PRISONERS OF WAR.
1 IiE discussion in the House of Commons on Weduesday 1_ as to the treatment of British prisoners of war in Germany disclosed a curious variety of information. There was some evidence that prisoners had been treated brutally, and other evidence, not less worthy of credence, that even if consideration bad not been shown to them they bad so far suffered nothing in their physical well- being. Sir Henry Dalziel said that the treatment of the British wounded had not been such as was to be expected from a civilized nation. Our men on their way to the bases bad been exposed to the hatred of the people; food had been shown to them at railway stations and withheld from them—a shocking refinement of torture. In the camps the men were insufficiently fed and had often sold their clothes to obtain food, and it was notorious that the British prisoners were set to do the foulest work. Lord Robert Cecil, who referred to the undoubtedly strong and widely spread public feeling on this subject, thought that the Government should Lave taken the country into their confidence and allayed anxiety by stating exactly what steps they were taking to inform themselves about the conditions of the German camps, and to secure an improve-
ment in them. We heartily agree. Judging from Mr. Neil Primrose's statement, we believe that the Foreign Office have taken a wise course in their indirect negotiations with Germany, and that these negotiations are likely to result in a helpful scheme ; but there is no reason that we can think of why we should not have been told how affairs were progressing. There has for a long time been much anxiety here, and surely this is a case in which secrecy was quite unnecessary. On the contrary, a strong public opinion would have given power and shape to the Government's request for American co-operation. On the whole, however, Lord Robert Cecil's evidence did not awry him so far as that of Sir Henry Datziel. His conclusion was that, though officers ma7 have been treated "with great roughness and brutality in all the amenities of life," they had not been subjected to any injurious hardships. As to the circumstances of the men he could not feel so sure. In the conflicting state of the evidence it was very difficult to come to a just conclusion. He thought it unfair to say that parcels were not delivered to prisoners. He concluded that as a rule they were. But of course there was confusion, and the safest way was to send parcels not through private agencies but through the post.
Mr. Neil Primrose said that there was a tendency to exaggerate the harshness of the treatment received by British prisoners. At the same time, he would he the last to affirm that the treatment was proper or adequate. The important point was what the British Government were doing on the assumption that the conditions ought to be improved. He had been asked why when the German Government were allowed to Bend an American representative to inspect our prison camps we had not demanded a similar right. The answer to that very natural question was that the Government had another and, they thought, a better scheme, and while this scheme was being pressed they did not think it desirable to demand also that an inspector should be allowed to visit the German camps. The scheme was that officials from the American Quartermaster. General's Department should work at Berlin under the American Ambassador, and try to establish relations with the prisoners' camps. The officials would distribute food, money, clothes, and every- thing that was required. This proposal was made five weeks ago, and when after a month no answer bad been received from the German Government, the Foreign Office made the alternative suggestion that a neutral inspector should be allowed to visit the German camps. Fortunately the Government had since received information that Germany would probably agree to the original scheme. The American Ambassador was already in possession of money for distribution ; .027,000 was sent to him some time ago and £20,000 last week. This seems to us a prudent and practical plan, except, as We have said, that it need not have been accompanied by a misplaced secrecy. We may be sure that if American officials are entrusted with the scheme they will carry it out most industriously and zealously. They have already earned our deep gratitude by their unfailing help in Germany. We thus have fair hopes of better things. But suppose the worst—suppose that Germany after all upsets the scheme, and at the same time refuses to allow any inspec- tion, while ugly reports of ill-treatment continue to reach this country. In such a case we fear there may be a renewal and augmentation of the demand, which is already perceptible, that there should be some sort of retaliation against German prisoners. No doubt the demand would be put in some form designed to rob it of moral ugliness. It would be called a demand for "the justice of corre- sponding treatment," or something of that sort. It would be none the less a demand for physical reprisals—always an odious and perfectly useless policy. Before a desire for any such policy has the opportunity of growing up in the minds of ow. countrymen, who may be moved by very natural and in itself righteous indignation, and perhaps by the haunting thought of wrongs inflicted on persons dear to them, we desire to protest as earnestly as we can against all methods of reprisal. We are glad to see that Lord Robert Cecil uttered a strong'
