Evening Post. SATURDAY, MAY 3, 1919. BRINGING THE EX-KAISER TO TRIAL

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 103, 3 May 1919, Page 4

Evening Post. SATURDAY, MAY 3, 1919. BRINGING THE EX-KAISER TO TRIAL

The personal responsibility of the exKaiser, in regard both to the supreme crime of causing the war and to the criminal methods by which Germany has carried it .on, has seemed to the popular conscience of all the Allied countries one of the moat obvious and imperative of all the questions awaiting determination by the victors, yet there are few which appear to have given the Peace Conference more trouble. At the British General Election in December the bringing of all the war-criminals to book, and especially the man who from his position was naturally regarded as the head of the gang, was emphasised as one of the greatest of the duties and the privileges of victory. At that time Mr. Lloyd George was roundly declaring that the Kaiser had been guilty of an .indictable offence, and even professed to have the authority of " some of the greatest jurists in this country " to support his statement. But when the Attorney : GeneraL of that time (Sir F. E. Smith) came to deal with the question he ,did not display the same confidence, and we may assume, that'his successor smiled when he was reported by au American authority to be engaged in "drawing up technical indictments against the ex-Kaiser and the Crown Prince and other wrongdoers in connection with the responsibilities for the prosecution of the wax." For the trial of Count Wilhelm, as'for that of the humblest instrument of his military machine, a court-martial might possibly bs a competent tribunal, but a legal procedure which would bring the fallen War Lord to trial at the Old Bailey has doubtless occupied as little of Sir Gordon Hewart's time as of his predecessor's.

That no existing tribunal or machinery could provide for the trial of the exKaiser on the gravest charge of all is not denied. The institution of a war of aggression, and the violation of the treaty which protected the neutrality of Belgium, are not offences of which, under the existing law, the Courts of Britain, or even of Belgium, could take cognisance. This was conceded even by the ■French jurists, who seem to have gone further than any other authority of equal eminence in asserting .the personal responsibility of the ex-Kaiser on these highest and broadest of grounds. In the report which was presented to the Peace Conference at its first sitting, these jurists declared the ex-Kaiser to be responsible " at penal and civil law according to the most elementary rules of right," and they supported a conclusion which commends itself to the untutored layman's sense of justice by a citation from one of the most distinguished authorities on international law.

A prince guilty of an unjust war is (says Vattel) liable to personal penalties if such are necessary for the sake of example, for tha security of the injured party, and for the security of human society.

It is clear that all these conditions are satisfied in the present case. Alike " for the sake of example, for the security of the injured party, and for the security of human society," the perpetrator of the greatest of crimes against civilisation must be brought to justice if it' be humanly possible.

It is to be noted, however, that, though these eminent jurists, fortified by still higher authority, were thus able to assert the criminal liability of the ex-Kaiser under the existing law of nations, they did not suggest that there was any existing tribunal competent to try him. The opposite conclusion was indeed plainly 'implied in the recommendation which followed their, plea for the extradition and condign punishment of the accused—viz., that " the Kaiser should be judged by an International Court, forming the principal department of the Law of Nations." In the case of Charles 1., both the law under which he was tried and the tribunal ' which tried him were admittedly "ex post facto." For the trial of the Kaiser the law which constitutes the offence is already in existsnee, but the tribunal must be improvised. Is it safe to go even as far as this in imitation of the methods that were employed against Charles I? This is probably the chief cause of the difficulty which an apparently simple issue has presented to the Peace Conference, and leaves its final decision on the.point in some doubt even after the German delegates have arrived at Versailles. Three weeks ago we were positively assured that the Council of Four had " definitely determined upon the Kaiser's responsibility for the war, and also upon the means for bringing him to trial, probably by Belgium." This appeared to imply the evasion by the Powers of responsibility on the main issue, and the delegation of the trial to what in the eyes of international law is merely a municipal tribunal. Later reports, though less definite in their terms, are oE a more satisfactory character.

It now appears probable that, despite the opposition of the United States, an international tribunal of five Judges will be set up to try the ex-Kaiser for Ms responsibility for the war and the breach of the Belgian Treaty. It is to be hoped that this is the actual decision, and that it will not .be varied. The question of punishment is of course to a large extent a separate issue ft'om the right and duty o! trying ths man who is prmm fuels th?

arch-criminal. The execution of the sentence will at any8 rate be a matter of policy to bo determined on different grounds by the responsible non-judicial authorities, That there should be a judicial determination of "guilty or not guilty" is, however, the supreme issue. To leave it undecided would be a sad confession oi impotence on the part of the victorious Powers, and a grievous repudiation of their responsibilities in regard to the future. As The Times has well said:

In international law there are few, if any,, precedents for 6uch punitive measures as ,it is proposed to take against the Kaiser. Yet on establishing somo sort of correspondence between moral guilt and legal guilt the whole future development of. international law may bo said to depend.

This is the correspondence which the Peace Conference must endeavour to establish by bringing the ex-Kaiser to trial.