money? Who is to have it? Scores of buildings have been
erected with money drawn from the common fund. Is any compensation going
to be paid by the German authorities for the fruits of our labour and
ingenuity which will fall into their hands? We have paid for all the
materials used out of our own pockets, and the work carried out upon
these lines already represents an expenditure of tens of thousands
sterling. Are the prisoners to lose all that?

The community is run upon the most rigid business-like lines. Nothing is
given away at Ruhleben. This explains how we have built up such a
wealthy camp treasury. The Camp Authorities govern the concerts,
theatrical and vaudeville entertainments, troupes, band, newspapers,
programmes--in short everything. Individual enterprise has but a
negligible scope in Ruhleben. The initial outlays have admittedly been
heavy, but the receipts have been still larger, so that there must be a
big balance somewhere. It has not all been spent, and the question
arises as to what will be done with the accumulated funds.

To convey some idea of the possible and profitable sources of income it
is only necessary to explain the system of handling the prisoners'
parcels. These are sorted in a large building. I learned that a parcel
was waiting for me by perusing the notice-board. I presented myself at
the office window to receive a ticket which I exchanged for the parcel,
the ticket serving as a receipt for due delivery. But the ticket cost me
one penny! Seeing that the average number of parcels cleared every day
is 3,000, it will be seen that the sale of the necessary tickets alone
yields roughly L12 per day or over L4,000 a year. Recently the price of
the ticket has been reduced fifty per cent., but even at one halfpenny
the annual income exceeds L2,000. This one branch of business must show
a handsome profit, and there are scores of other prosperous
money-yielding propositions in practice in the camp.

No matter how spendthrift the treasury may be the accumulated funds must
now represent an imposing figure, because, with only one or two
exceptions, everything is run at a profit. Will the camp treasury carry
the precepts of communal trading to the logical conclusion? Will it
distribute the accumulated funds among the prisoners, pro rata according
to the term of imprisonment, at the end of the war? If that is done it
will serve as some compensation for the break-up of homes in Britain and
other count