The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-04-28
Kitchener Condemns the
 Treatment of Prisoners
(Continued from Page One,

tates of humanity, if we should be con-
 tent with anything less than that" l Lord Lansdowne, opposition leader in
 the House of Lords declared the charges against Germany of callous inhuman treatment of prisoners had been proved
 to the hlt, but that England had reason l to be grateful to the American govern
 ment for the way it had seconded the ef- forts of it's Secretary of State to secure redress.
 | Lord Lansdowne said he deplored the fact that the admiralty had been forced
 to take recourse in reprisals against cap- tive German submarine crews. The real culprits, he declared, were the German government, which had given them their
 ruthless commissions. He added that sufferers at the hands of the Germans might be compensated by levying on Ger man property in Great Britain.
 l Lord Cromer. former British agent and consul general in Egypt, declared there was a strong feeling in the army against the policy of the admiralty regarding the l treatment of German submarine prison | CTS.
 l Lord Lucas. president of the board of | agriculture, stated on behalf of the gov
 ernment that the special treatment for captured submarine crews had been adopted not as a policy of reprsal, but as an expression of the highest moral disapprova of German methods. The treatment of the submarine prisoners, however conformed to the provisions of l The Hague convention.
 1 He was glad to announce, Lord Lucas
 stated, that the German government had 1 given James w. Gerard, the American ambassador to Germany, permission to | visit the prisoner camps, and he and the
 government hoped that Mir. Gerard also
 would be permitted to investigate the
 treatment of the s9 British officers who
 are being held in prison as a reprisal against Great Britain's treatment of Ger man submarine prisoners:
 1 London, April 27.--(5:22 D. m.)--War 1 Secretary Kitchener told the House of | Lords today that British prisoners had
 been insulted, maltreated and ever shot | down by their German captors. Tn a
 statement to the house on this subject | he said in part:
 1 T have been forced with reluctance | to accept as indisputably true the mal-
 treatment by the German army of Brit ish prisoners. The Hague convention
 has been flagrantly disregarded by
 German officers. Our prisoners have | teen stripped and maltreated in va rious ways, and in some cases the evil
 oence goes to prove that they have been shot in cold blood. Our officers.
 even when wounded have been wan l tonly insulted and frequently struck |"
 Earl Kitchener said that as a SOL | dier he hitherto had always held Ger. 1 man officers in respect but "constart | testimony that has come in not only | from our own escaped prisoners but l from French, Russian, Belgian and American sources, has brought it home to all who have sifted the evidence that the inhumanity displayed by the German authorities toward British
 prisoners, especlally,-is beyond doubt l. Disregard Hague Agreements
 The secretary quoted articles from |, conventions adopted at The Hague re-
 lating to treatment of war prisoners
 and asserted they had been f1agrantly disregarded by German officers. lIc added: T think it only fair and right to