isoners of war are subjected in the prison camps,
contrasting, we believe, most unfavorably with the treatment of German
prisoners in this country. We have proposed, with the consent of the
United States Government, that a commission of United States officers
should be permitted in each country to inspect the treatment of
prisoners of war. The United States Government have been unable to
obtain any reply from the German Government to this proposal, and we
remain in continuing anxiety and apprehension as to the treatment of
British prisoners of war in Germany.

"3. At the very outset of the war a German mine layer was discovered
laying a mine field on the high seas. Further mine fields have been laid
from time to time without warning, and, so far as we know, are still
being laid on the high seas, and many neutral as well as British vessels
have been sunk by them.

"4. At various times during the war German submarines have stopped and
sunk British merchant vessels, thus making the sinking of merchant
vessels a general practice, though it was admitted previously, if at
all, only as an exception, the general rule to which the British
Government have adhered being that merchant vessels, if captured, must
be taken before a prize court. In one case already quoted in a note to
the United States Government a neutral vessel carrying foodstuffs to an
unfortified town in Great Britain has been sunk. Another case is now
reported in which a German armed cruiser has sunk an American vessel,
the William P. Frye, carrying a cargo of wheat from Seattle to
Queenstown. In both cases the cargoes were presumably destined for the
civil population. Even the cargoes in such circumstances should not have
been condemned without the decision of a prize court, much less should
the vessels have been sunk. It is to be noted that both these cases
occurred before the detention by the British authorities of the
Wilhelmina and her cargo of foodstuffs, which the German Government
allege is the justification for their own action.

"The Germans have announced their intention of sinking British merchant
vessels by torpedo without notice and without any provision for the
safety of the crews. They have already carried out this intention in the
case of neutral as well as of British vessels, and a number of
non-combatant and innocent lives on British vessels, unarmed and
defenseless, have been destroyed in this way.

"5. Unfortified, open, and defenseless to