THE SAVAGE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 158, 4 July 1916, Page 4

THE SAVAGE.

A savage has been well defined as a man who laughs when he hits you, and howls when you hit him. It was a consideration of German savagery that gave rise to the definition, and we are re-; minded of it by a cable message to-day stating that t"ie Germans are complaining that the British are using a gas deadlier than theirs. Tnis H a typical German whine, it was the Germans who began using gas, in violation of one of the conventions of war, to which they were a party, and its employment was hailed by Germans as another example of German superiority in making war. British and French protests evoked no sympathy in the German breast. It is quite possible that we are using a gas deadlier to life, but we -art certainly not using one more ghastly in ita effects. Nothing so hardened the hearts of our troojK against the Germans as the spectacle of comrades suffering the dreadful torture produced by German gas. The savage who laughs when he hits you had his prototype in a Prussian officer captured at the second battle of Ypres, when gas was first used by the Germans. On being taken past a British soldier in the agonies of gaspoieoning, the officer laughed aloud at the man's sufferings. And now the Germans complain because we have adopted their weapon and, so they say, improved on it.

It is a pronounced German trait to hold that what is quite right and proper in a German is wrong in a foreigner. Appareutly this state of mind is the result of the amazing conceit of the nation. Nothing done by a German can be wrong, or perhaps the explanation is that a thing otlwrwisc wrong is made right by being done by one of the world's elect. There have been numbers of instances during the war. The author of "J'Aecuse." himself a German, points out that while to the Herman the heroes of German history who took up arms against the invader were high-souled patriots, the Belgian.-, who defended their country against the Germans were wretches who deserved all the punishment they got. When German aircraft drey- bombs on undefended Allied towns there is glee in Germany: but when French bombs burst in Karlsruhe, there is a howl of indignation against such an outrage. The world is called upon to condemn destruction of property by the Russians in East Prussia, but German destnictivencss in Relgium and Prance is. of course, quite proper. Brutal England is accused of starving German women and children. Our refusal to allow American milk to go to Germany has been made much of by German agents in America. But when the Germans liesieged Paris, what did they do? What pity was shown then for hungry women and children? Thousands of children died. When Jules Favre came to Bismarck to arrange the armistice, lie remarked during the conversation that pretty children were still to be seen in the streets. "I am surprised at that." said Bismarck. " I wonder you have not yet oaten the.m." The Germans knew bow terribly the siege was affecting children. Bismarck's wife, who fell ill Ix cause of solicitude for her wounded son. hated the French so much, according tn her husband, that she wished to see them all killed, down to the babies, who. he remarked, with typical Prussian wit. " after all cannot help having such abominable parents." Sometimes this hypocrisy becomes positively comic, as at Xeuvo-Ohapcllo. when a captured Pras- | siar. officer indignantly described our I artillery preparations as not war. but murder! Only complete defeat and a period of adversity afterwards, in which (here will be plenty of time for reflection, can cure the German of this extraordinary frame of mind.