ANTI- GERMAN RIOTS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 19 May 1915, Page 8

ANTI- GERMAN RIOTS.

DISCREDITABLE TO PARTICI- ' PANTS. '

When thirteen hundred civilian passengers on the Lusitan:a were suddenly sent to ileath by a German submarine, anger blazed throughout the British against the pitiless5.-and;- criminal makers of ''barbarous warfare. This callous killing of the innocent, following, the . evidence of German cruelty m Belgium. France, and the places where British prisoners are illtreated, aroused a passion for revenge, but unfortunately the natural intensity of yearning for a just punishment of Germany is impelling some Britons in the wrong direction. The best, the most effective retaliation for the German scheme of "fright-fulness" by land and sea is in the muster. and training of more and more men and the supply of more and mor& material to hasten the downfall of the Kaiser and his evil advisers. Indeed, one result of German barbarism has been to draw more men to the British colors, but a short cut. to revenge has been taken by mobs which have wrecked and looted many German shops and offices in England and South "Africa. A cable message .to-day gives important words by General Botha, who recently occupied the capital of German South-West Africa. He deplores the riots, which he srys are "discouraging the troops who are lighting an honest and clean fight." Referring to the indiscriminate attacks on Germans in London, Mr Asquith said on Saturday that "these out breaks" were contrary to the whole instincts of the country," and they should be prevented. One particularly regrettable feature of the demonstrations is that they are an imitation of the "frightfulness" made in Germany. Up to the present the great honorable nr'de of Britons has been that they have not degraded themselves by resorting to the fiendish j cruelty of Germany's war directors, who have not hesitated at the torture or slaughter of non-combatants. Britons have been true to their traditions of fairness, manly justice, but riots, by which inoffensive persons may be punished for the guilty (temporarily .out of reach), are not "in accordance with the British code which has won the whole world's resnec-t. It has to be borne in mind, too. that during a time when popular leans over the law the worst elements of a "community may take an easy opportunity to commit gross excesses. For example, it is plam that the hooligan element in London attached itself to the crowds which smashed Germans' shops, and it seems--from the looting—tHat some rough characters had a hand in the disgraceful d;sturbance s at Wanganui We are sure that New Zealanders in the mass recognise that the Lusitania's passengers and British prisoners cannot be satisfactorily avenged by the smashing and looting o f pork butchers' shops in this country." The solid «teadv members of the community should exert their personal influence to the utmost in the discouragement of this nnn-British scheme of punishing the Kaiser by means of an inncc£nt. .Pr°xy, and the Government sfiould take all necessary precautions to prevent disorders which tend towards anarchy.—The Post (Wellington).