THE WAR-CRIMINAL QUESTION Stn,—I am a little surprised that i po one
has answered Mr. W. B. Howell's letter which advocated the redurtion of half the population of Germany by starvation, and I am also a little surprised that you, Sir, by printing his letter, should have presented Goebbels with such excellent propa- ganda. Of course it is possible that the letter was a leg-pull and that Mr. Howell is laughing at me for taking it seriously. I hope that is so. But should he be serious, may I register my protest against the sugges- tion that we should copy Hitler, Himmler and the rest of the Nazi gang? Their cold-blooded cruelty to the Russians and the Poles, and especially their attempt to exterminate a whole race (the Jews), has profoundly shocked all non-Germans, and probably if the truth were known a good many Germans, too. We did not know that human nature was capable of such monstrous cruelty, and it is the determination to stop this sort of thing once and for all which is the chief incentive to our troops to defeat the Germans. And now we are asked to use our victory (when we have won it) to do precisely those thingi which we are fighting against. What is the use of defeating Hitler by force of arms if we allow him to defeat us by his poisonous spirit?—Yours, &c., R. V. H. BURNE. 5 Abbey Street, Chester.
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