The Daily News. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1919. THE TRIAL OF THE KAISER.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 October 1919, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1919. THE TRIAL OF THE KAISER.

A recent cable states that in the final list of those who are to be tried for crimes committed during i the wsi, the Kaiser's name is not included, so, presumably, he is to be tried separately. This accords with the announcement previously made that the ex-Kaiser was not to be tried criminally, but on certain specific charges which would not involve the death penalty. Great interest has been aroused, especially in Britain, by the prospective trial of William Hohenzollern. The motive of the Allies in publicly arraigning him is laid down in Article 227 of-the Peace Treaty. It is to vindicate "the solemn obligations of international undertakings and the validity of international morality"; and unless it can be shown that a trial will not have that effect, and that the Conference was wrong in thinking that the "highest motives of international policy" would be served by it, the Allies must do their duty without shirking. Most people possessed of well-balanced minds will agree with the opinion expressed by the London Times that opportunism cannot be allowed to prevail over public obligation, nor calculations of immediate convenience and narrow expediency over the force of a great ideal. The logical connection between the arraignment of the Kaiser and the institution of the new League of Nations is too direct to be ignored. Even now, dethroned though he is, the Kaiser is still the symbol of the old order which the League is to replace. Pie appealed to trial by combat, and by combat he has been overthrown. But the new reign of law which the League hopes to establish shonld itself rest on a foundation of law, and the sanction of legal process is necessary to complete the victory of righteous force. As. in the constitution of our national society, the policeman needs a Court no less than the Court a policeman, so our victory in the 1 war, in order to be the prelude to a new international society, requires a Court to which it can take the accomplished fact for sanction and approval. Law and the law-abiding habit cannot be made merely by Proclamation or Treaty. They are the product of a hundred judgments, which not only administer the law but help to make it and accustom men to respect it. It wjll be long before the new international equity domiuates the society of nations as law governs the conduct of citizens towards each other. But how can we even begin to build it. up if, at the very outset, we confess our helplessness to deal by the processes of law with the men whose whole conduct has been a systema--lic denial of the ideal we profess? It is as the groundwork of this international equity that the Treaty proposes to arraign the Kaiser, and to oppose his trial is to deny our hopes of the new reign of law. j In the time that has elapsed since

in that trial by combat which has resulted in such momentous consequences,, there has been ample opportunity to calmly review what led up to the war, and much light has been cast on the matter by official documents and revelations that leave no opening for doubt as to the ex-Kaiser being the impelling force tha't plunged Europe into a shambles. It is difficult to conceive how the trial of the exEmperor can be avoided. There is not that analogy between his case and that of Napoleon which might cause hesitation to create soreness with the Germans similar to that which was engendered between Britain, and France by the confinement of Napoleon, for the latter never denied the validity of law in international affairs, nor was he tried by an International Court, as it is proposed the exKaiser will be, for an international offence, and by a procedure governed by the highest motives of international legality. There are,'states the Times, two conceptions of law: The mystic conception which regards it as having been conceived on some peak lost in the mists of antiquity, and handed down in a sort of apostolic succession; and the other which regards the law as an expression of social expediency and as an instrument in human justice and progress. The latter sees in the law a mirror of man's efforts to better the. world, and would test its validity by its power to serve the common weal. j It is the former conception of law that is offended by the proposal to try the Kaiser—a conception, we Avould add, that has brought the law into disrepute with so many of the progressive forces of the land. But the other and truer i conception makes the law a living i and vital force, an organic part of the life of the States and communities, with the same life-blood circulating through it. And there are both kinds of lawyers in Holland, as there are in Britain. Those who have constructive legal minds will regard the surrender of the Kaiser not as a mere exercise in the legal difficulties of extradition —it has really nothing to do with extradition—but-as a test whether their country is or is not loyal to the ideal of the League and to'the conception of the new international equity. It is well, therefore, to settle once and for all whether any sovereign can attempt to ride, roughshod over the nations with impunity. If the Germans wish to cut themselves adrift from their, past and to qualify as members of the new League, they should welcome the trial of their deposed emperor. It would be a travesty of justice to try the undei'lings and not the principal. He must be brought to the bar for this if for no other reason—that if he is not tried, there would be one law for a King, and another for those in lower places.