EVILS OF REPRISALS

Evening Post, Volume XCII, Issue 55, 2 September 1916, Page 5

EVILS OF REPRISALS

AN APPEAL TO THE NATIONS,

LONDON, Ist September

The International Red Cross Committee has addressed the belligerents, through the neutral powers, imploring the belligerents to abandon reprisals on prisoners of war, which was a reversion to methods of bararism, and unworthy of the nations which had given the Red Cross its present position.

Viscount Grey lias replied that Britain throughout had discountenanced reprisals owing to the uudiscriminating and unjust operation of the policy. The German Government, however, had perpetrated a .succession of outrages which had strained the temper and patience of the British people to breaking point, and.created a situation of the utmost gravity. These include the sinking of the Lusitania and the Sussex, the brutal execution of Nurse Cavell, and the criminal desertion of prisoners at the Wittenberg Camp when stricken by disease initiated by the callous disregard of the German authorities to the ordinary hygienic precautions, The International Committee appeals to belligerents not'to obtain redr.ess for griev-.

ances by reprisals, but to request neutrals to impress upon the enemy concerned considerations of humanity and injustice. The British Government readily respond to the appeal, being confident that the committee and neutrals recognise that the surest means of avoiding reprisals is to promote the abandonment of the policy of inspiring them.