THE COLONIST. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1918. A RACE OF SAVAGES.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14860, 6 September 1918, Page 4

THE COLONIST. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1918. A RACE OF SAVAGES.

Now that the .end of the war is, as we may hope, within measurable distance, it is well that the British-public should keep fresh, in their minds the counts to which Germany must be made to answer when peace is concluded and the Allies exact punishment for her misdeeds. There could be no more effectual corrective of the mawkish sentimentality of the view which the peace-bj^-negotia-, tion people seek to disseminate, which I meuns wiping the slate clean as a preliminary to negotiations, than an occasional perusal of some of the White Papers, reports, and other publications issued from time to time hy the British Government on German outrages. Beginning with the Bryce report on the mangling of Belgium there is now an appalling library of this literature, and it may be said of nearly all of it—certainly of all emanating from official sources—that it is written with the same studied restraint and care that characterised the report of Lord Bryce's committee. ...Germany}is- charged with nothing which has not been proved to

'conviction againsb her on evidence that would be accepted by a British court of justice. Stripped of all charges on .which the-' evidence fell short; of that condition, the indictment against Germany fills voltuiitjs r*s f>miiiting every

form ofjjideous atrocity conceivable by tho mind of the cultured Hun, and ail planned Avith studious' care long before the war and as a distinct feature of the' German theory of war. A pamphlet has just readied us from the Ministry of Information in which Mr Keblo Howard, a well-known English magazine writer, deals with evidence officially confirmed , relating to 'the inhuman treatment of British prisoners of war in Gcrmanj. The cases cited, all of them marked by the same horrible cruelty, occurred early in the war, but wo know only too avcll that the lob of tho hanlcss cantives

in German, camps and behu-tl the German lir.es in France has undergone little or no amelioration since. Mr Howard quotes f-om the statements of many British officers, non-commissioned officers, and men, whose names are given, describing their experiences, especially during transport to their destinations in Germany. In these throe points stand out with peculiar and sinister shnrpness. The first is that, on the rare occasions when these poor fellows met with the slightest kindness, whon the ordinary human instinct was permitted for one moment to peep through, the credit must be given, not tv educated Germans,- not to wealthy Germans, not to German officers, but to an humble sentry, a member of the guard, an insignificant undcr-officer. The second point is—and officers and men are here unanimous—that the 'behaviour of the German Red Cross was so vile ?.« to be almost incredible.. The story is always . the same—any appeal to the German Red Cross, to the people who bore on their arms the sacred brassard which signifies the eternal charity of man to man, even in the heat and bitterness of warfare, was met with foul words and infinitely fouler deeds. The effect on these British soldiers may be judged from the fact that, oven to-day, after a lapse of three-and-a-half years, many of them cannot look at the Rod Cross brassard without a feeling of instinctive dread. And the third point is that, bad as the German officers were, vile as was the conduct of the men employed by the German Red Cross, the conduct of the German women, and especially the educated and wealthy women, was worse. Many officers and men bear witness to this. One has only to think of the unfailing kindness, gentleness, selfsacrifice ,heroism, and even martyrdom of the British Red Cross nurses to realise the horror with which these helpless and wounded men shrank from the jeering, spitting, vindictive "angels of mercy" that they met behind tho German lines. We have not the space to recount" the details, but it is a terrible story that these ex-prisoners of the Germans have' to tell, of horrible, wanton cruelty, and yet no worse than countless other recitals of the barbarity of the Germans, for whom the revelations of this war have earned the lasting horror and loathing of the civilised nations of the world.