MISS CAVELL'S EXECUTION.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 8, 11 January 1916, Page 2

MISS CAVELL'S EXECUTION.

HUN ADMISSION THAT SHE ACTED PATEIOTICALLY.

The brief summary which was published of an article in the Kolnische Zeitung on Miss Cavell's execution does not do it full justice in more senses than one. It may be interpreted both as an apology and for a justification of the deed —a very significant position to take up for an important and often inspired organ of the G-erman Press. It says, among other things:' — "To hear the abuse which is written in Britis-h papers, partly from genuine indignation, but for the most part in rool< calculation, one might almost think that tre German authorities found a grim satisfaction in wreaking their ill-temper upon an Englishwoman. This absurd assumption requires no refutation. To those who know the German officials and officers there can be not a shadow of doubt t-hat, humanly speaking, the pronouncement of the verdist was to them a hard behest of duty, and those who were ordered to carry out the verdict would have more readily have undertaken an assault upon enemy positions.

"There is equally littSe doubt that had the English, in similar circumstances, shot a German woman, the oeople of Germany would have seen n her a heroine and a martyr, for no me among us doubts that Miss Cavell had acted for patriotic reasons. But 'here is this difference: no one in Germany would have thought of mak:ng, as they do in England, capital out of the business and a charge -gainst tha morals of the enemy. This i, due to a different conception of justice and. to a lesser extent, to a differnt view of the position of woman. '' The article then proceeds to set out "iese differences in detail. As regards uistice, the German Courts go strictly •v the law white the English often onsider external motives, such as political and other expediency. Thus: "An English Court would, perhaps, in •~se of a German woman convicted of •n'h offences as Miss Cavell was, not *ntenctf her to death, or the sentence •."hi not be carried out; but that be due not to a more humane -timent, but to a simple cool catenation: 'Such a sentence would create o much noise that it will be wiser V, r us to drone ourselves in the cloak if forgiving nobleness. 7