,-displayed," he wrote, "a passive/ .T-hd excessive patience. • To scatter bombs over a countryside, to destroy indiscriminately ilie- mansion and cottage, the church and school, to murder .. unoffending civilians, women and children and sucklings in their beds, these are-the noble aspirations of Prussian chivalry, acclaimed by their nation as deeds of merit and daring. Let them realise this triumph. Let us bring it home directly to their hearts and homes. Let us mete out their measure to themselves. Nothing: else will make them realise their glories, and the Mood 6f any who may suffer will rest on. their Government, not on ours." A PROTEST FROM THE CLOISTERS. , ... :

This full-blooded language produced a.n instant protest from more regions than one. The? veteran-Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood passionately appealed against this invitation to violence;-. "I believe and trust," he said, "that our fighting services will never sink to such infamy. The Germans, however loathsomely brutal their war principles may be, notwithstanding that , some of their newspapers advocate the indiscriminate dropping of bombs to frighten us, are yet .practical people, and' would not willingly waste one air bomb after, having carried it.hundreds of miles in killing and maiming noneomfo*ii,iants. They, fortunately for us, made.jVery bad shots, their object l-eing to destroy ships, docks, muni-, itioii buil<lins:s, and'iwarliko: stores." '.To* $>ir support ca:ne the Rcy.: Dr. Sanday, Professor of Divinity at Oxford, protesting that "at such a game we are sure to be beaten, just- because the enemy is """ore. unscrupulous than we are. Whatever wo do he will do something •'Yorse and th?n throw the bin me on lis. *.t :>'s a kind, of homeopathy . to:'suppose that we ■ should cluiek .tho&e. atrocities by adding to them. - The only result would be to drive up the standard of rutklessness -li war, and that is 'high enough already. Let the enemy fill up his ciip. to the brim. Jt is not in vain +hat the whol-j world is looking on. When the titno comos for the great convention of the nations at the end of'tho war, let us at- least go. into- it with'clean hands"

Lord liosebery did not acree that the Germans were aiming' at objects of military interest and only hie civilians by making bad shots. He reiterated that shells had been rained on churches, merchant ships, F;chools and private honi»s, and- "it is exactly t-tijft system which should bp brought Jion'e to its Prussian admirers by t*"^ sincere and wholesome flattery of imitation. Reprisal is a choice sivnonf of which that is the least as being the surest protection of our own women and children, rmd ns i measure which is thereforo due to thcsni." THE THIN SMALL VOTCE. Tli» wnrnith of the discussion had meanwhile thawed the enthusiasm 01 Sir ConfnV T)oyle. frozen stiff when lit? last put forth his plea for reprisals. Boundin;l; into the ring with a whoop, ho declared that we could only do anything with the Germans hv threatening to hit them back m like fashion and by makinec such preparations as would convince t^e'-i that we wei'f> alJ(> to do so.' H'uv could anybody doubt that the G<v> ni.'tns wek' dolibera-tely out to \\H civilians when "a Zeppelin settled down upon an unoffendinfj; little boar, (the Frnnv; Fischer1) sank her, ami drowned thirteen of her crew?"

Meanwhile again in the quiet ol his chambers Professor Morgan (University College) had h°en studying the snbiect in tln> cold light of intevnatior.nl law, and ho came forwnvci to clinch tne .controversy. He affirms his belief that the Zeppplin raids on England are, lately imdertalcen to cratii'v tho civilian pom'lation of German-, nnd fhat to hit tint population itself as hard as t>ossil.Me will hs've '-esuHs both salutnrv and juitifiocl. Tho C-ennan pro^s betroAs :i frh.onlivh satisfoctioTi in the reflection that tho war is being; into every vi^afe hi England, mvi fi)o o^l- \v.n,- tn it is to cnnvivr'P Hie civi 1 popnlation of Germany that