The subject of prisoners was discussed in the House of
Lords on Wednesday. For our part, -we think that Lord Newton made a very good defence of his 'actions. His Department has worked with limited powers, and his concern for the prisoners and his initiative in getting done -whatever the Government allowed him to try to do have been admirable. We greatly regret that it should have been proposed in the House of Lords that German prisoners here should be killed by way of -reprisal. Lord Newton was per- fectly right in saying that the great change in the aspect of the war, and the fact that we have now many more prisoners than Germany has, have made it possible for us to use threats to Germany that would have been futile earlier in the war. But the stronger our position for the use of threats, the less is the excuse for our taking measures of inhumanity. In a competition in brutality the Germans would beat us every time. If we took to shooting prisoners, they might take to burning them over slow fires. They are capable of it. We are not capable of such things.
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