The Evening Star FRIDAY. JULY 5. 1913.

Evening Star, Issue 16778, 5 July 1918, Page 4

The Evening Star FRIDAY. JULY 5. 1913.

The Chancellor of The Exchequer. Mr Bonar Law, commenting A Wild Boast upon the latest German at Large. atrocity— if. indeed, it bo tha latest—is reported to have said that nothing was to be gained by talking. “A wild beast is at large. It is no use arguing or attempting to reason with it. Wo must destroy it. We must set our tetfh until the end is reached.” In other words, what the German War Lords were when they decided pn July 5, 1914 —four- years ago to-day—to bum their boats and to hasten forward their plana for the wholesale murder of the human race wherever on land or sea it blocked their path, they are to-day. There has been no shadow of change in their loyalty to the sanguinary game they then resolved to play. The German military authorities, who, in the last resort , are reduced to the All-Highest War Lord, ha.v» been consistent throughout, Neither

sex nor nge, nor tho manner with whiclji both have beers done- to death, haa restrained them. To plunder smil to slay was tire cos.snutuu <. I him who sent them forth to brittle, and right faithfully have thev obeyed his mandate. It is air old story. Eighteen years ago the same Kaiser told Iris troops who were leaving' Germany to take part in the suppression of tho Boxer rising that they were to gain a name like that of the linns under Attila, so that a Chinaman should never again dare to ( look askance at a German. Ho spoke to I men who needed no undue urging. The ; German troops left behind them a name i and a fame in Peking Unit have never been-forgotten by those Chinese who were not subjected to their kultural molestations in the early days of tho century. Tho memorv of that infamous visitation still survives: and it was China that, oy a strange irony of fate, last year was among the first to sever diplomatic relations with Gennanv as a protest against the h.riha.rties of the latter on the high seas. The world was only “shocked” then; it has not once, but a score of times, been horrified since. What German troops at tho bidding of their Kaiser did in the long ago in China they have done under the same command in Europe and Asia and Africa, and with sat-ainc cunning in America, throughout the years that have passed since first tire order went forth to cross the Russian and Belgian frontiers. Germany's calendar of wanton crime at sea is. if such a thing be possible, even more atrocious. Strong men in their impotence merely shudder and pass on as they catch fragment? only of the heartsickening business, 'the submarining of the Llandovery Castle is no worse than tho many known detestable crimes that have preceded it. The men and the nation that ordered it, like tho act- itself, are of the pit and outer darkness, and ” nothing canst those to damnation add greater than that.” Germany long since polluted the sea. Prior to her foul hands being laid upon it. men talked of its chorions freedom, its immensity, its grandeur, its neverfailing charm, its safety, and the like. They do not now so speak. On ine contrary. even the most thoughtless regard it with feelings of apprehension, if nob dread. It neither welcomes nor inspires; it is iiiinntod with the gliosis and mournful wit hj the m tec as walls c.i inictse mere than 15.000 non-combatant men, women, .and children whose grave it has proved during those last dreadful years. Tho Huns of Attila. had no such tragic, memories. *s these wherewith to charge j their untutored consciences. For the mrforgei table horrots of the sinking of the Lusitania, the murder of Captain Fvyalt, the destruction of whole .-hips and their j crews “without leaving a trace,” and tho \ countless, nameless abominations that eiy | to heaven for righteous judgment, which ; have angered and terrorised the world as ; it. never has been throughout it? history, : eve must go not to China or to Darkest | Africa, but to educated, intellectual, kill- | lured Gviruiuny . wh ~: e Kv .srr has mure than j once blasphemously declined " wo can ro- |

verentlv admire t tod’s hand m history; the tarn that events have taken is by the disposition of Cod-’’ “ Why talk, why aiguo. w’, ■ 'son with a wild beast?" r-sks Mr Bon.'. .w, Mhy | indeed? Yet it rema,:r.; ure that i there are not only men and women in Eng- j Lind who an: perfectlv wdiing to shako I hands and trade with Germany, but who I would oren up negotiation- and ,*it down ( at tho same table with, the wiki beast’s . represen tat i ves. What docs Mr Bonar Law propose 1 to do with these, a 1 with t those—in most cases the same individuals 1 —who sit on public platforms -and at con- , ferencea where they jeer and sneer sit the seamens representatives who have the “ audacity ’’ to demand reprisals on end reparation from Germany? Is the tragedy of tbo Llandovery (Mistio to share the same fa to as that of il.-> many predecessors?

Will England, through her representative-!-, merely protest ami exclaim. or will sit; act? Tim mercantile) seamen—this;:- tor whom the [sieitists and their kind express such touching solicitude—will do their part, and that they will do so is one of the most heartening phases of Iho Huns’ diabolical policy of sea assassination. The German nua'cautile marine has a lad time ahead of it • but. here and now, what is to be done? We should not only ‘'set our teeth to destroy the wild beast” without us, but os an .Empire we should, set ourselves, more seriously than we have yet, done, to tender powerless for further harm its aiders and helpers within.