WAR OFFICE ACCENT

Evening Post, Volume XCII, Issue 55, 2 September 1916, Page 13

WAR OFFICE ACCENT

MEN OF GERMAN EXTRACTION IN INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT.

How many persons of German extraction are employed in the Intelligence Department of the War Office? asked Sir Heavry Dalziel in the House of Commons last mouth.

- "I do not know how far back my right lion, friend contemplates that 'I should go," answered Mr Tennant. "On the assumption that he is referring to two generations the answer to this question is, Two. (Laughter.) Sir Henry Dalziel: Does my right lion, friend deny that a man of German extraction speaking broken English is now employed in the Intelligence Department of the War Office?

Mr. Tennant: I don'lt happen to be acquainted with him, so I cannot sa.y; but I said tliere were two.

Sir Henry Dalziel: Does the right lion, gentleman thing it right, that at the present time men of German extraction should be employed in the Intelligence Department and have access to most confidential information and have the opportunity very often of seeing it before the Secretary of State for War does? (Loud cheers.) Mr. Tennant: The gentlemen I had in contemplation are both the sons of persons naturalised before the birth of the persons concerned, and on© of y whom is a member of this House. One of them lias a maternal grandfather who is a German. 22,000 UNINTERN'ED Mr. Samuel said that uninterned aliens in the country (outside of London) were: Germans. 2100 men, 2250 women. Austrians. 1200 men, 900 women. In the House, subsequently, Mr. Samuel said London's enemy aliens still at liberty were: "Germans. A 951 man, 4418 women. Austrians: 3796 men, 2654 women. Of the Germans, 2018 were men of military age. About 32,000 male enemy aliens were in internment, Mr. Samuel said. All, with the exception of about 200, were of German or Austrian nationality. About 23,000, including a- small proportion of British-born children, had boen repa-. triated and 4000 more had been allowed to leave the country.

Our pathetic dependence upon imported food, writes a correspondent to the Chronicle, was brought home to me the other day by the items of a dinner just easUm by the domestic hearth. The lamb came from Canterbury (New Zealand), the potatoes from Spain, the boiled lentils (which go very well with lamb) from Italy. I presume the mint in the mint sauce was English> and probably the vinegar, but the sugar was Barbadoes sugar. The fruit salad which followed contained cherries and OTanges from Spain, apples from Tasmania, and honey from Australia. With this went a rice mould, in which, of course, only the milk was English. The analysis of such a meal as this shows, in a microscopic way, what the freedom of the seas means to the modest householder.