GREATEST CRIME OF THE WAR.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1927, 16 January 1919, Page 2

GREATEST CRIME OF THE WAR.

The question “What is the greatest crime committed during tlie war?" was pul to conspicuous men in Europe some 1 hue ago. “The torpedoing of.. hospital ships," is the reply of Eield-Marshal Lord French. “The declaration of war itself,” says Stephen Pit-boa, then French Minister of Foreign Affairs. “Among so many ignominies that have been perpetrated since,” he adds, “I renounce making a choice.” “The great crime of Rheims, the abominable destruction of the cathedral, is the one that makes bleed most my heart of a Frenchman and an artist; but can one establish a hierarchy of crimes of the barbarians ?” replied the late Auguste Rodin, the seal) it or. “The murder of sailors whose vessels had been torpedoed is the most atrocious act committed during the war,” is the opinion of Sir W. IT. Dunn, formerly Lord Mayor of London. “Politically" the greatest crime committed during the war is the violation of the neutrality of Belgium by those who had sworn to defend it,” says Mgr. Baudrillant, vicargeneral of the Catholic Institute of ’ Paris. “.Morally, one, is emharassed to choose among so many atrocities. The worst crime, in my eyes, is the re-estahlishmenl of slavery by the Germans.” Signor Vicente Blastro Ihanex replied :, “Tho grea test crime of intellect ual Germany consisted in the troubling of the course of human thought and the proclaiming of (he superiority of war over Justice. All (lie atrocities of (he Germans against men and things are only the material consequences of scientific barbarity.” The massacre and deportation of A hundreds of thousands of innocent . Armenians while Genua. tor and ally of Turkey, fSA consent by its attitude, is considered as “the most gigantic crime of the war” by Aascount James Bryce, while he says: “The most abject crime of the war thus far is that of the German Government carrying oil into slavery hundreds of young French and Belgian girls and thousands of Belgian labourers, obliging them to work against their own unfortunate country, ruined by the invasion.”