A DEVILISH DEVICE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 147, 22 June 1915, Page 8

A DEVILISH DEVICE.

SOLDIERS' VIEWS ON POISON I GAS. I «;gge>ted reprisals. (Frum Our Special Correspondent.) £ LOKDON", May 7. "But the latest phase of murder— asphyxiating gas—if I wrote from now J to the end of the war 1 could not f ay j enough about that."' .So writes a gai- j lant officer who has seen the effects on | the field of battle and In hospitals of I the latest product of German science and "kultux." What hi does sev about it. however, will make every British man worth tiie name Jong to "have a srnax-k" at the Teuton, and to be able to devise and put into operation some form of reprisal which, whilst not lowerin" us to Ehe enemy's level, will make the Germans wish they had kept to the straight paths in warfare. Our officer, like a good many eminent men in the world of civilian?, favours a policy of retaliation by confiscation of German property in this country- This policy has been strongly urged upon the British Government, but it does not seem to find favour with tie powers that be. Concerning the gas and it£ effect;, our officer says:— "Of all the devilish crimes of which the Germans have been guilty since the war started this one is far away the most devilish, and to try to excuse it on the ground that it inflicts a quick and painless death far different from the tornado of shells, we let loose at Xeuve Chapeiie is blatant lying. "We nave a lot of men who have besn gassed in our j hospitals. Their moans axe awful, and J they sit up swaying about, fighting and gasping for breath. Their faces and bodies are a muddy purple black, their eyes glazed, and foam comes from their J mouths. Their lungs are -turned to ' liquid, and the doctors say they have the appearance of men on the point of death from drowning. Xiirses and doctors work day and night to give relief. The way the damnable stuff is worked j is by sinking in their trendies cylinders ior something conta-ininjr the £as. From ■ the cylinder a tube runs up to and through the face of the trench witti a noizle at the end. and iwien the wind is favourable for their pnrpcrse the gas lis out and driven over our ! lines. \\ ill this convince people at 1 home of what the Germans are capable? iXo law of God or man -will hold them i in check, and it is mere -waste of breath ! and time to utter protects. They only j gloat over the fact of their having been i so successful.'' CONFISCATE GERMAN PROPERTY. "When," asks thi s soldier, "is someone in England going- to get up and in- : sist on something being done to the j hordes of rk>si\he> in the country and al! i their wealth? We should applaud any- ' J one who took it out of them in a sinii- . lar way. But. of coarse, -we could not ■ do that, although we, could hit them iv a way to hurt them far more by con- ; fiscating all their property, and out of ■: it giving to the relatives of the men they've murdered (not only with gas. ;; but. prisoners) a good annuity. How i] we can allow any Gcrmajis to be at laio-e -after this last outrage -beats cv erTO ne I, out here. One was a little inclined to . be soeptiea.l about the brutes a t the be;l ginning, and to look on the stories oi [ their terrible atrocities as exaggeration , nut I can and do now believe everv--1!v \ " ono c ™ ld • "terminate , the whole breed the tvorid would be a] ~; the better far it" A The writer of this letter was it vnT _ , be seen, oce of those Englishmen wh'c ,| refused to accept: n e truth, and nothing jjbin. the truth, tfae stories told acainsi _ the Germans in the earlier day, o f thi war - " p "■** "nly one of thousand* in the Old Country in those dnv- X ( were inclined to be something more thai a little sceptical concerning tfie appal ling tales of German flendishness whirl found their way into our newspaper. To-day we are all of the soldier's opinioi that there is no d«pth of infann- t which the enemy will nol degPen( , jf b - doing so they can further their owi f cause. "'