As though to point the necessity of this solemn warning,
a White Paper by Mr. Justice Younger's Committee on the treatment of prisoners of war in Germany was published in the papers of Tuesday. It is a horrible story at which the blood runs cold. The Report, which is based on carefully sifted evidence, describes how prisoners were forced by their German guards to undergo long marches without proper food or drink. Exhausted men, many of them sinking with weakness from their wounds, were driven on at the point of the bayonet or were clubbed with the butt-ends of rifles. At night they were required to lie upon the ground without covering and without shelter. When they reached their place of imprisonment they were fed for weeks on mere garbage, and not very much of that. They were compelled to do long hours of military labour, and often to do this under the fire of British guns. Even when sickness and wounds were bringing them to the point of death, medical treatment and comforts were frequently withheld from them and they died unnecessarily from ill-treatment. They were, in fact, slowly but surely murdered.