The different schemes to evacuate children from Great Britain and send them to the various colonies, is welcome, though it can only be a partial solution of the problem of defending all British youngsters from the enemy. Obviously it is quite impossible to evacuate all of them, and in any event will prove a costly business. The evacuation of internes, and, subsequently, prisoners of war seems to be an entirely different matter. Something might be said for putting interned people out of harm's way, for amongst them are most likely innocent persons who are probably only interned upon suspicion, and not upon proof. There is, however, very little to be said for the sending of prisoners of war overseas. Unarmed, they are nct likely to prove difficult to keep in order, and should not require a large number of armed men to do so. That every man available will be needed in the defence of the British Isles goes without saying, and it may be for that reason, and the fear that these prisoners may be able to escape and do damage that this precaution is being adopted. If, however, it is decided upon for a reason of humanity there is nothing whatever to justify it. There would be more to be said for it, it it were the case that the Germans were removing British prisoners of war to safer places, which, of course, they are not. It must not be forgotten that amongst the men in the British internment camps are those who have been responsible for the wanton sinking of ships on the high seas in contravention of the international law governing wartime usages, men who have thereby murdered innocent neutrals. It is true that they were obeying the orders of their superiors, and are not wholly to be blamed, but if they are being moved out of danger for purely humanitarian motives it is greatly to be regretted. They are people who rejoice in war, who glorify it in fact, and the thought that they would receive a further taste of it at the hands of their own race would not, in the circumstances, be wholly unpleasing.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.