AMONG the suggestions for treating our German prisoners, the public has misunderstood that emanating from the Government. To utter the word “reprisals,” when we know right well that the whole sense and tradition of this country would rise in rebellion against any such system, is to speak in vain. Moreover, other and juster lines of action are within our reach. It has been suggested that we should treat our prisoners exactly as Germany treats hers; but since her system is beneath the accepted standards of humanity, and such as no civilized country could practise without loss of self-respect, that course remains unjustified. A worthier way would seem to be that those responsible for the crime are made to suffer, and that, instead of doing injustice now by punishing men not to blame for our enemy’s cruelties, we exact justice after the war is ended and then look to it that all—chiefs and subordinates alike—who have tortured and starved the Allied prisoners, in military or internment camps, should be brought to pay the penalty for their cowardly villainies. That will lie within our power; and did Germany clearly understand the intention, it is reasonable to hope she might take steps to save herself from the consequences of her brutality. Moreover, the threat is no mere thunder, for though the country is still in ignorance, still buoyed by false news and fatuous communiquÉs, those at the helm know well enough the Central Empires are on a lee shore of ultimate defeat.

With some truth these boys, spectacled students and stunted human failures swept into the net of France’s prisoners, may echo their “all-highest” and say: “We did not want to do it.” They, indeed, did not, and who can feel for them much more than pity? Such men are not even good cannon fodder; and no more striking comment on the passes to which Germany is coming in her efforts to fill the failing lines need be sought than in the material our prisoners often reveal. She has, indeed, many thousands more of the cream of her manhood to destroy before the end; but to offer such feeble stuff as this to the combustion of war cannot long delay the final need.

SeÑor Gomez Garrillo, writing as a neutral in the “Gaulois,” has told us how the British, though fully realizing the hatred of the German people, do not echo it; for they see in their prisoners only unhappy men, to be treated with compassion and respect. That is not a spirit that will be found on the losing side of the World War.

EDEN PHILLPOTTS.