And when, in more
recent times, the devilish ingenuity of science invented poisonous
gas, there was nothing unmanly or unchivalrous in retorting on
our German enemies with the hideous weapon which they had first
employed.
But this is not the kind of reprisal which indurated orators demand.
They contend that because the Germans kill innocent civilians,
and women, and little children in English streets, Englishmen are
to commit the same foul deeds in Germany. "It is hard," says the
_Church Times_, "to say whether futility or immorality is the more
striking characteristic of the present clamour for reprisals in
the matter of air-raids.... Mr. Joynson Hicks would 'lay a German
town in ashes after every raid on London,' and he is not much worse
than others who scream in the same key." Nay, he is better than
many of them. The people who use this language are not the men
of action. They belong to a sedentary and neurotic class, who,
lacking alike courage and mercy, gloat over the notion of torture
inflicted on the innocent and the helpless.
A German baby is as innocent as an English baby, a German mother
is as helpless as an English mother; and our stay-at-home heroes,
safely ensconced in pulpits or editorial chairs, shrilly proclaim
that they must be bombed by English airmen.
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