GERMANY'S WAR ON WOMEN.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1916, Page 8

GERMANY'S WAR ON WOMEN.

CLERGYMAN ENLISTS. HORBOES SEEN IN FRANCE. Melbourne, March S. ''After what I saw of German frightfulness, I felt that the only thing worth while was to be a soldier, and stand across the track of the Ilun," declared Chaplain Captain James Wilson, who has joined the Miners' Corps. Two years ago Chaplain Wilson w;,s a clergyman in New Zealand. He went to Eng'and on holiday, and wis given safe conduct by the French military authorities to enable him to visit tlie battlelieltl of the Marne, and also tie broken town of Senlis--the Louvain of Northern France. He wished to see if the newspaper reports of the brutalities of the Germans had not been exaggerated. He says that after careful investigation he is perfectly convinced that nothing that has been said by the Press, either in Great Britain or Australia, has been in the least overpainted. "The town of Senlis itself," said Chaplain Wlison, "I found in ruins, yet no battle had been fought near it. This scene of desolation was simply an incident in the programme of German frigfctfulness. They had used the town for eight days, General '<gn Kluck made it his headquarters, and the only hotel that was spared was that in which lie had messed with hi s staff. It was simply spared because it was a converiiehce to the Germans. "The women and children had been bayonet'ted out of their homes. While I was there many of the women "by H^HHHHBH^Has nnßnnH|Uß. HUHnmraan old man (76 years of age) was marched to the German camp three miles avfay, His grave was dug by his fellow-French-men, and, after being shot he was thrown into it. And, to make the death scene more frightful to his friends and loved ones who were forced to stand around, lie was buried head down, his feet being left above the surface of the ground. "I then visited the hospital over which the Red Cross flag was flying, and found many wounded French soldiers lying in bed. The wall of the hospital was riddled with bullets showing that the Prussians had fired upon the building and nurses and doctors, and also upon the helpless men as the latter lay in the wards. "The completeness of the destruction of Senlis, and the inhuman treatment o( the citizens, convinced me that we as a nation have nothing to hope for from the Germans. If they could show such brutality to a people whom they merely despised, what might we expect when we remember the intense hatred they /iave for the British?

"My investigations convinced me that in the blood and iron policy of Germany there is a' grim philosophy and diabolical significance that had never previously been realised by the British mindthat we had regarded the famous enunciation of Bismarck as the boast of a German who intended some day to wage a war of blood and iron under the rules of the Hague Convention. ' But this blood and iron policy, as expressed or the. Continent to-day, reveals the fact that it is a dual form of outrage upon humanity—first, by systematic and organised outrage upon the womanhood of the conquered areas, and then tliitt the conquests of Germany arc to mean bloodshed alone, but blood creation, Hence the women have been herded together iike cattle and handed over to the Kaiser's troops and to-day the Government of France and Belgium are faced with the ghastly problem of what they are going to do with the offspring of the German soldiers . ''The iron side of this policy constitutes an outrage on manhood by unlawful methods of warfare in every breach of the Hague Convention—poisonous gas, liquid fire, jagged bayonets, expanding bullets, and any and every diabolical invention, with a view of world domination. "While it may be argued that the Germans are not doing the same tilings to-dav, that is not so much the fault of the Germans as the fear of the Germnn that he may not win the war. After what I saw 1 felt that the ojily thing worth while was to be a soldier and to make one to stand across the track of a Hun in defence of the flag and the freedom and safety which we have enjoyed so

long in this fair land ot Australia."