The Daily News. MONDAY, JULY 6, 1915. BARBARISM IN WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 July 1915, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, JULY 6, 1915. BARBARISM IN WAR.

Tha report of tSi® committeo appointed by tho Imperial Parliament to consider the evidence relating to outrages alleged to Jiave been committed by Germans during the war (published in our Saturday's issue) is a veritable chapter of honors and crimes of a revolting nature. Tho committee was presided over by Lord Bryce, and thcro is no question that its proceedings were chara«t«rised by judicial impartiality and moderation. Yet tlie facts presented are such aa to brand tho Germans for all time as tainted with brutal ferocity and fiendish barbarity in the horrible treatment meted out to the victims of their terrible outrages in carrying out the policy of frightfulncss. The English Commission has, like -the French Commission, found ample evidence to prove the wholesale accusations of rape, murder and horrible cruelties. Moreover, added -weight is given to the statements contained in the historic pastoral issued by Cardinal iMereier, setting forth the details of the slaughter of Belgian priests, to which the Germans gave a general denial. The report clearly inculpates the higher German authorities, and not without reason. In the German War Book, issued by the Great General Staff it Is stated: "A war conducted with energy cannot be directed merely against tilie combatants of the enemy State, but it will and must seek to destroy the total intellectual and material resources of the latter. International law is in no way opposed to the exploitation of the crimes of third parties (assassination, incendiarism, robbery and the like) to the prejudice of the enemy." The Germans claim to be super-men, They cannot be denied the title of supersavages. Tlie adoption of the principle of terror withdraws all restraint, and the result is seen in the frightful conduct detailed in the report of the Commission-. That the higher authorities sanction this orgie of infamous barbarism is evidenced by the massacre of llOf) men, women and' children on board the Lusitania, which the London Chronicle describes as a massacre whose stern and cold premeditation, taken together, rend it almost unique among Christian records since the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Throughout this war one incident of barbarism has followed motlier in such quick succession thqjro has been impossible to visuali'rf We wholesale tragedy which is being enacted. Germany recognises no law, knows no shame, has no bowels of compassion—but i- willing that humanity shall perish in a bottomless pit of heathenism and bloody outrage so long as she may hope to triumph. TTcr hate is as coldly brutish as an iceberg, and as insensate and indiscriminate as a fog. A perusal of the outrages referred to in the Comniisiou's report will reveal the barbaric TTuns in all their inhuman atrociousness. Tn the face of such crimes it is idle to waste words in condemnation. From the outset, they have made war on men, women and children, and they have done so with tin' whole --import, of the German nation. Tn pa>t ages history lias recorded many vile ami cruel deeds perpetrated in war. but never before, since the world began, has there been witnessed such gross outrages as those perpetrated by the apostles of Kultur—the su-per-men of Germany. The struggle is not a struggle of nations; it is a battle between civilisation and barbarism. A German victory would mean the destructions of all we hold best and noblest

in oar national life. A dying beast is always more violent in its last convulsions. We mu»t t'lien tijrlitc-n our grin by sea and land. Those piratical raiders, incendiaries, murderers of citizens, murderers and ravishers of defenceless women, cannot win against the whole civilised world. Tbo day of reckoning approaches; meanwhile these, evil deeds servo, as an immense stimnlant to the process of recruiting, for tliey fire the blood of all civilisation witli a zest for vengeance. Retribution will never be achieved until Berlin is entered, and the only way to restore peace to the world and to shatter the brutal German menace is to earrv the war through the length and breadth of Germany. The Commission lias done the world a great service in carrying out its task, the performance of which must have entailed much sorrow and ipain, and the conclusions arrived at will be generally accepted as fair and impartial, though they brand the Germans with an indelible mark of infamy and cold-blooded ferocity the' places them outside the pale of civilisation.