Bandoeng. Java. July 25.
Making the first visit ever made by a foreign correspondent to a wartime concentration camp in the East Indies, I saw 800. Germans yesterday living in an old fortress on the coast of central Java where they are interned under conditions which appeared to be excellent, writes B. Shulmers, United Press Staff Correspondent.
The old fort stands amid luxuriant tropical hillsides and capes extend ing out into the sea. The Germans, who were placed under detention when Germany invaded Holland, are permitted to hike through' the bitis and were obviously in fine physical condition T saw the Germans engaged in a ball" game" when I arrived at. the fort. T was shown the fort canteen which was heavily stocked—with food and an adequate supply of non-alcoholic drinks and cigarettes.
The German prisoners are given 500 grams of bread. 175 grams of meat, 230 grams of rice and rations of butter, cheese, tea, coffee, sugar, vegetables and milk Germans with whom 1 talked expressed appreciation of the comparative freedom they have been sivan in the hills around the fort Officials at the concentration camp said conditions there would stand comparison with conditions in camps anywhere in the!
They denied German" press reports which alleged that German prisoners here had been mistreated.
The Germans are housed in thirty arge rooms of the fort. Each has, been supplied with a mattress, mosquito net and other personal equipment.—United Press Generous Gifts from The Empire London, July 25.
Since the outbreak of the war large numbers of generous and valuable giffs, both in cash and kind, been made by Colonial Govern: ments and private individuals and organizations both to the Gov ment for the prosecution of the war and to various war charities, declared Mr. G. H, Hall, Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, in reply to a question in the House of Commons Cash wits, including loans free of interest but not including gifts in kind, amounted, he said, to over £9,250,000, The list of these gifts is very long, and "includes over "20,000 bottles of rum for the British forces from. the JJamaica Central War Assistance Committee and £1.12s. from the Swab community of Eldama ra Kenya, 5 'Tanganyika tribes have presented money and, in some instances, a proportion of' each person's harvest of coffee and maize for the use of the King's African Rifles.
The inhabitants of Trista da Cunha sent a large parcel of woollen comforts made by themselves.
The chiefs of the Northern Province of Nigeria are making a voluntary contribution of five per cent. of their salaries, but it is noteworthy that an offer of £200 by the Oran native administration of Calabar prov ince, in Nigeria, was declined by
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.