A POWERFUL ALLY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 169, 17 July 1916, Page 4

A POWERFUL ALLY.

It is a happy idea of the Recruiting Board to distribute copies of cartoons by the famous Dutch, cartoonist Louis Raemaekers. The Board hopes that by drawing attention to the foul deeds of Germans, they will stimulate recruiting. We should be sorry for anybody, eligible or ineligible, young or old, who was not profoundly moved by these drawings. Kaemaekere is one of the discoveries' of the war. Xot only is he the greatest cartoonist of the war, but no one else has mad« anything like the samq-appeaj, at once wide and deep. There is ••something fitting that the greatest cartoonist should be a neutral, for neutrals are judges of the conflict.- Eaemaekers' cartoons are the judgment of a man who finds it impossible to be neutral on moral issues, who has examined Germany and found her foul to the core. His indignation has sharpened his imagination and hie pencil, and the result is a series of cartoons ranging in spirit from mordant humour to sheer ferocity.

With a most vivid imagination, which gives him a flow of striking ideas, Raemackers unites a high technical excellence. He draws a number of corpses floating down the Yser, done with most effective economy of detail, and calls it "On to Calais." The imagination is gripped immediately. He draws Germany as an exhausted woman, dancing " from East to West" with a skeleton, and the effect is terrible. The one word "Victory* , is over a cartoon depicting the figure of Belgium crucified, and three Germans looking on. "-Why couldn't she submit? She would have been well paid." In another Belgium, bound and gagged, is being "chucked" under the chin by a German with a revolver in the other hand, and a smile on his face. " Aren't I a lovable fellow?" he ask 3. Perhaps the one that of this collection will make the widest appeal is "The Triumph of the Zeppelin," "But mother had done nothing wrong, had she, daddy?" All the written condemnation of Germany's piracy at sea is crystallised into one cartoon on the Lusitania crime. Those who take an interest in English cartoons, especially those in " Punch,". will at once notice the difference with them and Baemaekcrs' drawings. The Dutchman is much more savage than the " Punch " cartoonists. One could scarcely imagine a "Punch" cartoon like one on the murder of Mies Cavell, in which swine batten on the body, and one of the animals lias an iron cross hung on to its tail. Of this example an Englkh writer cays that it shows that Raemaekers has " the * saeva indignatio,' the ferocity of the French cartoonists, trat it ia with him, as with, tho greatest of them, imaginative ferocity; not scurrility, but invective. It is like lightning, striking baseness from a height."

Hacmackcrs ie naturally bated by the Germane. Thcso cartoons of his are not only influencing opinion to-day, but they ■will show posterity how the Germans conducted tnemseh>ee. So powerful has been the effect of his cartoons that the Germans ihave aceueed hha of violating the neutrality of his country, and he has had to appear, on such a. charge more than once before a Court of law. In Holland he always goes armed. While discussing him, mention may he made of tho Amsterdam "Telcgraaf," in which Wβ first cartoons appeared. The 'Telegraaf," -which, often appears in our cable news, is ono of the staunchcet pro-Ally papere. in neutral countries. It also the. German* -hato, and they have done their beat to suppress it. According to its editor, the Germans fiiet triedOTibery, then threaio, and then proseentione for infringement of neutrality. Finally the enemy spread the Tumour that the paper was to tie «old to them. None of these methods have done maak h*rm ix> the 'Telegraaf," -which. goes on influencing opinion in favour el the ADiee. To it oiid its great cartoonist -we are ihesvily ■indebted. The collection of cartoons which the Recruiting Board has issued should have the widest possible circulation. In them genius sets forth with terrible clearness what might be expected in • British countries ■if German wexg _.