“THE HUN MUST PM TO LAST FARTHING.”

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7917, 11 August 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)

“THE HUN MUST PM TO LAST FARTHING.”

A FRANK TALK ABOUT ANNEXATIONS AND INDEMNITIES. DOING JUSTICE TO OUTRAGED, ENSLAVED, AND RUINED PEOPLE ROBERT BLATCHFORD ON RUSSIAN IDEALISTS. (Illustrated Sunday Herald.)

There id an old saying, “Be just before you are generous.” It is a saying often for gotten by pacifists and pardoners. No people—not the British, the Russians, the Americans, or the Italians—have a rigiht to he generous to tho Huns before they have been just to France, to Serbia, and to Belgium. The Huns have ravaged, and looted, and destroyed; they have wantonly battered or burnt houses, cathedrals, factories, mines and orchards in France and Flanders. To .plead the plea of a magnanimous renunciation of indemnities is to ask that tho robbers shall retain the booty and that the robbed shall be left to beggary. To pretend that any one of the Allied nations will listen to such an insane demand is to deceive the sentimentalists who have formulated it. Tf Germany is defeated, dhe should have to pay to tho last farthing she can be made to pay. ROBERT BLATCHFORD. I wrote about the ituation n often forgotten by pacifists and 1 parassured, by the Russian Government and by our own Press, that prospects have become much brighter. I do not wish to he pessimistic, but I cannot believe that affairs in Russia are materially better, and several able men, far better qualified to judge than. I, are showing signs of .anxiety and doubt. Meanwhile the Russian armies seem paralysed, and the Russian idealists have done the Allied cause very serious harm. Nothing any British writer can say will, m I pointed out last week, produce any effectual impression in Russia. But it is always worth while for our own sakes to reason out any tempting ideal into some practical and coherent shape, and to disencumber our minds of rosy hopes which may provo impossible of fulfilment. THE CRY OF “NO ANNEXATION. ’ Thoughtful men in every one of the Allied countries were startled by the hysterical Russian cry of “no .annexation.” It was not so much the demand itself that was disquieting, as the inference it afforded of the state of mind of those* who could raise it at such a time, and under such conditions. Tho first thought of the Russian revolutionists was not for the outraged and ruined people of Serbia, or France, or Belgium, but for the Power which forced the war, and committed the crimes, and was at that moment standing as enemy and invader upon the soil of Russia. WHAT SOLOMON SAID.

Russian dreamers is “do not hurt the Germans.” * * * Au I said, my anxiety/ is obviously shared by men far better informed than I. M. Ribot, though ho spoke in guarded terms, made clear his anxiety as to the future .action of the Russian army. M. Albert Thomas, the French Minister of Munitions, speaks more plainly. Addressing the Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates at Moscow, ho said thousands of French and British soldiers were perishing while awaiting the Russian co-operation “on whicli they had a right to count.” INACTION AT THE FRONT WAS EQUIVALENT TO A SEPARATE PEACE. NOT BY WAY OF REVENGE. M. Ribot bends so far as to declare that no annexation or indemnity will be demanded by way of revenge. But to an idealist that will not carry conviction ; because the idealist has confused liia ideas of punishment .and revenge and justice and protection. Ho is prepared to forgive the injuries done to his neighbour, and, in his haste to deal magnanimously with the enemy, cannot even think justly for his friend. Tt i« the same with many of our idealists in Britain as with those in Russia. Let us try to clear these bemuddled issues. Let us cast from ur all feelings ni hatred, all desires for revenge, all belief in punishment. Let us say that "it is useless to punish fluid foolish to hate, and wrong to avenge. Then let us look at the facts. THOUSANDS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS—OF INNOCENT NONCOMBATANTS IN FRANCE, BELGIUM, SERBIA, AND RUMANIA HAVE BEEN ROBBED, OUTRAGED, ENSLAVED AND RUINED. ARE THEY TO BE LEFT TO )BEG) 'OR STARVE OR DIE? Apart from any feeling of hatred - r revenge, or from any belief in punishment, is it not common-sense and plain justice that those who robbed should repn/y? That those who outraged should recompense? THE EFFICACY OF PUNISHMENT. I do not myself believe in the efficacy of punishment. I have no word to speak in favour of revenge. I hold that malice and hatred recoil upon the. head! of tho hater. But I believe in justice, and L believe in self-defence, and in tiie defence of the right against the •wrong. Tho idealist says, “Do not punish the Germans.” 1 say, “Do not trust the Germans” because to trust the Germans is to expose Europe to another horrible war; is to expose innocent women and children to the fury of a nation of predatory ruffians, whose only law is the law of the sword, tHe law that might is right, andi that the gentle shall he the slaves or prey of the violent. HUMILIATING AN ENEMY. Tho idealist says, “Do not humiliate the Germans.” I do not wish to humiliate the Germans. But I say “ Do not let the Germans humiliate us, nor our Allies, nor the people oli any nation not strong enough to defend itself against the Huns.” Tho idealist says, “Let us hasten tu make peace.” I say, “Yes, let us hasten to make peace in the only way :n which peace can be made with a nation which holds war as its religion. Let us win peace and impose peace, and maintain peace.” WE CAN ONLY WIN PEACE BY FORCE OF ARMS; WE CAN ONLY IMPOSE PEACE BY VICTORY; WE CAN ONLY MAINTAIN PEACE BY DISARMING THE COMMON ENEMY OF PEACE. All this has nothing to say to vengeance, nor to malice, nor to punis - ment. Tam not thinking of Germany; ]• am thinking of the Br’tish and the French, and the Belgians and! the Russians; of all the smaller and weaker nations. I am thinking of their future happiness and security. And l as I believe that their happiness and security will ho in danger so long as Germany i: armed, I am asking the Allies to disarm her. THE MEN TO SPEAK FIRST. 1 til ink these things ought to bo stated clearly and frankly to our Russian Allies, for to leave them obscure is to encourage the mistaken and dangerous ideas of the idealists. To confound the ideas of democracy and nonresistance is to walk unarmed into a camp of robbers. And when it comes to a consideration of indemnities and annexation, LET US ALLOW THOSE WHO HAVE SUFFERED MOST TH*! FIRST AND THE FULLEST VOICE.

