MURDER OF A NATION.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5349, 4 February 1916, Page 7

MURDER OF A NATION.

THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES. CRIMINAL APATHY OF GERMAN Y

When Professor Eucken of Jena was in the United States just before the war, in a letter written from Boston to a distinguished Armenian, he paid this high tribute to the Armeenians:—“Anyone who is to some extent acquainted with the political and intellectual history of the Armenian nation, and knows with what enormous difficulties this people of an ancient civilisation has had to struggle, and has especially to-day to contend with, will be tilled with a sincere respect for people who could accomplish so much in the midst of all these tribulations. The Christian faith lia s above all else provided this nation with a firm support, and they have moulded it for themselves in a characteristic manner; nationality and religion are here very intimately united. For this reason it is earnestly to be desired, in the interests of the national selfpreservaition of the Armenians, that the members of this highly gifted nation who are sojourning in foreign lands should preserve a connection with the faith of their race, which has proved itself such a source of strength for this people and such a bond of inner union. Only a community of ideals can fortify this people, which has been exposed to such suffering and injustice, against all dangers and , lead it forward towards a better fuIture.”

This nation has since been massacred by the Turks, and the Allies of Germany—but no.word of protest has come from Germany. They have declared—in so any words—that it was no affair of theirs. Thus to Belgium we must add Armenia, and to Armenia add Serbia—a trinity of nations murdered by the Germans. S

“If there is anyone not yet convince that the case against the Turkish Government for the extermination of a large part of the’ Atmenian people has been fully made out. we commend to him Mr -Arnold J. Toynbee’s indictment, ‘The Armenian Atrocities. The Murder of a Nation,” says the “Manchester Guardian.”

“The array of evidence in Mr Toynbee’s book is so representative and authentic in its sources, arid so uniform and unequivocal in its expresion, as to be damning beyond appeal. The opening butchery of all the able-bodied, the caravan deportations of the others and the unspeakable horrors on the way, th*. marooning of women and' children in malarial marshes, and their downing in the open sea—these and many other things are sot out in the description of scent's which had burnt themselves into the minds of the beholders.

“In the telling two facts emerge clearly. One is the systematic and authoritative character of the massacres ; the other is the complicity of Turkey's masters .In these pages it is abundantly proved that the German authorities, who could have stopped the atrocities, remained criminally apathetic.’ Though they may not have originated this stupendous crime, they stand condemned as the ‘efficient cause of it-.’ ”