"The Hun Must Pay to Last Farthing."

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 17066, 20 August 1917, Page 2

"The Hun Must Pay to Last Farthing."

i A FRANK TALK ABOUT ANNEXATIONS AND INDEMNITIES.

DOING JUSTICE TO OUTRAGED, ENSLAVED,,ANDKUINED PEOPLE

ROBERT BLATCHFORD ON RUSSIAN IDEALISTS.

(Illustrated Sunday Herald.)

Ihere xs an old saying, "Be just before you are generous." It is a sayingoften for gotten by .iaoitUs and pardoners. No people— not the British, the Russians, the Americans, or the Italians —have a right to be gener-1 ous to the Huns before they have been just to France, to Serbia, and to Belgium. | Tlle ? u? 8 hsive rav»g«3j »»d looted, and destroyed; they have wantonly battered or burnt houses, cathedrals, factories, mines and orchards in France and Flanders. To plead I the plea of a magnanimous renunciation of indemnities is to ask that the robbers shall retain the booty and that the robbed shall be left ■ to beggary. To pretend that any one of the Alliad nations will listen to such an insane demand is to deceive the sentimentalists who have formulated it. Tf Germany is defeated, she should have to pay to the last farthing she can be made to pay. ROBERT BLATCHFORD. CJINCE I W rote about the ituation -v. often' forgotten by pacifists and parassured, by the Russian Government and by our own Press, that prospecte have become much brighter, Ido not wish to he pessimistic, but I cannot be-1 neve that affairs in Russia are materially better, and several able men, far better qualified to" judge thao 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, as I pointed out last week, produce any effectual impression in Russia. But it is always worth while for o\yr own Bakes to reason out. any tempting ideal into some practical and coherent shape, and to disencumber our minds of ro&y hopes which may prove 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. v The 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 th© crimes, and was at that moment standing as enemy and invader upon the soil of Russia.. WHAT SOLOMON SAID. Solomon said there was a time to speak and a time to refrain from speaking. There is also a time to forgive and a time to refrain from forgiveness. One does not ask forgiveness 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 the Russian front with the object of defeating and despoiling the dreamers' allies. NO INDEMNITIES. There must be no indemnities, shout the 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 midst of such a war as the present that the aggressors shall not be asked to pay for the "wanton damage they have caused is to espouse the cause of one's enemies against one's friends..

heel upon the neck of Europe. t And the first thought of our amiable Russian dreamers is "do not hurt the Germans."

As I said, my anxiety is obviously shared by men far better informed than I. " M.' Ribot, though he 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 I more plainly. Addressing the Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates at Moscow, he said thousands of French and British soldiers were perishing while j awaiting the Russian co-operation "on which they, had a right to count.'' INACTION AT THE FRONT WAS EQUIVALENT TO A SEPARATE *** . ■ | NOT BY WAY OF REVENGE. j M. Ribot bends so far as to declare that no annexation or indemnity will be demanded by way of revenge. But to an idealist tha-t will not carry conviction; because the idealist has oonfuSed his ideas of punishment and revenge and justice and protection. He is prepared to forgive the injuries done to his neighbour, and, in his haste to j deal magnanimously with the enemy, cannot even think justly for his friend. !Jt is the same with many of our idealists in Britain as with those in RussU. Let us try to clear these bemuddled issues. Let us cast from us all feelings •oi hatred, all desires for revenge, all belief in punishment. Let us say that it is useless to punish and 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 ana plain justice that those who robbed should repay? That those who outraged should recompense? THE EFFICACY 0? PUNISHMENT. I do not myself believe in the efficacy of punishment. I have no word to speak in favour of revenge. I held that malice and hatred recoil upon the head j If the hater. But I believe in justice, and I believe in self-defence, and in the defence of the right a&ainst. the. wrong. . -.-..■-■ The idealist says, "Do not. punish the Germans." I say, "Do not trust the Germans" because to trust the Ger-| mans 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, and that the gentle shall be the slaves or prey of the violent. HUMILIATING AN ENEMY, The idealist says, "Do not humiliate the Germans." I do not wish to humiliate the Germans. But I say " Do not let the Germans humiliate «s, nor our Allies, nor the people of any nation not strong enough to defend itseU against the Huns." The idealist says,- "Let us hasten W make peace.'' I say, "Yes, let us hasten to make peaca in the only way in which peace can be made with a nation which holds war as its religion. Let us win peace and impose peace, and maintain peace." "Ye can only win peace by force of arms; we can only IMPOSE PEACE BY VICTORY: Wtt CAN ONLY MAINTAIN PEACE BY DISARMING THE COMMON SNEMY OF PEACE. All this Las nothing to say to vengeance, nor to malice, nor to punis - ment. lam not thinking of Germany; I 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 futurw happiness and security. And as I believe that their happiness and security will be in danger fo long as Germany v armed, I am asking the Allies to disarm her. | THE MEN TO SPEAK FIRST. i I think these thing:; ought to be stated clearly and frankly to pur Rus- ] sian Allies, for to leave them obscure is to encourage the mistaken and danpjerous ideas of the idealists. To confound the ideas of democracy and nonresistance is to walk unarmed into a camp of robbors. And when it comes to a, consideration of indemnities and annexation, LET US ALLOW THOGE WHO HAVE SUFFERED MOST TH?, FIRST AND THE FULLEST VOxOE. Before we spare a tear for brother Hun it behoves us to remember those whom he has robbed and outraged. Before we exalt ourselvea amongst the pink clouds of a 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 dnring the last three years. ROBERT BLATCHFORD.

These rash and heady demands of the excited revolutionaries of Russia have been treated with the greatest courtesy and tenderness. by M. Ribot in his excellent speech. Ido net presume to dot the i's and cross the t's of that speech; I only say, for my own. self, that the Russian idealists' demands are in bad taste, are out of proportion, and are absurdly premature. To me it seems, that the occasion is one for plain speaking. The business of each and all the Allies is to .get on with the war. When the enemy is defeated, terms of peace* may be considered by ALL the parties to the alliance.

MERCY FROM THE BLONDE

BEAST

While the high-souled Russian pardoners, laying aside their arms meanwhile and leaving the risk and labour to their Allies, are invoking mercy for the Blonde Beast, how is brother Hun comporting himself? He is r"-kinfj 'f)1 a "Hindenburg peac^"; that is to say, he is demanding the annexation of Antwerp, the iron-ore districts of France, and the Belgian coasts and coal-fields. Besides which he is to have back his colonies, is to retain Alsace and Lorraine, and is to be suzerain of Belgium, Turkey, and Austria.

What a mistake the Russian idealists make in appealing to the mercy of tile Allies before appealing to the honesty of the Huns! In the "Daily Sketch" recently there appeared a portrait of the late Commander Willy Petz, for whom the Huns claim that he sank 51,000 tons Dutch shipping in a single day. The Duton are neutrals. Germany is supposed -*>o be on terms of peace and amity with Holland. Why did the Germans sink the Dutch ship's? Why have they sunk American, Spanish, and Danish ships? Why jhave they murdered over 500 Norwegian hundreds of other neutral sailors? So that they may be able to annex Belgian, French, Polish and1 Russian territory, and place their iron