One important point remains to be dealt with. The British
Government have announced that if the Germans do sink hospital ships immediate reprisals will be taken. Reprisals are of many kinds and many degrees. We are far from saying that reprisals in some sort may not be both justifiable and effectual. But there is one kind of reprisal—the only kind apparently contemplated and recommended by a certain class of mind when reprisals are in the air—which we hope and believe will never be employed, and that is reprisals against innocent persons. The shooting of hostages degrades and demoralizes the nation which does it ; the killing of prisoners is a disgraceful violation of a contract entered into with each prisoner when he was allowed—it may have been unnecessarily and far too generously allowed—to surrender. The threat of punishment against guilty persons, however highly placed, not excepting the Kaiser himself, is a different matter altogether. We shall win our way to the position of being able to inflict such punishment. The Germans have ensured that for us. The most halting spirit will be nerved to a truly awful resolution by the damnable intention of the Germans to sink hospital ships for purely military reasons. By moral turpitude they are delivering themselves into our hands.
