WAS NOTES

Taihape Daily Times, 23 October 1917, Page 2

WAS NOTES

THE LEGAL ASPECT. It is not a bit of use framing ideal laws without the necessary machinery to enforce them. In the case of submarine warfare the armies and navies of the Entente Allies are, of course, the police for this purpose and it is to them that the world looks to compel Germany to answer for her breaches of international law and her high sea crimes. The British Chancellor holds strong views upon this subject and he recently expressed the opinion that Germany’s commands should not be a defence for men who committed political outrages, and the contention that the persons guilty shoiild meet the fate of pirates’’ has met with the support of other people of importance. Admiral C. F. Goodrich, of the United States Navy, recently dealt with this question of the punishment ,-of pirates. Ho stated 'that 'those in, committing murder at sea by the use of illicit submarines should be ‘"'hanged, from the German Emperor and von Tirpitz through the officials of the German Admiralty in 'the submarine division down to every industrious submarine captain who has done these deeds against humanity and in contravention of the international law.’ "It is idle to contend,” ho adds, "that the submarine captains did but obey orders. Guilt is personal. •• . The assassins should not be allowed in defence to plead that they only did what their superiors told them to do.” Those two statements simply amount to the expression of a belief in high circles that there is no difference between the legal and the popular conviction as to the immediate personal guilt of submarine commanders—and for that matter, of crews also. This raises the query as to why those who have been already caught red-handed should not be made to pay the penalty against such precipitate action is shown by the fact that the British Government probably fearing reprisals on our own prisoners was unable to adhere to its original decision to treat submarine crews more severely than ordinary prisoners of war. "It may be suggested,” says another export commenting on Admiral Goodrich’s statement "that this American officer has cnunicatcd a policy which has boon rejected by many officers of the 'Allied navies, 'and which the Government’s condemn. On the other hand, his declaration would certainly have commended iteslf to British officers of a century ago. On one occasion, when, by means of a Fulton invention an attonipt was made to destroy British warships commanded by Sir Thomas Hardy, that officer declared that ho i;.'ended to take on board his flagship a number of prisoners, so that if the "infamous and insidious’ attempts were successful they would share the fate of himself and crew. ... It may be also remembered that Lord Cochrane at one time threatened that if his sqadron Avas attacked by fireships they would bo boarded by the numerous ion boats on duty, the crews murdered, and the fireships turned in a harmless direction. By all the laws of the nations these salutary punishments should bo in force to-day. Murder is murder, whether it is the high seas or onn land, whether it is inspired by personal impulse or autocratic design, and the Kaiser and his colleagues should just as assuredly swing as high as Haman, as did Lefroy and as Jack the Ripper would have done had he over boon captured. "One murder made a villian,” wrote Porteus, "millions a hero. Numbers sanctified the crimes. ” It is time crime was unsancificd.