June 21, 1917 
LAND ^ WATER 
LAND & WATER 
OLD SERJEANTS' INN. LONDON, W.C. 
Telephone HOLBORN 2828. 
THURSDAY, JUNE 21. 1917 
CONTENTS 
America's Clioico. By Louis Kaemaekcrs 
Use of Reprisals. (Leader) 
The Contrast. Bv Hilaire BeUoc 
Story of the Koenigsberg. By Arthur Polku 
Value of the Mark 
Past and Future. — IL By Jason 
The New Morality. By Arthur Kitson 
The Residue. By J. C. Squire 
The Rocking Stone. By Helen Ashton 
Letters to the Editor. 
Books to Read. By Lucian Oldersliaw 
Village of Messines. 1914-1910. (Photographs) 
Domestic Economy 
Kit and Equipment 
r.VGi-: 
I 
.1 
4 
7 
9 
10 
II 
13 
14 
'17 
18 
19 
20 
23 
USE OF REPRISALS 
THE air raid upon London has )>rovokcd a renewal 
of the discussion upon reprisals, which was prominent 
a few weeks ago. It is as well to get our ideas clear 
upon this matter, becau.se we shall certainly have to 
(leal with it as a matter of policy in the near future. 
The first thing to note is that the problem is essentially a 
military one. It is the character of all war, and of this Great 
War more than any other, that the facts uj)on which alone a 
secure judgment can be based are known to veiy few men, 
and that we simply must trust these men and leave matters 
in their hands if we arc to avoid worse blunders. Only those 
in command of the army and in possession of all the facts, 
can judge whether any machines should be spared for so auxi- 
liiry a form of work as reprisals, what type of machine woulti 
be required and in what numbers, and whether the releasing 
of the machines for this purpose would or would not affect 
our present assured superiority in battle. 
But though the main question is military, there, is another 
aspect of the thing which civilians cannot and ought not to 
lose sight of, for it is a point upon which the civilian can judge 
as well as the soldier, and that is supposing the soldier decides 
that the releasing of a certain number of planes is advisable, 
what would be the poUtical effect cf such a release 
upon the Germans ? That is a matter to be judged entirely 
by our estimate of the German character at the present 
moment and in connection with tliis particular strain. 
Now it is clear from a number of indications that one of the 
strongest supports afforded to the resistance of the enemy is 
the fact that the war has not yet appeared upon his own soil- 
We all know from our own experience how strong that factor 
can be. It produces an illusion and is therefore probably 
ultimately a mihtary weakness, but of the strength of the 
illusion none can doubt. The very change that takes place 
in our own emotions when some considerable raid, hkc that on 
Folkestone or t lie recent one on London takes j)lace, is proof 
of this. Moreover, the modern German is peculiarly subject 
to emotions of this sort. He is very easily led into illusions, 
especially if they are of a sentimental kind, and we have only 
to consult the German Press, the mass of pamphlets issued 
to neutrals, or even the documents dropped over the French 
lines, to appreciate the violent effect upon the enemy's mind 
of anything which brings the war home to him. There is an 
actually hysterical note in the complaints made of the now 
far-distant Russian raid into East Prussian territory, and of 
the successful French aerial bombardments of the Rhenish 
towns. 
There can be little doubt that severe reprisals would have 
a strong military effect in that they would sh^ke the moral 
of the enemy in a much higher degree than our own moral is 
shaken by his action upon tiic «imc hncs. We nuist re- 
member in this connection that the policy is entirely his own. 
No one ever dreamt ol bombarding open towns, especially in 
tliis novel fashion, until the German Government took the 
initiative. Just as no one ever dreamt of sinking a hospital 
ship or attacking civilian passenger ships. In the case of this 
sort of moral anarchy, which is characteristic of the German, 
you clearly liave a perfect moral right to take any steps at 
your disposal to repress and destroy the anarch. Your moral 
right is founded upon the simple and obvious truth that if 
you do not destroy the anarchist he will destroy you and all 
moral order at the same time. We may conclude, there- 
fore, that reprisals of the most severe kind are justified and 
are expedient in themselves. They would have an excellent 
effect and they would be without the least doubt an instru- 
ment towards the winning of the war. But there remains 
the initial quaUtication with which this article opened. Behind 
any discussion or judgment upon the value of reprisals in 
themselves, there runs the primary question : " Do the 
military chiefs approve ? " They alone can decide, and in 
their hands it should be left. If the only men who have 
any accurate or detailed knowledge of .what instruments are 
available and in what number and for what purposes they had 
best be used, decide that the bombardment of enemy towns 
is for the moment a waste of power, it ought really to be 
obvious that civilians must be silent and give them a com- 
pletely free hand — and the word " civilian " here applies 
quite as much U\ the pohtician as it does to the mass of pubhc 
officials. But if the issue be the more general one, which we 
can all judga for ourselves, of whether reprisals (always 
supposing that the mihtary chiefs approve of them) are right 
and should be effected as a matter of policy, then there can be 
little doubt upon the .verdict. 
At the same time, there isa principle to be observed which 
is not often mentioned and which is yet of the utmost value. 
That principle is. the clear definition by the Allies that they 
themselves regard their action as exceptional and only use it 
for the curbing of anarchy and of the peculiar evil represented 
by Prussia in the modem world, and do not intend fcr one 
moment to incorporate it in the precedents of war. 
It is too much the fashion nowadays to laugh at such 
declarations, but if we will but look back over the short space 
of three years, we shall see that the conventions of civilised 
warfare were of binding moral effect upon a 11 Europeans 
until this detestable people broke them. They were 
observed by both parties in Manchuria, in South Africa, in 
the Turkish War. Not only are the Germans responsible for so ' 
awful an exception to Christian morals, but they prove their 
own baseness by the fact that they fell into it as by a sort of 
temptation . Heaven knows that they were vile enough in the 
first acts they committed against the civilian population of 
Belgium — acts for which you will find no parallel in modern 
times. But the deliberate bombardment of open towns, tlie 
sinking of merchant shipping without warning, of hosintal 
ships and all the rest of it, did not come at once. Even 
the Germans were ashamed at first of these things. 
It is of the utmost importance for us all to recollect tliat 
even were we compelled to pay back the enemy in his own coin 
for the sake of our common livelihood, we are not establishing 
a precedent. We are not granting h is right to the abominable 
practices he has initiated, and we have no intention of ]iur- 
suing them in the future, but, on the contrary, of ridding 
Europe once and for ever of the political power which has 
made such things possible. Prussia deliberately challenged 
intelligence and traditions higher than her own. Her action 
\vas like the adtion of an animal which foolishly attacks a 
man, not knowing what reserves of power the human brain 
has against the beast. If reprisals be agreed to by those 
military chiefs who alone have the power of judging the 
situation, the Germans may be well assured they will be 
conducted more severely and with more effect than anything 
they can do against us. The air service of the Allies, and 
particularly the British, is altogether superior to the air 
service of the enemy. It is perhaps the most important 
lesson of this long war in its last stages, and a lesson which 
in this country particularly we should Uiy to heart, that tin* 
Gcrinan is less in civilisation, culture, abilities of every sort 
than the older civilisations which he was mad enough iu liii 
nuiddy pride to challenge. 
