THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1914. GERMAN ATROCITIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15718, 19 September 1914, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1914. GERMAN ATROCITIES.

I The monstrous wickednesses which nave accompanied the official German violation of all international law will presumably be the subject of an international inquiry, after j which, to quote the pedantic language of Mr. Woodrow Wilson, "the relative responsibility of those involved will be assessed." Meanwhile, however, it. is left for the fighting Allies to reduce Germany to j such a condition of military im- ! potency that she will not be able to subject the rest of mankind to the ; infamous outrages she has inflicted i upon the innocent Belgians. For j there can be no possibility of doubt | that the German violation of Belgian neutrality—a neutrality guaranteed by Prussia—has been followed by every crime known to savages and barbarians. Nobody supposes that all German soldiers have been guilty of these infamies, but every German soldier has assisted in making them possible, while German officialism, in Berlin and in Belgium, has inspired, directed, and ordained them. The Hague Convention, as it is at present constituted, can no more I punish international crimes than it can prevent them. The mere exI pression of international public j opinion upon German outrages i Mould be so much sounding brass, i and can no more chastise or compen- ; sate than it can affect the climate of j Mars. There is no way of reaching . the guilty aud of securing other civiI Used -including New Zealand :against similar inroads of organ- ; ised criminals than by teaching the I German people that it is exceedingly I poor policy to outrage all decent j human sentiment. This teaching ! may take a long time. It may be a I year or two before the Prussian system is broken to pieces and the evil power of the Hohenzollerns I brought to nought ; but every sacrifice this entails will be more than repaid by the satisfying knowledge that neither London nor Auckland need fear the fate of Louvain, and .'that women will be safe from Ger- | man insults in Kent and in the YVaijkato. The British should not pray I with Mr. Wilson that the war may ■■ soon be over. Our British prayer 'should be that, whether the war be ■ short or long, we should be given j courage and determination to so j fight that the Wrong will be shati tered, and the Right asserted among ! the nations.

It is bewildering to most. Hritish people to find that the German nation has cast aside every pledge and obligation to its neighbours, and that terrible outrages follow in the train of German armies supposed to be civilised. We know that British soldiers Mould instinctively refuse to act as these Germans act. but we overlook the fact that the British peoples to whom our soldiers belong have encouraged and fostered for long generations qualities which the Germans have deliberately suppressed. British generals would not give monstrously inhuman and satanic orders; British officers would Dot enforce such orders if given; British soldiers would not obey thomj the British public would

not tolerate them. The German system fosters blind and brutal obedience, exalts authority into divinity, and sets itself to root out and eliminate the manly instincts which ennoble the citizen soldier. The brutality to -which German recruits have often to submit in barracks is notorious; in war the helpless and hapless civilians of conquered aud occupied districts are completely at the mercy of any brutal soldier, more brutal non-commissioned officer and most brutal officer. Were the Germans to come victoriously from the Great War, this brutality would be visited in turn upon every country which had dared to oppose ! it. and upon every country which j had thought to escape suffering by [an ignominious neutrality. Belgium had done no wrong. Her only I crime was that she happened to be in Germany's way, and refused to surrender her guaranteed integrity at German summons. For this, her cities are destroyed or held to ransom, women and children are openly murdered, civilians are slaughtered, the forest crimes are committed without official condemnation. German militarism brings uppermost, and gives power to, the worst and most villainous influences in German life, and must be. destroyed, root and branch, ashore and afloat, before the world-even New Zealand— feel safe. • There is a vague British idea that i Germany is a very philosophical nation and that her modes of thought are dominated by spectacled professors who delve deeply into the metaphysical and arc serenely indifferent to accepted conventions. It does not usually occur to us, however, to inquire what these German philosophers are expoundi ing or to learn whether the treatybreaking, mine-laying, town-burning. | civilian-slaughtering nation may not have a corresponding school of thought, whose congenial teachings lend an air of culture to the policy of savages. It has, of course. No writers are so popular among the military class of Germany—a class which literally controls the national I energies and dictates the national conduct— than those of the Nietzsche school. According to Nietzsche himself ''to talk of intrinsic right and intrinsic wrong is absolutely nonsensical ; intrinsically, an injury, an oppression, an annihilation, can be nothing wrong, inasmuch as life , is essentially (that is, in its cardinal functions) something which functions by injuring, oppressing, ex- I i ploiting and annihilating, and is absolutely inconceivable without such a character." What can we expect of men who have found such doctrine so sympathetic with their natures that they have saved its apostle from the oblivion which would have engulfed him anywhere else' We have had the Nietzsche gospel, that truth-telling, wordkeeping, honesty and orderliness are. '"the morality of slaves.' expounded by Germany for the world to witness since she struck at innocent Belgium. It. is interesting to note how closely Nietzsche conception of "the state" fits with the ambition of Prussia: ''I used the word 'State' ; my meaning is self-evident, namely, a herd of blonde beasts of prey, a race of conquerors and masters, which with all its warlike organisation and all its organising power pounces with its terrible claws on a population, in numbers possibly tremendously superior, but as yet formless, as yet nomad." In fact, Germany has become an exponent of the Nietzsche creed that "the will to power" is the only thing worth having and that there, is no law for the "masters." There will be law for Germany, however, because civilisation will not tolerate these "blonde beasts of prey." as Nietzsche admiringly terms his countrymen, and is taking steps to prevent any future repetitions of I the outrages suffered at German i hands by Belgium. i _