EFFECTIVE REPRISALS.

Clutha Leader, Volume XLII, Issue 89, 16 May 1916, Page 2

EFFECTIVE REPRISALS.

Some light on the efficacy of reprisals against German outrages is given in a recent despatch of 'The Times' correspondent in Paris. He says that it is a weapon which the French have employed!'" with marked success on more than one occasion. "From information," he writes, "which has been placed at my disposal it appears that the French, as soon as their reports as to the dietary scale of French prisoners in Germany were confirmed, reduced the diet of German prisoners in France to the same scale. Two months later the German Government yielded and gave sufficient food to its prisoners. Exactly tlio same thing occurred with the prisons' correspondence. The French reduced the letter-writing privileges of enemy prisoner* to the scale in force in Germany, and a few weeks afterwards Germany again yielded. When the German Government formed reprisal camps in marsh districts, to which were sent cultured French prisoners on the pretext that the German prisoners were badly treated in Africa, the French Government informed Germany that an equal number of Germans, chosen irom anions the aristocratic prisoners, would be submitted to a similar regime. Very shortly afterwards Germany's reprisal camps were abolished. These are but some of the ways in which reprisals have proved their worth, The only form of reprisal which is likely to meet with success is that of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The bombardment of some peaceful German town will alone make the enemy realise the doubleedged weapon bo is employing."