REPRISALS.
[To WC Emma or rat -srscrows."] Sia,—As one of the instigators of drastic action against German unchivalrous conduct in warfare, I think my fellow. culprits will join with me in appreciation of the general tone of your last week's article. The measure of their guilt must be left to their several consciences; but my convictions sur- vive in their original nakedness, and I am unashamed. It is a hopeless task to treat war as though it were a moral abstrac- tion susceptible to, or governed by, moral precepts at every point. Modern humanity has tried to infuse into this loath- some business of war some measure of mercy, pity, and reverence ; therefore should any nation evince a tendency to throw back to primitive ferocities, and to reinvest brute force with savage attributes alone, will you kindly suggest the means by which such a combatant can be summarily checked? If you preach to us about good examples, or proffer the modification of some Continental boundary, or the acquire- ment of a "mashing " indemnity as a setoff to the smashing of Westminster Abbey, you leave us colder than the slash in the Belgian trenches. In your article you say : "If we a:tacked Cologne Cathedral we could not complain if the Germans attacked the Louvre, and Chartres and Amiens Cathedrals." Precisely ; but why postulate ourselves as instigators or originators of such unholy proceedings ? My suggestion was, and is, that Germany should be plainly informed that if she shall commit any outrage involving the partial destruction of, say, Westminster Abbey, we shall retaliate on. Cologne Cathedral "by return of aeroplane." Germany knows that we should keep our word, and this announcement of a definite and inexorable intention would become an insurance against her calculated sacrilege and our reluctant reprisal. But why this ascription of absolute immorality to the word "reprisal "P Its etymology seems to be innocent of guilt. I was careful to exclude a certain form of reprisal which is universally condemned, and to admit the abrogation of the old, grim exaction of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But, after due warning and as a measure of insurance, I would demand an aisle for an aisle and a shrine for a shrine. Reprisal is a commonplace of warfare. What is a counter-offensive, following upon an unsuccessful attack, but a form of reprisal ? And what element of Admiral Beatty's action in the North Sea was so acceptable to the public as the feeling that it was a reprisal inflicted on the men who found the range of the non- combatants of Scarborough and Whitby? If the Germans insist upon importing into this war unnecessary and unmilitary attacks upon sacred or historic buildings, the simplest deterrent is to provide an object-lesson sufficiently near to their short-sighted eyes to ensure that they see it. There is such a thing as to be, like Thiel Heep, too 'amble; and there are offences and aggravations which create nothing but close agreement with the aim of the operatic Mikado to make the punishment fit the crime." The only other adequate preven- tive of further irreparable damage would be the fearlessly outspoken condemnation by a great neutral Power determined that its protest should command attention. As that is not forthcoming, what alternative have you to propose P—I am,
[We have no alternative to propose, because we do not believe that two wrongs will ever make a right. The analogy between a counter-attack, military or naval, is not sound, as so accomplished a dialectician as our correspondent has, we expect, already seen. We will fight our enemies, kill them, and destroy their batteries and ships. with all the gusto imaginable, but we will not deliberately fire towns, shoot hostages, murder women, or destroy cathedrals, however many the examples they may set us in such Devil's business. And this policy will be the winning as well as the right policy.— En. Spectator.]
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