The Daily News. SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1917. REPRISALS.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 March 1917, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1917. REPRISALS.

The mention of the word reprisal, under ordinary circumstances, is sufficient to arouse that latent and deeply-rooted sense of justice inherent) to Britishers, which regards a reprisal much in the same light as it does lynch, or mob, law. There is a strong savor of vengeance connected with reprisals that is repugnant to the finer instincts of tlie civilised world. This is, of course, in the abstract, and as a general principle. The conduct of the Germans during the war has caused a new meaning to attach to reprisals, which can no longer be classed among our primal instincts, but take oir a judicial aspect as being a means of pucishment for outrages and horrors o; audi fiendish inhumanity that delay in punishment will be an incentive to the perpetration of even greater atrocities, To prevent this, as far as possible, seems to be the immediate duty of the Allies —one and all. To wait until the day oi reckoning, after peace is declared, has ■now become unthinkable. Much as we all dislike summary justice, there can be no disapprobation if the principles oi justice are carried out, and there is an abstention from following the Huns' example. One after another have tho laws of humanity, the recognised code of warfare, and the decisions of international conventions, been trampled under foot by the Austro-Germans and their partners in crime. There is no need to recall the long list of horrors and outrages committed by the enemy, for they are fresh in the minds of all. Britain and her Allies have exercised a patience and forbearance that has lasted overlong, but it has this advantage at it cuts away all ground of complaint or protest at reprisals being at last carried out. The sinking of the Jiospital ship Asturias has proved the final factor in impelling Britain to decide on reprisals, though it is probable that the revelations of the American Belief Commissioner (Mr. have hftsl «

influence in. the decision. His indictment against the Germans is one of exceptional gravity, for it accuses them of not only intercepting several train loads of American flour provided for distribution among the starving Belgians, but of the far more heinous crime of substituting rye flour and thirty per cent, of sawdust, whereby the deaths among the people became so numerous that the gravediggers were unable to dig sufficient) graves. The sinking of the hospital ship is, however, the lever that set the reprisal machinery in motion. That the German authorities will endeavor to brazen out the outrage by the reiteration of the wilfully false assertion made last January may be ■ expected. The German Government then announced that they had conclusive proof that in several instances hospital ships had been misused for the transport of munitions and troops, and that they • had placed their proofs before the British and French Governments, but the Britisli Government emphatically denied the fabrication. It is now perfectly clear that the German authorities intend to make war on the siel; and wounded as ruthlessly as they do on the weak and defenceless inhabitants of the territories they have occupied. On January 31 the British Government requested the United States Government to inform .the German Government thiit if the threat to prevent hospital ships traversing tht> military routes was carried out that reprisals would immediately be taken by' Britain. Germany has treated the communication with the disdain that all the American Notes iliave received, and the Asturias has been torpedoed under clrculnstances that do not leave the perpetrators of the outrage a single valid excuse. A cable from London yesterday stated' that the Government had decided upon reprisals, and that the Admiralty will make a. statement in the course of a few days. In view of the British Government's intimation® last January that reprisals would immediately be taken if hospital skips were treated with active hostility, there is no other course possible but to act up to the threat. Much will, of course, depend on the nature oi the reprisals, and the settlement of this point will probably involve an exchange of opinions between the Allies, for to be effective the reprisals? should be conjoint and simultaneous. The outstanding difficulty in all matters of ibis kind is that ot avoiding punishing the innocent for the guilty. One method of reprisal would be to treat the crews of submarines practically as assassins by intent, if not by deed, so that) all captured erewa of submarines might bo charged with a capital offence, i If the men forming these erews knew they were to b'e treated in that way it might tend to suppress the submarine evil. There are other ways and means of making the reprisals adequate to the crime, and the putting in motion of this tardy vindica- ' I <on of the of humanity will be svelcotned throughout the civilised world.