Wairarapa Daily Times [Established 44 Years.] SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1919. PROPOSED GREAT TRIAL.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 45, Issue 13751, 1 February 1919, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [Established 44 Years.] SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1919. PROPOSED GREAT TRIAL.

Little by little it is becoming plainer that the world-wide demand for a trial of those guilty of causing the war which we hope soon to se3 definitely ended must be yielded to. What five-sixths of the people of the earth, all law-abiding, call for from the remaining sixth—now hopelessly at variance with itself —cannot be refused, and there is no doubt, we take it, that in due time the Kaisers of Germany and Austria will lead a guilty company of conspirators against the peace and good order of the world. Austria has already notified us that she intends to bring to bcok those of her own people, from the Emperor Karl downwards, who are accused of bringing their own country into the condition in which they have left her. That, however, may not be sufficient for the Allies, who will, doubtless, not forego their own right of independent trial. Apparently under present conditions in Germany there will be forthcoming no strong objection to the surrender of the Kaiser, and with him that Potsdam band of conspirators who —apparently without question—-were responsible for willing the war, starting it, and carrying it on as long as their power lasted. We have, indeed, heard already that the present Government will make no opposition to the demand of the Allies for the Kaiser's extradition, and he himself evidently expects to be brought before a tribunal to answer for his crimes. One pro-Kaiser journal threatens Holland if she dares to surrender the sacred peson, but Holland is essentially the home of international law, if it

have a home. And it is by international law that the criminals are to be tried. That may mean something a great deal vaguer than would be found in the various national codes, but we take it that in the/records of the Hague Conference alone there will be found ample condemnation for the most glaring of German crimes. Evidence is being at once brought forward and destroyed. Both from Austria and Germany we have learnt of the destruction of papers that would have incriminated both Vienna and Berlin. On the other hand, other evidence has been published, and more is promised. From Berlin we hear of the discovery of documents having marginal notes inculpating the Kaiser. We are quite prepared to believe all these things. German reputation for lying is such that for her to be discovered by accident telling the truth—unless she had something to gain by it — would be immediately taken as proof positive of some new and specially dangerous plot. It is for that reason that Allied statesmen and their staffs have become so wary where Germany is concerned. It is their business to safeguard the future, and to do that they must lay a foundation in truth, honesty, right and justice. Overlying layers of falsity must be cleared away, and then it will be apparent to the world that the future safety wo look for is dependent on two things, one to be decided soon, the other to last perhaps for centuries yet to come. The first of these is the infliction of personal punishment on the causers of war; the second is a proof, plain for all the world to see, that war-making does not pay. If the hanging of a score or two of high-placed criminals secures the first, such bills as England's £8,000,000,000 should suffice for the second.