THE CRIMES OF GERMANY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 6, 7 May 1915, Page 4

THE CRIMES OF GERMANY.

The sentiment which was expressed last week by Lord Curzon that "we have got to punish Germany for her abominable crimes" is one that will strike a responsive chord in millions of breasts throughout the British Empire, says the Otago Daily Times. By her conduct of the war Germany has placed herself outside the pale of civilisation. The British people can respect an honourable enemy, and when the, present great war broke out they cherished the hope, it is safe to say, that they would find honourable opponents in the Germans. Disillusionment came very quickly. The atrocities that were committed by the Germans in Belgium—many of them of such a revolting character that it has been, impossible to specify them publicly—supplied the first indication of the ruthless barbarity with which the enemy were prepared to wage the war. Although the effort lias been made to acquit the German authorities of any responsibility for these outrages and to gloss them over as tiie unbridled excesses of excited soldiers wh.o had temporarily got out of hand, they were too much in keeping with the general conduct of the war, as it was subsequently revealed on the part of the enemy, to admit of the acceptance of any excuse whatever for them. The Germans have systematically put into practice, wherever it was possible for them to uo so, the policy of attempting to break down opposition to thorn by the employment of methods of "f rightfulness."