The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER TUESDAY, APRIL 11, 1916. REPRISALS NEEDED.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 7, 11 April 1916, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER TUESDAY, APRIL 11, 1916. REPRISALS NEEDED.

The appalling evidence of German inhumanity to prisoners of war which the British Government Committee has hud placed before it, makes terrible reading. It shows the brutal cowardice of the German mind to be even greater than an on bragged civilisation ever deemed possible. If it does not arouse neutral nations to a sense of duty to themselves and the brave men who arc lighting against such fiendish odds, for the liberty and salvation of all free States, it is because they are turning a wilfully deaf ear to the call of duty to rid the world of a system so foul that only Germany could have devised it. The publication of the Committee’s report is certainly belated but it may help at least to decide the Government that nothing but the most bitter reprisal will make this evil people mend their'ways. France has in a modified way proved the efficacy of reprisal in the better conditions now granted French prisoners. A debased Germany gloats over the murderous Zeppelin raids on English and French | towns, and repugnant as the course may seem, it is now obvious that only j reprisal in kind will have the slight-j est effect. We cannot murder or tor-) turc prisoners, hut we may curtail j many of the indulgences granted andj we can and ought to bomb German towns and cities. Lord Rosebery, holds most strongly that such a course ;

is ' necessary because though reprisals are only a choice amongst evils they would be the surest protection of our own women and children against fur* ther atrocities. This is the view of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, expressed long ago, and lie comes forward again with hands extended to welcome Lord Rosebery. Meanwhile, on the ground of ethics and law. Professor Morgan says that reprisals are thoroughly justified, and he is convinced they would lie a good corrective for the bestial views held by the civil population of Germany. which he says thoroughly approves of carrying the war into every village of England. That is the spirit- which nothing but reprisal can cheek. 'One English writer puts the ease plainly when lie says: “it has to he remembered that in dealing with Germany we are dealing with a wild beast, and that country, so much admired by some Englishmen, has to he treated accordingly.’*