“NECESSITY KNOWS NO LAW”

Patea Mail, Volume XLIII, 1 August 1919, Page 3

“NECESSITY KNOWS NO LAW”

Upon this plea Germany claimed that she was entitled —

1. To Commit Perjury.—(a) By invading and ruining Belgium, a country whose neutrality and independence she has sworn to safeguard (Treaty of London, 1 S3l; articles 7 and 23); (h) by infringing a) her pleasure the Articles of the Hague Conventions relating - to warfare, which she has sworn to observe.

2. To .Steal. — (a) By pillage of household goods on the part of her troops during the invasion o f Belgi uni, France and Serbia, which pillage was organised and conducted by otllccrs ; (b) by wholesale removal from Belgium into Germany of the machinery of factories and raw materials until the country has been virtually stripped of these things.

3. To make Men and Women .Slaves, (a) By forcing Belgian and French people behind her battle linos to work for her army ; (b) by forcing Belgian and French people to make munitions ,)f war for her in Belgium and Franco; (c) by deporting many thousands of Belgian and French people into Germany and there forcing them to work for her.

■l. To Torture. — (a) By starving into submission those whom she has deported; (b) by brutally ill-treating prisoners of >var ; (c) by savagely mutilating men, women and children in Belgium and France. 5. To Commit Arson.- —By wholesale burning of Belgian and French towns and villages upon the flimsiest pretext of punishment, for “disorder” on the part of the population of (he invaded territory. 6. To Massacre and Murder—(a) By wholesale shooting of hostages taken iu defiance of her own pledge, from Belgian and French towns and villages ; (b) the Imii- i riminafe slaughter of tho. men, women ami children of such town and villages as a punish ment for “disorder.”

7. To Commit Crimes Against Women and Girls. —As one other part ol organised plan for terrorising invaded torritorv.

S. To Commit .Indicia! Murder—For example, in tho cases of Nurse Cavell and Captain Fryatt. 9. To Commit Piracy —By tho use >f submarines abainst enemy and neutral vessels, sinking them al sight and drowning their crows.

10. To Kill Indiscriminately —By dropping bombs from aircraft on open towns. That Germany v.as the first of tho belligorants to do this is abundantly proved. 11, To torpedo without warning; groat steamships crowded with men, women and children, both enemy and neutral.

12. To Conspire to Murder—C il ) By blowing up munition factories in United States: (b) by placing bombs in neutral steamships. l.'l. To introduce the use of asphyxiating gas and liquid fire in violation of her own pledges in the Hague Conventions.

14. To plaee living sreens of civilians in front of her own attacking troops.

10. To destroy buildings of pricelos'S hiKioi!cal and artistic value, for instance, Louvain Library. 1(5. To poison wells. 17. To torpedo hospital ships without warning, and otherwise make war upon the bed Cross. If Germany had won the war there would henceforth ho no law in Europe

any longer. The only test of what is right will be—Does it pay to do these things ? The civilised world means (o show that it does not pay to break the law of nations and destroy the very foundations of human freedom and happiness.— (From The Deacon, No. -I.)