COLD-BLOODED MURDER.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 September 1940, Page 4

COLD-BLOODED MURDER.

JN torpedoing a ship on which British children were being conveyed to Canada, a German U-boat commander has aligned himself with the worst examples of the numerous body of his countrymen who stand beyond the pale of civilised humanity. It does not make the deed any the less infamous that the officer by whom it was committed may not have known that there were children aboard the ship he attacked. Under the international law that is recognised and observed by civilised nations, definite limits are imposed on the use of armed force and an attack in stormy weather and far from land upon a peaceful ship can be classed as nothing else than vile and cold-blooded murder.

The crime of the U-boat commander on this occasion is one from which a decent and self-respecting citizen of any nation would have recoiled with horror. The murder of S 3 children and of over 200 adults brands the man by whom the deed was committed-'and his nation with an ineffaceable and dreadful stain. This latest atrocity, of course is very far from standing alone. It is paralleled closely in the present indiscriminate bombing of London and of other parts of Britain and in the abominations that have been and are being committed by the Nazis in a number of European countries. Grief awakened by the fate of these latest victims of Nazi ferocity and sympathy with their relatives will go hand in hand with a sharpened perception and realisation of the fact that it is an elementary condition of the re-establishment of standards of humanity worthy of the name that the world should be rid finally and decisively of the foulness that emanates from Hitler and his gang.