The Washington herald., 1920-03-19
|BAIFOUR URGES
GERMANS TRIAL
|Deplores Long List Of War
Criminals But Terms 1t
Necessary.
FRENCH ASK REVENGE.
Hundreds Of individuals
Demand Redress for
Specified Wrongs.
FRENCH ASK REVENGE
CBy ARTHUR ,. BALFoUR.)

(By ARTHUR J. BALFOUR.)
(Former Premier and Foreign Min.
lister Of Britain.)
The British government has al
ways been most anxious to keep
down as far as possible the number
OF Germans charged with war
crimes. because enormous lists pro-
duce a kind of shock on public opin-
ion both in Germany and other
countries and among heutrals, and
ii Is the kind of shock that you
would gladly avoid IL you could.
The British government had no
opportunity of examining other peo-
pies lists. but We examined our
own. and our list. which is between
80 and 100. includes nobody who did
an illegal act because he was or
dered to do It and was not going
beyond his orders.
A Captain OF q submarine who was
given orders quite contrary to the
law of nations, but who carried out
his orders without excess of bru-
tality beyond his orders is not at
tackled.
Only Punish BrutalIty.
We said: You cannot very well
punish a man for doing an act which
IL he did not do he would be shot
by his own country. People in our
list Of submarine commanders are
those who, we believe, on evidence
which has been examined by those
who are competent to form an opin-
ion. have gone beyond their orders
with regard to the sinking of mer-
chant ships, and have behaved with
a quite gratituitous brutality on
their own account to their unhappy
victims.
The lists Of other countries are
much larger than the British lists.
The total of 800 Is chiefly made up
OF the lists of Britain's allies. I
nave had an opportunity Of talking
with M. Clemenceau upon this very
subject. He felt as we British feel
that he would rather have a shorter
list from every point Of view.
But" he said, what can I dog'
A woman comes to me from a viii
lage in France, tells me that her
daughter was carried Off: gives me
an account of crimes which makes
ones blood run cold; says the au-
thor of those crimes is known; gives
AZ the particulars and all the facts.
Is that man to be unpunishedr"
An Unanswerable Argument,
What" said NJ Clemenceau. "am
to reply to a woman who makes
that sort of appeal1" oonfa.. 7
was dumb. Can you tell the Door
woman that the scoundrel of whom
her daughter was the victim must
be let off in the general Interest,", I
could not say that to NJ. Clemen-
ceau. II / had. what answer would
he have given me?
1 only moEtion that to show the
kind of difficulty there is in dealing
with these cases.
i am entirely in accord with Lord
Robert Cecil, whose view is that the
man in the highest place. clearly
and personally guilty, not in any
merely ministerial or mechanical
capacity, but personally guilty, of
any OF these crimes, ought not to
be allowed to ecape.
i am sure that we agree that these
minor instruments of crime who go
beyond in their brutality of their
orders ought not to be allowed to
escape. II that be the principle, as
hope Ii Is, on which the general
list Is framed, much as 1 regret the
number of criminals, as at present
advised 1t seems to me very difficult
to find any principle on which It
can be reduced.