The outburst of frightfulness in the North Sea where German aeroplanes have been ruthlessly bombing and' machine-gunning defenceless trawlers and the like is obviously vengeful retaliation for the success of the British cruisers in forcing the commander of the Admiral Graf Spee to scuttle his vessel, Such craft, as those which have been attacked have no power to reply, and consequently place no very great tax upon the bravery of the navigators of the German machines to attack them, It is unlikely that the world will be note horrified over this latest exhibition of complete disregard of the canons of ordinary decency, for Herr Hitler and his accomplices have already given it a complete surfeit, so much so that Nazi disregard for the laws of warfare has now come to be taken so much for granted that when a German officer behaves with chivalry towards his foe it becomes news. These attacks on shipping in the North Sea, regardless of the nationality of the victims, are not only in complete contravention of recognized legal requirements, but of the very assurance of Herr Hitler himself, The Nazi Government freely signed the Anglo-German Naval Treaty of 1935 including clauses regulate ing the use of submarine for commerce warfare, Those restated the existing, law and forbade the destruction of merchant ships at sea, enemy or neutral, unless the crew, passengers and ship's papers are first removed to a place of safety, and then only if the merchant man resists capture, When, in the spring of this year, Herr Hitler denounced that Treaty, afier his invasion of Czechoslovakia, he declared his continued adherence to the rules of war on commerce,: Those rules apply with equal force to aeroplane warfare against merchant vessels, but the world has long come to regard Herr Hitler's assurances as nothing else han things to be broken whenever it suits his purpose, Der Fuehrer would not be running true to form if he ever kept a promise,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.