GERMAN JUSTICE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17877, 24 August 1918, Page 12

GERMAN JUSTICE.

AN AMAZING PICTURE. (By CHARLES VINCE.) Shakespeare has tho incompetent judge and the pompous official among his characters. Dickens has them, too, fuller, completer figures than Shakespeare's—Bumble, the eternal official, Mr Justice Starleigh, Mr Nupkins the magistrate, a far greater than Mr Justice Starleigh, indeed, one of the very great figures of comedy. But neither Shakespeare nor Dickens knew German officialdom and German justice (German justice towards Germans themselves). If they had they would have turned away in despair that Nature had done their work for them, had herself made such amazing caricatures, that there was nothing for them but to put their penß away and laugh and cry at it, as they played audience to her. Dickens ought to have been in the Ueicnsfcag on iVlay 14, when it discussed the Budget for the Imperial Ministry of Justice. He ought to have been there—though he would most certainly have been arrested, for he could never have restrained either his laughter or his indignation. There was a good deal of disturbance and interruption, and Dr Paasche, tho President, seems to have done his best to prevent certain speakers from speaking. In spite of that, they succeeded in saying a good deal. Through them we can fee for a moment into the militarv courts and prisons of Germany. Wo can see the woman who was "condemned to six months' imprisonment for shaking her fist at the building of tho A.E.G.," the General Electric Company, now one of the big Government trusts. . "Wo can see the sailor Reichspeith. who was condemned to death, reprieved and then executed because " the legal and military authorities, which in this case were the same, withheld the letter until sentence had been carried out." Above all, we can see into "Berlin Court 1, presided over by Becher." Berlin Court 1 is one of the special courts-martial set up in place of civil courts. Becher himself you have complete in a phrase: "He proclaimed as his principle that during the war the lowest sentence would never be passed." What more do you need to know of him? You can see Berlin Court 1 at work. You can imagine tho rest—until you hear one of his sentences: "A woman who, while fetching medicine for her child from the chemist, impeded a tramcar in regaining her hat which sho had lost, was sentenced to one and a half year's penal servitude for interfering with transport." It was at that point in the speech that Dickens, had he been there, would most certainly have been put under arrest. He would havo been led away m despair—despair at tho powerlessnesg of art to throw a stronger light on the system in which 6iich things were possible. For that case itself is the final and awful caricature of German military justice, its sternness become more unreasoning cruelty, its interference with personal libertv grown to a mania. Becher is the figure of military justice gone mad. .No artist's touches ore needed to complete it. You see him sitting in awful pomposity and declaring that thero shall be no light sentence in his court while the war lasts. He feels that the safety of the State depends on him. Ho thinks that by cruelty to other people he is showing his own courage in the terrible times of war. Last touch of all, he increases his own dignitv as a militnrv judge by calling a tramcar " transport." It i true —Dickens would not nave wanted to add anything to that portentous figure. But it Is a pity that ho would havo been arrested and led away before the speech was done. He would havo missed the culminating stroke of satire. , , These things do not seem to nave been denied, but Dr Paasche rose in the presidential chair and said. "Thesematters have nothing to do with the becretary of State for Justice."