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Taranaki Daily News, 29 May 1917, Page 4

THE BARBARIANS' AIR RAID. "Our air squadron dropped bombs on Dover and Folkestone with good results." Such are the words in the German official report of the air raid on British coastal towns whereby seventy-six persons were killed, of whom twenty-seven were women and twenty-three children, while one hundred and seventy-four were injured, of whoin. forty were women and nineteen children, no naval or military damage being done. These are results which the German authorities describe as "good;" Civilisation will class this latest outrage of the Teutonic barbarians as one of their worst atrocities, prompted by a fiendish lust for cruelty—premeditated and unpardonable in that it was a cold-blooded murder of innocent women and children in the crowded shopping centre of a town. We pass over the terrible scene of carnage and mutilation caused by the high explosive bombs, the record of which will remain for all time as a witness to the depth of savage infamy to which the Germans have descended. It was a world crime that will vibrate through every civilised nation as the deed that should alienate all from contact with such a fiendish nation except with the paraphernalia of war. No words that can be used would suffice to adequately express the horror, shame, and indignation that such an act should stain the world's civilisation in the twentieth century of Christendom. We all recognise that war is war, but what we cannot realise is the frightfulness which prompts human fiends to make war on women and children. Out of one hundred and seVenty-four innocent victims one hundred and twelve wer.e women and children. Yet the Hun authorities gloat over this infamous tpassacre and look upon it as good. It is not as if there was even the slightest excuse for such demoniacal savagery. In all probability not a single man destined for the firing line was injured. The question again rises as to how such a foul deed is to be punished. The London press, which is proverbially level-headed in an emergency, does not hesitate to demand immediate reprisals. The German authority, however, are absolutely callous as to the lives of their country's men and women—they are merely a means to an end—so that they would contemptuously view reprisals and rejoice that they had struck a blow—no matter how foul—where it smarted greatly. The officials who will commit such crimea and would sinic all hospital ships are unfortunately out of reach. It is difficult to suggest a suitable reprisal, but the British Government should devise some drastic punishment that will at least make these barbarians hesitate before again perpetrating such a hideous atrocity.