The papers of last Saturday published the communications between Britain
and Germany, by way of Washington, as to the treatment of German submarine prisoners in this country. The German Government protested against the British decision not to accord to them "the treatment due to them as prisoners of war," and threatened that "for each member of the crew of a submarine made prisoner a British Army officer held prisoner of war in Germany would receive corresponding harsher treatment." Sir Edward Grey in his reply of course refrained from all similar threats of reprisals. He merely stated the facts that German prisoners from submarines are being better fed and clothed than British prisoners of equal rank in Germany; that they were engaged before capture in sinking innocent British and neutral merchant ships and in "wantonly killing non-combatants"; and that they cannot therefore be regarded as honourable opponents, but as persons who, at the orders of their Government, have offended against the law of nations and common humanity. The reply ends with the reminder that our sailors have rescued from the sea more than one thousand officers and men of the German Navy, although these rescues involved danger to our men and some- times prejudice to our operations. Not a single officer or man of the Royal Navy has been rescued by Germans.
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