and excellently worded warning on this subject in the House of Commons. We protest not only because we hold reprisals to be wrong—two wrongs can never make a right —but because we object to reprisals on purely material grounds. They injure those who inflict them even more than they injure the victims. It may be said that by reprisals we should induce the Germans, for the sake of their own friends, to treat our prisoners better. This would remain a mere assertion. History does not offer any instances of reprisals serving as efficacious argument.. Our one motive for treating prisoners with humanity and consideration should be that our self-respect requires us to do so. Let us avoid the unconsciously ridiculous posi- tion of the political candidate who said : "I have always behaved fairly and honourably, but if my opponent insists on descending to dirty and caddish tricks he will find that two can play at that game." A. soldier who fights for an organized society which answers brutality with brutality must tend in some degree to become brutalized himself. lie may be a man of much kindlier and saner instincts (as often happens) than many of the civilians who stay at home and coquet with thoughts of frightfulness ; but if his ideals become dimmer he is by so much the loser. There never was a war like this war, for every British soldier has gone into it an educated and sentient man, knowing what he is fighting for, and approving of the object from the bottom of his heart. He is an idealist, because he fights for an ideal. He wears, so to speak, on his breast the decoration of humanity. It he lowers his ideal and is forced to consent to methods which were certainly un- dreamed of at the beginning of the war, the decoration will disappear from his breast. He now has the tre- mendous moral impulse of feeling that he is a champion of chivalry. He will not fight better if he loses his hold of that idea. He will almost certainly fight worse. And if to refrain from reprisals is the profitable policy in the case of each individual man who lights on our side, it is also the most prudent policy—we argue here again on material grounds—for the nation. Germany is much more likely to seek peace reasonably soon if she sees from plain evidence that every German captured by us is treated considerately, as by a people who remain in full possession of their senses—perfectly cool, calm, dis- passionate, and just. She will argue from that that, though we shall certainly deprive her of the power to repeat her present criminal adventure, she will not have to fear the sort of malicious and vindictive penalties which are to be expected from a nation that is thoroughly "rattled."
The spirit for us is the spirit of the beautiful inscription on the monument at Chatham to French prisoners of war of a hundred years ago :—
"Here are gathered together
The remains of many bravo soldiers and sailors Who, having once been the foes, afterwards the captives of England, Now find rest in her soil.
Remembering no more the animosities of war Or the sorrows of imprisonment.
They were deprived of the consolation of closing their eyes Amongst the countrymen they loved, But they have been laid in an honourable grave By a nation which knows how to respect valour And to sympathize with misfortune."
Let us mention also a passage from flume's history quoted by Sir Graham Bower in an excellent letter to the Morning .Posf of Wednesday. Hume is describing the campaign of Edward DI :—
"The French officers who had fallen into the hands of the English were conducted into Calais, where Edward discovered to them the antagonist with whom they had had the honour tabs engaged, and treated them with great regard and courtesy. They were admitted to sup with the Prince of Wales and the English nobility, and after supper the King himself came into the apart- ment and went about conversing familiarly?'
We fear that some Englishmen are falling into such a frame of mind that if Edward III, reappeared and acted in the same way to-day he would be told that he was a traitor or a spy, instead of one of the greatest of English soldiers. Let us stun our enemy in the field with giant blows ; let us if necessary annihilate him by shells and bullets and bombs, and every kind of new explosive we can invent. But let us not come down to the expedient of " taking it out" of prisoners who are in our hands and at our mercy. In conclusion, we must say a word about the Admiralty announcement as to the treatment of the crews of the German submarines who have been taken prisoners. It is a difficult question, for we admit that it is necessary to mark our reprobation of the criminal errands which the German Government have sent their submarines out to perform. But after all the officers and men of these engines of assassination are only doing what they are ordered to do. Not one of us in the position of a Lieutenant command- ing a submarine would disobey the orders of his superiors. It is the German superiors who are the real criminals. It is the men who have invented a diabolical method of warfare and require their subordinates to carry it out who must, if possible, be brought to justice and shame. The wretched instruments of the policy are not the men on whom to visit our wrath. Those Germans who are ashamed of their policy—and we fancy there must in secret be many— will grow more ashamed if we offer them the con- tinuous spectacle of a startling contrast. It may be, and indeed we think it is, the fact that the Admiralty announce- ment means only that the prisoners from submarines are not to be treated with marked consideration, but that their comfort and well-being, according to all the usual customs, are to be ensured. If that is so, we have no objection to make. But the announcement was not very happily worded, and the misgivings it has aroused in many minds are, we are glad to think, a measure of the jealousy with which the typical Englishman watches the whole question of the treatment of prisoners. If we were asked exactly in what spirit the prisoners from the submarines ought to be treated, we think we should say : "Treat theta thoroughly well. But you needn't ask them to lunch."
Previous page
