Brigadier-General .Curving, Commander of the Kerry Infantry Brigade, has issued
a proclamation that, owing to the treacherous attacks upon military and police convoys, leaders of the Irish Republican Army who are in military custody will in future be sent as-hostages with convoys in the areas where military law is in force. We have always been so strongly opposed to making• hostages suffer for the deeds of others in the manner in which the Germans made them suffer during the war—a manner which is occasionally held up here as an example worthy of imitation in Ireland—that we want to say a few words on this subject. To begin with, General Cuming's method is plainly not the ordinary ill-treatment of hostages to which we have objected. To declare that because " A " has committed a crime " B " the hostage shall be shot by his custodians is horrible and indefensible, and we should express our feelings strongly if this method were adopted in Ireland.
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