Colonel LAWSONasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give the House any information about the British officers condemned to solitary confinement; and whether the conditions, especially at Cologne, have been in any way improved in consequence of the report made to the German Government through the American Ambassador as to the treatment of the submarine prisoners in this country?
Mr. PRIMROSEI would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the report by the United States Consul-General at Cologne on the treatment of the thirteen British officers interned at that place which appeared in the Press this morning. The reports on the remaining four officers have not yet been received. On three occasions I have communicated with the United States Ambassador in London asking him to inform Mr. Gerard by telegraph that, in view of Mr. Lowry's report, the thirty-nine officers should no longer be subjected to special treatment. The only answer yet received is that the German Government will send the thirty-nine British officers back to their former quarters as His Majesty's Government desist from the special treatment of the German submarine crews.