PEOPLE MOVED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 43, 20 February 1940, Page 7

PEOPLE MOVED.

RESCUE OF SEAMEN. "Satisfactory Sequel To Graf ! Spee Scuttling." ENTHUSIASTIC COMMENT. British Official Wireless. (Received 2 p.m.) RUGBY, February 19. The whole of the daily Press displays the news of the rescue of the 300 British merchant seamen from the German auxiliary vessel Altmarck with great prominence, and comments enthusiastically on the Navy's action, which is universally heralded as an eminently satisfactory sequel to the victory of the River Plate, which resulted in the scuttling of the Altmarck's mother ship, the Graf Spee.

The "Manchester Guardian" states: "The skill and speed and conclusiveness of the deed, and the circumstances of the unhappy seamen —one moment crowded like slaves in a prison ship, humiliated and ill-fed, and told they were to be marched through Berlin * triumphant procession, and next eailing home safe in a British warship—have moved the people even more than the Graf Spee victory." In referring to the legal aspect of the Altmarck case, "The Times says: International law does not permit a belligerent to transport his prisoners.of war through the territory of a neutral. He cannot march them across neutral land, nor can he convey them into, or through, neutral territorial waters. "If a ship carrying prisoners is teken into such waters, the law requires that the prisoners be immediately released. The first duty to release them rests upon their captors, as was clearlyrecog_ nised by Captain Langsdorff of the Graf Spee, who set free his as soon as he entered Montevideo Harbour.