1937/08/31 上海ベイビー資料
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１.『The Sydney Morning Herald』Page 10
TUESDAY, AUGUST 31, 1937.
THE BRITISH NOTE.
It may be confidently assumed that the public in Australia, no less than In Great Britain, will give its whole-hearted approval to the terms of the Note which the British Government has addressed to Japan in consequence of the attack made upon the British Ambassador to China by Japanese military aero-planes last Thursday. The attack, which was made as the Ambassador was proceeding by car from Nanking to Shanghai, and which resulted in his being severely wounded by a machine-gun bullet, constitutes an outrage without precedent in modern history. There can be little doubt that such a breach of international law would have resulted in immediate reprisals had the victim been the representative of any of the totalitarian Powers. The British Government has refrained from any such precipitant action, and has contented itself with addressing a Note lo Japan which, though stem in tone, makes no harsh or humiliating demands. No question of monetary reparation is raised, nor is any formal compensation demanded. All that is sought by way of redress is a formal apology from the Japanese Government, the suitable punishment of those responsible for the attack, and the assurance that effective measures will be taken to prevent the recurrence of such outrages. Such restraint and moderation In the face of extreme provocation provides the modern world with a badly needed object-lesson in clvllised statesmanship, and it is profoundly to be hoped that Japan will not be so foolish as to confuse self-control with weakness. Japan probably realizes that not Britain alone, but America, France, and other Powers of like mind in the conduct of war, are incensed at the outrage, and that her reply ^111 not mitigate the feeling t of indignation unless' It meets the demands of the British Government in adequate terms.
But perhaps the most commendable feature of the British Note 5s that it directs its main protest, not so much against the specific attack committed upon the person of the King's representative in China-though that outrage is suitably dealt with-as against what it describes as "the wider significance of this event," With conspicuous fairness, the Note acknowledges that the Japanese aeroplanes may not have intended to attack the British Ambassador as such. The primary offence is that they carried out a wanton and deliberate attack upon non-combatants, and it is with the rights of non-combatants that the British Government is most expressly concerned. It is, as the British Note points out, "one of the "oldest and best-established rules of "international law that direct and "deliberate attacks on non-combatants "are absolutely prohibited, whether "inside or outside the area In which "hostilities are taking place." Military aircraft are In no way exempt from the obligation to observe this rule, which obtains its validity from the most elementary concepts of common humanity. From time immemorial those who have disregarded it have earned the execration-of mankind. The wounding of Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen assumes a special Importance because-in the words of the Note-it affords "an outstanding example of the "results to be expected from indiscrimi-"nate attack from the air."
There is no more deplorable tendency in the world to-day, nor any more menacing to the very future of clviilsation, than the tendency for military aeroplanes and aerial strategists to disregard this time-honoured rule that the immunity of non-com-batants from attack must be respected In time of war. Even when used for ' strictly military objectives, the bombing aeroplane constitutes a serious, if inevitable, threat to the traditional rights of non-combatants, though perhaps not very much more serious than that presented by long-range artillery. Death and destruction can hardly be rained from the skies, in the form of either aerial bombs or long range shells, with any great exactitude of aim. But this steady, and in itself distressing, growth In the exposure of the non-combatant to the hazards of ordinary warfare Is a very different thing from the deliberate selection of the non-combatant as an object for aerial attack, as has recently been done by the Germans and Italians in Spain and by the Japanese in China. The unspeakable holocaust of Guernica, the ancient and undefended capital of the Basques, made the world recoil with horror some weeks ago. During the past week-end, the Japanese perpetrated an equally barbarous outrage on the conscience of humanity by deliberately massacring from the air by bomb and machine-gun several hundreds of defenceless Chinese refugees, crowded together in the railway station at Nantao awaiting escape from the war zone. Such attacks on non-combatants spring from a new doctrine of frightfulness, against which a stand must be made If clvillsation is to survive. It is with this vital issue that the British Note is most concerned.
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