10 
LAND &? WATER 
September 26, 1918 
Punishment Before Peace: By Harold Cox 
ALTHOUGH the Entente Powers have emphatically 
declined to enter into the peace negotiations 
which Austria invited, there is still some doubt 
in many minds as to the conditions which are 
essential to a satisfactory peace. That victory 
must precede peace we are most of us agreed ; for, though 
the professional pacifists and the International Socialists 
keep themselves constantly in the limelight with their never- 
ending conferences, they are only a stage army. The plain 
man in every country' is — fortunately for the world — too 
strongly affected by primary human instincts to ignore the 
fundamental duty of national defence. It is, however, 
quite possible that as' victory draws nearer a great many 
people will begin to think that victory alone will suffice, 
that it is our duty to be generous to the fallen foe, and 
not to impose on him terms that will leave a sense of bitter- 
ness behind. In any ordinary quarrel that is a sound 
doctrine ; in any ordinary quarrel it is well when the fight 
is over that victor and vanquished should shake hands 
and seek to establish a new friendship in place of the old 
enmity. Unless this were done the world would always be 
at war. But to treat the present war as an ordinary quarrel 
is to ignore patent facts. 
Looking at the world as it was before this war began, wp 
see mankind divided into a large number of nations which 
had succeeded in slowly building up certain rules of inter- 
n.ational conduct. Those rules had been, in many cases, 
embodied in definite international agreements ; in other 
cases, they had behind them the common practice of cen- 
turies. They constituted a well-recognised code of law 
which the world of nations had elaborated for the protection 
of all its citizens. By way of further protection for individual 
national interests in particular cases, specific treaties had 
been signed determining the relationship of certain nations 
to one another. This code of law and these specific treaties 
formed the bonds of international life. The breaking of 
those bonds is not a mere quarrel between particular nations ; 
it is a crime against all "the world. 
The distinction here made is clear enough in ordinary 
civic life. There are private disputes between individuals 
which can be settled in the civil courts ; there are crimes 
against the public which can only be dealt with in the 
criminal courts. If crimes are not so dealt with, and if con- 
sequently they remain unpunished, there is an end of that 
orderly life which human beings instinctively seek and which 
is the necessary condition of human progress. The case 
against the Germans is that they have committed crimes in 
the strictest sense of the word against the world. 
The Belgian Treaty 
Take first the invasion of Belgium. The principal European 
Powers, in order to remove a bone of contention betwete 
rival nationalities, agreed on a treaty declaring Belgium to 
be a. neutral country, and they all bound themselves to 
respect her neutrality. Germany was a party to that treaty, 
and she deliberately bi;oke it. That action cannot be treated 
merely as a matter of private quarrel between Germany 
and Belgium ; it was a crime against the world. Her other 
crimes are too numerous to ca,talogue fully. In defiance of 
the well-recognised code of nations, the Germans have bom- 
barded from the sea undefended towns ; they have sunk at 
sight undefended ships ; they have dropped bombs on Red 
Cross hospitals and on Red Cross convoys. In addition, 
they have introduced into warfare new devices of a cruel 
type previously unused. They were the first to employ 
poison gas ; they were the first to drop bombs from aircraft 
upon unfortified cities. They have systematically robbed 
the civilian populations in the conquered territories, both 
by imposing on the population heavy monetary indemnities 
on any excuse they could discover, and by carrying off cattle 
and horses, raw materials, and machinery to Germany. 
They have ruthlessly put to death thousands of persons in 
Belgium, France and Poland in order to terrorise the popula- 
tion. They have connived at the hideous massacres perpetrated 
by the Turks in Armenia and by the Bulgars in Serbia. 
For these reasons, it is impossible to look upon the present 
war merely as a quarrel between rival nations. The real 
issue involved is whether any nation is to be allowed with 
impunity to violate the code of law that all nations have 
helped to build up for their common protection. Those 
people who say that Germany is to go unpunished in effect 
also sav that there is to be an end of any attempt to establish 
laws to regulate the conduct of nations towards one another. 
For if laws may be defied with impunity they cease to' 
be laws. 
Nor ought the question of punishment to be confused with 
the question of reparation or with the question of an ordinary 
war indemnity. That reparation is due from the criminal 
to the person who has suffered from the crime is a well- 
recognised principle of civil law. It is part of the sanction 
behind the law. In addition, it is perfectly just that those 
Powers, who interfered in the present war in order to protect 
international law and the rights of other nations, should be 
allowed to recover from the criminal the costs which they 
have incurred in helping to put down the crime. To accept 
the principle laid down by the Russian Bolsheviks, and 
foolishly endorsed by some of our own politicians, that the 
war must end without indemnities would be to act entirely 
at variance with the principles of equity that have long been 
recognised throughout the world. The parties that have 
suffered from Germany's crimes and the parties who have 
helped to suppress those crimes are entitled respectively to 
reparation and to indemnities, and if they were to refrain 
.from insisting upon thfiir just rights in this matter they 
would only be encouraging future criminals. 
Just Punishment 
But over and above this compensation due to individual 
States for particular losses or expenses, the world is bound 
to insist upon definite punishment of the criminal for the 
crimes he has committed ^gainst the world. At present 
there is no organisation for applying this punishment except 
the League of Entente Powers. But as that organisation 
has undertaken the task of fighting the criminal, it is entitled 
also to apply the punishment, in default of any other agency. 
Nor are the Entente Powers disqualified from punishing 
Germany by the fact that the question of punishment must ■ 
be financially and territorially mixed up with the questions 
of reparation and indemnities. As long as Germany is 
punished, and as long as the Powers who inflict the punish- 
ment only receive reasonable compensation for the losses 
they have incurred, no wrong is done to any principle of 
international justice. 
In assessing the punishment, we are entitled to take note 
of the fact that if the Germans had been successful they 
would have had no scruple in exacting the uttermost farthing. 
Germany would, in her own phrase, have left the conquered 
nations "nothing but their eyes to weep with." The Allied 
nations have been saved from this fate by their own efforts, 
and there is absolutely no reason why they should spare 
Germany any of the punishment that she has deserved. 
Nor are we justified in drawing any distinction between the 
German Government and the German people. Most nations 
have the Government they deserve, and the Germans are 
no exception. The arrogance and nithlessness which we 
identify with German militarism were openly proclaimed by 
professors, historians, clergymen, and other intellectual and 
spiritual leaders of the German people. Here are a few 
illustrations : 
A German clergyman. Pastor Baumgarten, writes, in 1915 : 
We are compelled to carry on this war with a cruelty, 
a ruthlessness, an employment of every imaginable device 
unknown in any previous war. 
The same clergyman also writes : 
Whoever cannot prevail upon himself to approve from 
the bottom of his heart the sinking of the Lusiiania, who- 
ever cannot conquer his sense of the gigantic cruelty to 
unnumbered perfectly innocent victims . . . and give 
himself up to honest delight at this victorious exploit of 
German defensive power — him we judge to be no true 
German. 
The economist. Professor Werner Sombart, writes : 
War is a holy thing, the holiest thing on earth. 
The zoologist. Professor Haeckel, writes : 
One single highly cultivated German warrior of those 
who, alas, are now falUng in thousands represents a higher 
intellectual and moral life value than hundreds of the raw 
children of nature whom England, France, Russia, and 
• Italy oppose to them. 
. These are sufficient illustrations of the German spirit 
which has led up to German crimes. It is that spirit that 
has to be altered if the peace of the world is to be rendered 
secure ; and we cannot alter it except by punishing the 
German people. 
