The Daily News. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1919. THE EX-KAISER'S TRIAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 December 1919, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1919. THE EX-KAISER'S TRIAL.

The recent cable stating that the British Government expects the trial of the ex-Kaiser to take place in the New Year confirms the expectation, that the preliminary steps would be taken as soon as the Peace Treaty is formally ratified. The Lord Chancellor, the Attorney General, and the Solicitor General were fully consulted during the preparation of the Peace Treaty, and they are, it is said, in complete sympathy with the decision of the Allies' Conference as to the form of proceeding against the ex-Kaiser. It is understood that the demand for his extradition will not be made until the International Court, by Whom he is to be tried, is actually sitting, the probability being that the Court will, in due form, call upon the accused to surrender to the British Government in order that he may be tried on the charges preferred against him. In the event of his refusal, which would in effect make the ex-Kai-ser as a fueitive from justice, it

would be necessary to apply to the Dutch Government for his extradition, and there is no reason to suppose they would resist the request backed up by nearly the whole civilised world. The Court will be composed of five judges, one being appointed by each of the five great Allies, with an English judge as president, the proceedings being in English, and an English lawyer as chief counsel for the prosecution. Punishment is in the discretion of the Court, but it is fully understood that the death penalty will not be pressed for, it being on this understanding that the Americans withdrew their opposition to the trial, which they stipulated should be held in London, because they were confident that fairness to the accused would be assured there. In the opinion of the two eminent French jurists who reported on the ex-Emperor's responsibility, his position is similar to that of directors of a public company, who can be punished by criminal law, while the position of the German nation is akin to that of the shareholders, who are amenable to the civil law and can be made to pay damages by way of an indemnity. The German constitution cannot protect the exKaiser, who has frequently proclaimed that he was the State, so that any plea he may put forward as to being a constitutional monarch will be futile. Evidence of the ex-Kaiser's guilt has been steadily accumulating for some time past. For example, there is the letter he wrote to the then Emperor of Austria, in which he said: "Everything must be put to the sword. Men, women, children and old men must be slaughtered. No house or tree must be left standing. "With these methods of terrorism, which alone are capable of affecting a people as desperate as tke French, the war will be over in two months." No doubt can be entertained that these sentiments were carried into practice; the history of the war proves this conclusively. The letter is evidence of wilful intent, and the atrocities speak for themselves. It may be justly assumed that the ex-Kaiser has no doubt as to what should be the fate of the guilty author and abettor of so many heinous crimes. In one 'of his many unrestricted conversations with his American dentist (Mr. Davis) he said: "The man who brought this catastrophe on the world, Davis, should be strung up by the neck, and that man is not I, as the world seems to think. The Tsar of Russia and the King of England, whop they were , ests at my own house, abused my hospitality and hatched this plot against me. They were envious of my power, but they will now learn what that power is. Confound them, I will show them!" It is for the International Court of justice to decide whether the ex-Kaiser was the monster who brought the catastrophe on the world, and to arrive at a decision as to who was responsible for the horrible outrages committed. The penalty advocated by the ex-Emperor, as quoted above, is certainly a just one, though it will probably not be enforced by the judges. The accused will have a fair trial in which he will, according to the true ethics of justice, receive the benefit of any doubt, and punishment will be meted out, not as retributive vengeance, but on equitable principles and as a deterrent to possible imitators in the future. "Wars are inhuman," said Moltke, the great connoisseur of wars, but the exKaiser has demonstrated that a war can be made to be fiendish in its horrors. As the law of Britain stands at the moment, the ex-Kai-ser is liable to be arrested the moment he sets foot in the country and brought before the Courts in the ordinary way, coroners' juries having brought in a verdict of wilful murder against him, and though that course is unlikely to be adopted, the incidents will doubtless form part of the list of crimes for which he will have to answer. <