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Taranaki Daily News, 7 December 1915, Page 4

DON'T HUMILIATE GERMANY! In a discussion on the subject of trading with the enemy, at the last meeting of the Taranaki Chamber of Commerce, the opinion was expressed that we should after the war act fairly in the matter of trade with Germany and expect that country to act similarly towards us. The Government of this Dominion has already placed a very stiff duty upon all enemy goods, and our hope is that instead of reducing the duty after the war we shall make it practically prohibitive. There are any number of people whose memories are short-lived, or whose regard for their pockets is strongei than their regard for the interests of their own country, who will be only too pleased, if given the opportunity, to buy German goods, providing they are cheaper than those made by Britain or any of our Allies. This class should be put beyond temptation, and a prohibitive duty will accomplish this most effectively. Once imposed, it would be very difficult to remove. But the authorities would need to be always on the qui vive for violations of the tariff. At present there are to be found in many Taranaki shops goods bade in Germany and Austria that have been smuggled in as coming from neutral countries. Any smart business man can trace their origin, and if the Government were awake it could nip this sort of thing in the bud at once. We can buy all we want from the Motherland and our Allies without having recourse to Germany or Austria, countries that have plunged the world into the present cataclysm and caused such untold suffering and loss. It is our duty to boycott them during the whole of our lives, and to instil in our children the same feeling, as a mark of our abhorrence of their monstrous, devilish conduct. Political economists, who so dogmatically told us that trade was so interwoven that war between the nations was an impossibility -- a theory that events have shown to be but a jest—assert that we cannot sell our products to a country without taking theirs in return, but New Zealand can find ample demand for her products without bothering about the German market, and should cut it out absolutely. We don't want to do business, however advantageous it may prove, with a nation that prepared for forty years to fall upon and murder and devour its peaceful, trusting neighbors, a nation with a record, in the words of the Brycc Commission, of "lust, pillage and murder" without a parallel in the history of war; a nation which ..- inhuman on principle, believing that "I'righU'ulness" is necessary in waging war successfully, and that there is nothing wrong in poisoning wells, as in Africa and on the Aisric; in blowing into eternity hundreds of innocent women and children, as in tlw case of the Lusiataniu; in bombarding from airships peaceful citizens of French and British towns; in murdering prisoners of war, and in committing acts from which savages would shrink in horror. These black crimes eannot be forgotten and Germans cannot be treated as decent citizens after peace is signed. We might as well try to forget and forgive the crime of a murderer. It cannot be done. The Germans have shown an utter disregard for truth, honor, and humanity, and they should be treated as Ishm'aels until they have, made full restitution for the awful wrongs they have committed—it' that indeed is possible—and truly repented of their wrong-doings. When they have done so, it will be time enough for resuming ordinary trade relations with them. This talk belongs to the category of ''Don't humiliate Germany/' but it is as certain as the sun will rise to-morrow that if we don't humiliate Germany she will humiliate us. as she has ''humiliated" Belgium, northern France and Poland. Meantime, it is a mere waste of time discussing the nature of our future relations with the enemy. We should bend our energies to smashing him so. effectually that he will never again attempt to disturb the • neaee of the world,