On Tuesday both Houses of Parliament discussed the painful details
published in the recent White Paper as to the treatment of British prisoners of war in Germany. In the Lords, Lord Kitchener spoke with much feeling of the dis- graceful treatment the prisoners had received. Lately there did appear to have been soma improvement, due to the American visits of inspection, but he had been forced to accept as incontestable the evidence of cruelty. The Hague Convention had been flagrantly disregarded. "Our prisoners have been stripped and maltreated, and in some cases evidence goes to prove that they have been shot in cold blood." Germany, who boasted of herself as a great military nation —and he admired her fine military skill and courage—bad stooped to actions which would stain her military history for ever. Her actions were comparable to those of the barbarous Dervishes of the Sudan. " I do not believe," he said, " that there can be a soldier of any nationality, even among the Germane themselves, who is not ashamed of the slur thus brought on the profession of arms." We are very glad to say that there was no demand for reprisals. These were felt not only to be wrong in themselves, but to be futile as a policy. As Lord Newton well said, "in a competition of brutality we should be outdistanced immediately."
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