This is a very different method from the fantastic proposals
one reads in some newspapers, that for every town in Belgium or France henceforth destroyed by the Germans a German town should be destroyed as a reprisal. When the war is over and people have time to reflect coolly, we think they will be astonished that such proposals should have been made and should have received some measure of support. It would be simply barbarism and vandalism to destroy towns ; yet, odious as those things are, we should not resist them if they could serve any demonstrable military purpose, or could possibly instruct the Germans in better ways. But of course they could serve no such purposes. It is useless to destroy material things in order to try to punish somebody. This is the act of a child. The true way to punish people is to make them pay in their own persons or in their pockets, or in both. That is the real value of the admirable French warning which has been addressed to the Germans.
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