and Ireland, as is understood here to be the case. It is known
here that many of the Germans interned belong to the labouring
classes, and that their position is actually improved by their
internment, and it is recognised that the British Government has
the right to arrest persons when any well-founded ground for
suspecting them to be spies exists. Great popular resentment has
been created by the reports of the arrests of other Germans,
however, and the German authorities cannot explain or understand
why German travellers who have been taken from ocean steamers
should not be permitted to remain at liberty, of course under
police control, even if they are compelled to stay in England.
The order for the general concentration of British males between
the ages of 17 and 55, which went into effect on the 6th inst.,
was occasioned by the pressure of public opinion, which has been
still further excited by the newspaper reports of a considerable
number of deaths in concentration camps. Up to the 6th
considerable liberty of movement has been allowed to British
subjects in Germany,[16] and, as you were informed in my
telegram of the 5th, many petitions were received from them
setting forth the favourable conditions under which they were
permitted to live and to carry on their business, and urging the
similar treatment of German subjects in England. I cannot but
feel that to a great extent the English action and the German
retaliation has been caused by a misunderstanding which we
should do our best to remove. It seems to me that we should do
all in our power to prevent an increase of the bitterness which
seems to have arisen between the German and English peoples, and
to make it possible for the two countries to become friends on
the close of the war.

I have, etc.,
JAMES W. GERARD.

_Mr. Harris to Mr. Gerard_.

Frankfort-on-Main,
November 9, 1914.

Sir,--In a letter of the same date as this I have referred to
the return from Giessen of four officers sent to Giessen, and
returned again to Frankfort and to Nauheim, from which they
came. I referred in this letter to the commander of the XVIIIth.
Army Corps h