IMPRISONED IN GERMANY.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 204, 6 May 1915, Page 2

IMPRISONED IN GERMANY.

CASE! CF BRIT-fH SOLDIERS. NEUTUAL ENQUiREiVS STATEMENT. The treatment of .;.■; Lis'ii prisoners of war: in Germany is evidently causing widespread anxiety in the country.net diminished in any way by the statements of disabled men who have been exchanged and permitted to return home. According, to one of the returned officers, officers are fairly well treated, but the men hav e a bad time. If they don't obey an order at once they are ! kicked, and the food is in some cases indifferent and unsuitable. According to Private Palin, of the South Lancashire Regiment, the guards treated the men brutally, waking them up in the morning by prodding them with bayonets. The food consisted chiefly of stewed chestnuts, stewed horse beans, stewed barley, and somthing like stewed grass. The prisoners had coffee on rising but no bread till 11 o'clock. According to other prisoners, black bread and coffee and soup are the main features of the dietary. Some camps, however, are very much better in every respect from others. , A correspondent of tha London livening News, w!ho has done impotent work on behalf of a neutral State in regard to the exchanges of civivlian prisoners between Great Britain and Germany,- write s the following letter regarding ( the 'treatment of British prisoners:A NEUTRAL'S VIEW. As a neutral and a member of a reCognised; committee, it i-, and has been for months past, my privilege to travel between the "enemy countries" in search of missiv.g friends and relatives, to escort wo:r.e~i and children who cannot return u: ne, and '.o visit 'ihogc who are either interned or merely detained. While I have not recently been allowed to t ..it English in the samps in Germany, I am closely in touch with those who have done so,arid while English prisoner? in Germany do not fare quite a s well as German prisoners in England, they are not, en Mi a •c'.hole, treated badly. Where there 'a unusually severe treatment it is !',-U3 ; lly because of seme individual . flicial rather than the intention of tha Government. In referring to the treatment of English in Germany there should be some definite distinction made between Germany and Austria. I am permitted '.;> visit prisoners in Austria, and have ' 'i:>.\ the pleasure of bringing back '"..'•m'Austria quite a number of ladies children. In Austria and Hungary thera are altogether only about 200 English interned. These are either officers in lli« British Army, men who :■:■-,:, irivcn. some sr-r- : v- n.civs !>■•: •'".h" ; i' being interned, or i"hn«e v-1k: o.re rrr-stitute. Thej are treated much »h tilie mill- ; '■■:■■',■ prisoners ar e in England, ca.v.tl^s', : >\ rem-ote districts r.re used as pvipons, '.'-. > food is good and "suJTl.'uent, I•• > ' '"K'rian Government would supply •,'ny necessary clothing, but as there was some delay from official red tape, the American Ambassador to AustriaHungary, Mr F. C. Penfield, has supplied, at his own expense, clothes, blankets and s'hoes both for English and French prisoners. One of the young men attached to the Embassy •.vent to each of the campg and attended personally to the distribution of th e things.

So far as the English who are notinterned are concerned they are not permitted in public restaurants and places of amusement frequented by o.Ti.cers, otherwise there is little interference v/iilh their ordinary life. They are permitted to continue in positions they held at the outbreak of the war, and there are no public demonstrations against the lEjngliish language; one teilks it on the street, in the shops, and on the trams without suffering any annoyance. Women and children r-.vr under no restrictions and do not even require a police permit to leave the country; tittey are quite free to go at any time and by any route they desire."