The Daily News. FRIDAY, AUGUST 23, 1918. HUN BARBARITY TO PRISONERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 August 1918, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, AUGUST 23, 1918. HUN BARBARITY TO PRISONERS.

The recent revelations concerning the latest Ilun outrage on prisoners in a trench, by playing liquid fire ou helpless and wounded men shows to what depths of infamous barbarism these would-be world dominators can descend. The fiends responsible for such deliberate savagery will probably be applauded by their countrymen for adopting a new form of inhumanity that iits in with the Hymn of Hate. To the civilised nations such acts are hardly conceivable, but if we are to take Dr. Paul Lensch —the .Socialist alluded to the other day—as an authority, the infamy is part of the German system. He exults in the repeated charges of barbarism levelled 1 against Germauy, and says they are really a measure of foreign admiration. In one place lie writes:

"They call us barbarians. So let it be. We ought to drop all our whimpering or horriiicd protests against the barbarism cry of the Knglish—to say nothing of the French."

lii the light of that pronouncement there need be no surprise at the long list; of atrocities committed by the bloodthirsty swashbucklers. The world lias grown familiar with their horrors during the last four years, but none the less, it views them with everincreasing loathing. Lensch prates of whimpering, but were he and his countrymen to be subjected to streams ol liquid fire when confined in the narrow quarters of a trench would there be no whimpering? "Without doubt there would be such an outcry and demand for vengeance as would almost rend the skies. We have only to remember what took place when at last the Allies were compelled to resort to reprisals for German air raids on defenceless towns. No sooner were German and e rGHHHHhhhHHB 1 g MHHHONnnr barism in the shade. We have to bear in mind that the outrage was committed not as the outcome of desperation caused by defeat, but in the flush of success. To wlutt further depth in savagery, therefore, might they be expected to reach il: tlisy achieved final success in the Avar" It is impossible to conjecture what they might accomplish in that direction under such circumstances, and, fortunately, they arc not likely to get the chauce. The State which stands behind the malevolent barbarians who perpetrate these foul crimes .should be punished with titling severity. There is but one way in which to deal with the I Huns to put them to the sword; to carry on 1 iic war until, they experience the pangs of decimation and complete defeat. Either these barbarians must be destroyed or they will destroy the world, and the latter is unthinkable. To make an agreement of any kind v.ith Germany is only time and labor l oM. This iias been proved again a lid again since-' Helgium's neutrality was violated, so that it was useless to expect that the agreement entered into in April, If 17, stipulating that: prisoners should not be employed within eighteen am] a half miles ol: the firing line, would be adhered to. ihe THian Government continued to place prisoners far within that limit, with the result that .inany were killed and Avoymded by shell tire, Britain has been far too in her treatment of German prisoners. Germany does not, amJ avill not, understand the ethics ol: houor and chivalry. She is only amenable to force; therelore by force she must be brought to reason. While the utmost care and humanity have been exhibited towards German prisoners bv Ib'ilam. I'riii.,l, p, !m iu (h ,;_ many have been brutally illtreated, shamefully starved/to the. point, oi. exhaustion, deprived of '/ 'C''! ami other necessaries nerded together under conditions which have caused and spread disease, so that it is no wonder that the rate of mortality in the prison I camps has been woefully high j Common humanity would have | prevented these ills, but ofethat

trail the Hnns are bankrupt. In tlri;: treatment Britain could not, and. would not, adopt retaliatory tactics, but the blood of the maimed and tortured victims cries aloud for a vengeance that must take the shape of such a crushing defeat of these wanton barbarians as will .for ever deprive them of llie power to commit further horrors. *