BIND THE MURDERER!

Wanganui Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15198, 19 April 1917, Page 7

BIND THE MURDERER!

M.P.'S SLASHING REPLY TO PEACE RESOLUTION. A BRAVE NEW ZEALAND SOLDIER. In a slashing letter, Major W. A. Chappie (M.P. lor Stirlingshire and formerly of Now Zealand) replies to a resolution of the local branch of the I.L.P. urging the Government to enter into peace negotiations (says the Auckland Star). "I have your letter," he writes, "with- the resolution of your branch urging tiie Government to'enter into peace negotiations with Germany and asking for support. I have seen the horrors of this war—the broken bodies on thoir beds of pain, the broken hearts of those bereaved, the awful mutilations that must be carried to the grave, the wnste the wanton, wicked waste of how-.s and towns and piled-up treacures, th? fruit of sweat and tearsr-and I solemnly o.eclare that for the man who makes war upon his fellows, with the raoh'n v,evfons of dectruction, there are no torments made in Hell to fit his crime. If such a. man there be, and such a aati'-n, every babe in every cradle, tvevv mother in her home, every maiden tn.s-tlng chivalry, every Christian knowing Cliript "cries to you and me, and all wh.> wcnl.l have peace secure, to bind th.?m fast. Such men there are in Germany, but none in Britain. Our as a nation is clear, and posterity, even German posterity, will acquit us of every lot and part in the causation of this Avar. Germany designed, prepared for, and consummated this bloody raid upon mankind with no other justification than the foist of power, the price of an insane egoism, and the desh-e to use a military machine she thought she had brought to the highest pitch of destructive nerfeotion. Before the war uermanv'was free to trade and travel everywhere. Our Navy never' abused i's power. We never built a port or policed an ocean route that was not as free to Germany and on the same terms a-? it was to ourselves. Germany had no le-. gitimate complaint against her neighbours or against us, or against the world. When in July, 1914, she showed her/claws and teeth, we did all we could to pacify and restrain her. We asked for delay, we urged a conference, we, humiliated ourselves by offering to befriend iier if, in the future, she were 'aggressively attacked, we appealed to the treaties she had signed, we even wore designedlv the aspect of a coward unwilling to help France lest Russia might be emboldened to some act of aggression. What more could mortal man or nation do? We had to defend our country and our honour or die—and worse—deserve it. And now the burglar of the nations must be caught: iiw murderer must be bound. He is still at large. To say. "Yes, we will negotiate a peace' when he is brandishing a sword in the homes of our Allies and claiming to be victor, imeonquered, unrepentant, free to claim the triumph of his bloody creed, and start again with his second wind, is to t&row away a victory of good over evil. ... I am operating surgeon to limbless men. In answer to an inquiry, a mutilated soldier, who had lost i a lower limb, and was awaitiiTg, after many mouths of suppuration and pain, another and a gTaver operation, said: 'I left Scotland foii New Zealand, and had a nice little home there and a growing business, and I left it all for a bob a day and—this.' With a grim smile he, raised his shrunken hand f*om the counterpane and indicated his broken body. But his aspect changed in an instant. j His eyes flashed, and his face took on I the stern, sot look of the man who knows and feels and does, and he added: 'But I don't regret it; I'd do it again.' You, with yonr country uninvaded, yotir fcomes secure, your wives unviolated, yovir bairnies safely 'eud<TU?tL doon,' your'work continuous, and your purses 'full, think what, you owe that man—and such as he. If you respect and value him and them you will not ask for peace before the victory comes for which they gave so much."