War Day by Day

Taranaki Daily News, 24 September 1940, Page 6

War Day by Day

(By Our Special Observer.)

Comment on the News Latest Nazi Barbarity Spirir That Is Germany

The average person will find it hard to contain the feelings of horror aroused by the heartrending tragedy revealed in the cables yesterday. The effect of the newest example of Nazi barbarity has included in its toll the lives of 83 children. No vestige of extenuation can be extended to the Huns on the score that they were unaware of the presence of the children. The circumstances under which the ship was hit without warning —high seas running, darkness, wind and rain— nail the act for what it is. Plainly stated, it is a ruthless display of the spirit that is inimical to the life of a civilised world— the spirit that is Germany. The spirit of Germany is simple to understand if one realises that it is directed to the end of winning the war. How it is won does not matter. R.A.F. Has Precedents.

The junior Minister's reference to the demand for the sterner bombing of Berlin is an admission that, despite statements to the contrary, such a demand does in fact exist. This bears out comments to the same effect from American radio stations. The official assumption that no good will be done by indiscriminately bombing German cities, and that more can be accomplished by devastating Hitler's invasion bases, may be the correct one, but not necessarily so. There are some types of warfare that are too horrible for a belligerent to practice for fear of their repiercussion on himself. It might be that wanton bombing of open cities could be brought within this category. If scruples exist about the merits of a policy designed to kill Germans to save Britons, then a scheme the Royal Air Force has practised for the past 15 years could be used. In Waziristan and Kurdistan a recalcitrant sheik would have a notice served upon him that he must remove his people from a village, for it was due for a bombing. The people soon tired of building. and rebuilding their mud-brick homes and pacification of the country ensued.y A modification of the idea, by which notice was served on say 10 cities, bne of which would be attacked, would create a fair transport problem for the Germans, and it might create other difficulties for the German High Command. English Press Qorrects Illusions* Anybody who is inclined to dismiss the press agitation in England for reprisals, or the report printed yesterday from the Daily Mail, hs stupid scares, has little concept of the power of the English press in times of emergency. The Daily Mail brought the stories of "wise-cracking" Cockneys down to solid earth with a bump. f Quite rightly it emphasised that horrors are not jokes. The Londoners are undergoing an ordeal which is a terrific test of their mental calibre. What is important is that their physical strength and well-being must be cared for tp the limit of the Government's resources that they may be fitted to carry the mental strain. As for the Daily Mail, one can recall the days in 1915 when a person reading it was almost stigmatised a traitor. The paper was publicly burned on the "London Stock Exchange by super-patriots among the brokers, and its circulation dropped alarmingly. But Lord Northcliffe stuck to his guns. He exposed the scandalous shell-shortage then existing, when guns on the Western Front were ratione! to a few rounds a day. His attack involved a person then as much a figure in British life as Mr. Winston Churchill is to-day— Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War. But the Daily Mail soon recovered its prestige when as a direct result of its bringing the matter into the open. a Ministry of Munitions was formed with no less a person than a man who had attained the high office of Chancellor of the Exchequer at its head. What Mr. D&vid Lloyd George did to the munitions industry is history. Killers,. Kidnappers and U.S. One repercussion of the murder of the children in the refugee ship that will react to the disadvantage of the murderers will be the hardening of antiNazi feeling in the United States. The transfer of , British children to the United States and Canada is a form of humanitarianism the people of the United States have felt tbpy could practise without infringing the , neutrality sentiments of the most hardened isolationists. Indeed, influential support has been given to a suggestion that United ' States ships carry the children and dare the Nazis to stop them. Something more may be heard of this idea. The brutality of the Nazis, allied to the position in the Facific, led one American radio comnWntator to go so far yesterday as to suggest that the American people, are now not asking themselves the question "When?" but "Where?" Point is given to the query by the conversations of the British Ambassador and the Australian Minister with Mr. Cordell Hull. To add to the anti-German feeling is the most curious. circumstance that a kidnapping case which droVe the. war from the headlines was solved yesterday with the arrest ,of the kidnapper. He was a German. Seemingly a small incident in relation to the holocaust of death in Europe, this fact, following the conviction of a German as the kidnapper of the Lindbergh child, may just be the spark that will set the United States aflame. Nothing is more extraordinary i . its reactions than public opinion, and no public opinion is more unpredictably volatile than that of the United States.