THE TREATMENT OF GERMAN PRISONERS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLII, Issue 10111, 19 October 1917, Page 4

THE TREATMENT OF GERMAN PRISONERS.

Sir James Allen ought to know, if he does not, that the pampering up of such German prisoners as find their way lo this country isi arousing wider spread feelings of indignation in thq community. The question asked by Mr Voifceh, M.P. for Wanganui, in the House of Representatives last evening, opens up to the public view a running sore that should never have been allowed to exist. Why should Germans, who have been engaged in wholesale murder, and in piratical doings that ivould have disgraced even Captain Ividd, be provided with first-class and sleeper accommodation on our railways, and saloon passages on our. .steamers, when our own men are denied such comforts? The censor iioiwitkstanding, it was freely reports in Palinerston, Keilding, and other places along the line, that the party ol raiders from the See Adler were being conveyed to Auckland, and that they were travelline; first-class and receiving attentions to which their utter disregard of the laws of God and man most certainly did not entitle them. There is much in the policy of the Defence Department that hits caused the public irritation and feelings of exasperation against the Government, but nothing has aroused greater indignation than its methods of dealing with enemy aliens and actual prisoners of war interned in Wellington and Auckland. In asking for notice of Mr Witch's question, Sir James Allen made another of those tactless blunders that mar the otherwise excellent workhe has accomplished in his administration of the Defence Department, ft is inconceivable that ho could have been ignorant of facts known to "the man in the street"—facts that have, metaphorically speaking, 6et the latter gnashing' his teeth and abusing the Government for its failure to respond to tho common desire that our German prisoners should be treated in the same wav as the Hun treats bis prisoners. Why should tho country be at tho expense of maintaining men in comfort and luxury who have conspired against its peace and who would, if the opportunity offered, hand New Zealand over to the Kaiser? They should at least be made to earn their own living, even if no other occupation than road making could be found for them.