CHAINING PRISONERS
SIR,—It will not be in a fit of hot-blooded rage that the German High Command have put into effect their threat to manacle British prisoners, but as the result of a coldly calculated plan. They are aware that they have reached the limits of this year's offensive in Russia, limits so dis- appointing as likely to imperil German morale. They are aware also that their most imminent danger is now from the West, and that in order to combat it their people must be energised with a new uprush of hatred directed this time against ourselves. So, with cold cunning, this fresh brutality has been planned, in the belief that we should answer in kind, and thus provide them with the means necessary to whip up their people to the required pitch of hatred-energy, and enable them to press the process further and further—always as retaliation for further British crimes.
We have threatened to reply, as the Nazis anticipated, by chaining German prisoners. What shall we gain by dancing thus to the Nazi tune? Shall we help our men thereby? No, on the contrary. We mistake the Nazis if we imagine that reprisals in kind, upon which they have calcu- lated, will do anything but make things harder for our men. When we bomb German cities we are careful to state that our object is not reprisals, but, by destroying Germany's factories and communications, to weaken her capacity to make war. By chaining German prisoners we neither help our men nor weaken Germany's war effort. We merely play into the hands of the Nazis by 'giving them the fuel they require for their new hate-campaign, and by lowering ourselves to their level, lower our cause and our own self-respect. The most effective reply is to refuse to play the Nazi game, but to add this new brutal breach of law to the list of crimes to be dealt with when victory is won.—Yours sincerely,
GORDON EVANS.
International Club, 66 7esmond Road, Newcastle-on-Tyne, 2.
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