THE LUSITANIA MEDAL

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3053, 14 April 1917, Page 10

THE LUSITANIA MEDAL

A HUN ACHIEVEMENT

TO COMMEMORATE A GERMAN "NAVAL VICTORY"

When, T6 was announced by cablegram that, a medal had been struck in Germany to commemorate the torpedoing of the. Cunard liner Lusitania, it was thought by many that the news was a gross exaggeration. However, it was a fact. Indeed, so mighty a feat of arms was it considered, that the "Xolnische Volkzeitung" wrote on May 10, 1916: "With'joyful pride wo contemplate this latest deed of our navy.". People who could chloroform their conscience to write such words over the sinking of the Lusitania (which caused the death-of 1198 non-combatant men, women, and children) could very consistently strike a medal in honour of the event. That was done, and there is now in Wellington a replica of the medal that was struck, from which the accompanying descriptions have b.een secured. "This medal lias been (struck in Germany with the object of keeping alive in German hearts the recollection of the glorious achievement of the German Navy in deliberately destroying an unarmed 'passenger ship, together with 1198 non-combatants, men, women, aud thildren." On the obverse, under the legend ''No contraband" (Keine Bannware), will bo seen a representation of the,Lusitania sinking. The designer has put in guns and aeroplanes, which (as was certified by "United States Government officials after inspection) the Lusitania did not carry; but has conveniently omitted to put in the women and children, which the world knows she did carry.

On the reverse, tinder the legend "Busine.is above all" (Geschaft über alles), the figuro of Death, sits at tho booking office of the Cunard Line and gives out tickets to passengers, who refuse to attend to tho warning against submarines given by a German, ihis picture seeks apparently to propound the theory that if a murderer warns his victim of his intention, the guilt of the crime will rest with the vic';im, not with the murderer.