HER OWN MEDICINE

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue LXXIV, 20 March 1919, Page 3

HER OWN MEDICINE

PRUSSIANS WHO WOULD HAVE DESTROYED US.

Those who have any qualms about making Germany suffer might take courage from tlie fact that we are unlikely to inflict upon a defeated foe anything like the humiliation a victorious Germany would have planned, says London Sunday Chronicle. Some typical Prussian threats of six months or so before the armistice are the following: '•Our statesmen must in. the peace negotiations be men of iron and not to resemble soft wood painted iron grey. The German people mean not only to hold out hut to conquer.—Count yon Re-j ventlow.

"An indemnity which would be adequate simply to cover the cost of the war would pei haps amount to thirty billions—two billions in gold, a further four or six billions in exchange, the rest in securities." —Dr. Johann Plenge. "Peace must assure permanently the military, economic, financial and political interests of Germany in their widest range, including extensions of territory."—Dr. Spahn, leader of Reichstag Centre. ''If wet win we must utterly destroy the power of England; we must take her colonies and ncr fleet. We might take the French fleet too, and make France bear the cost of the war. Belgium oould be joined to Germany."— Dr. Oppenheimer. "l'he security of the Empire in a future war requires the ownership of all mines of iron ore, and to defend them the fortresses of Longwy and Verdun." —Manifesto to the Chancellor. "It is necessary to impose a mercilessly high war indemnity .on * France, and not forget her large colonial possessions."—Petition of German intellectuals to the Government.

So why not give Germany a dose of her own* medicine P