Solomon said there was a time to speak and a time to refrain from speak* ing. There is also a. time to forgive and a time to refrain from forgiveness. One does not ask forgivenesl? for the assassin while he is kneeling upon one’s mother’s chest and trying to strangle her. While these amiable Tolstoyans are counselling forbearance towards Germany, the Huns are moving .divisions from tho Russian front with the object of defeating and despoiling the dreamers’ allies. , NO INDEMNITIES. There must be no indemnities, shout tho Russian idealists. It is the same idea in another form. The time has not yet come to discuss the subject of indemnities. When it does come the jury will not consist entirely of Russian saints; it will be drawn from all the great nations of the alliance, and it will consider the claims of those who have suffered most severely. To declare in the mid-st of such a war as the present that the aggressors shall not be asked to pay for tho wanton damage they have caused is to espouse the cause of one’s enemies against one’s friends.

These rash and heady demands of the excited revolutionaries of Russia have been treated! with the greatest courtesy and#tenderness by M. Robot in his excellent speech. I do not presume to dot the i’s and cross the t’s of thfllt speech; ! only say, for my own self, that the Russian idealists’ demands are in bad. taste, are out of proportion, and are absurdly premature. To mo it seems that tlifi occasion is one for plain speaking. The business of each and all the Allies is to get on with the war. When tho enemy is defeated, terms of pence ma,y be considered by ALL the parties to the alliance.

MERCY FROM THE BLONDE BEAST.

While the higli-soulcdJtnajan pardoners, laying aside their alrms meanwhile and leaving the risk and labour to their Allies, are invoking mercy for tho Blonde Boast, how. is brother Hun comporting himself? He is asking for a “Hindenburg peace”; that is to say, he is demanding the annexation of Antwerp, the* iron-ore districts of France, and tho Belgian coasts and coal-fields. Besides which he is to -have, back his colonies, is to retain Alsace and Lorraine, and is to he suzerain of Belgium, Turkey, and. Austria. What a mistake the Russian idealists mnkh in appealing to the mercy of the Allies before appealing to the honesty of the Huns!

Before we spare a tear for brother Hun it behoves us to remember those whom he has robhecl and outraged. Before we exalt ourselved amongst tho pink clouds of .«*. visionary human brotherhood, let us make sure that a race of professional murderers and bandits is deprived of the power to repeat the unspeakable crimes perpetrated by them during tho last three years. ROBERT BLATCHFORD.

Tn tho “Daily Sketch” recently there appeared a portrait of tho late Commander Willy Petz, for whom the Huns claim that ho sank 51,000 tons Dutch shipping in a single day. The Du ton nro neutrals. Germany is supposed to ho on terms of peace and amity with Holland. Why did 1 the Germans sink the Dutch ships? Why have they sunk American, Spanish, and Dan Hi .ships? Why ilin.vn they muirtiered) over 500 Norwegian and hundreds of other neutral sailors? So that they male ho able to annex Belgian, French, Pol Hi and' Russian territory, and place their iron heel upon the neck of Europe. And the first thought of our amiable