I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency’s note of the 30th ult., and of subsequent notes informing me of the attitude likely to be adopted by the German Government with regard to the measures that have been taken in this country for the detention of German subjects of military age. The decision of His Majesty’s Government in this respect being clearly irrevocable, the communications which you were good enough to transmit did not appear to call for an immediate reply, although, as your Excellency is aware, the German Government threatened, and have since carried out, reprisals against British subjects in Germany. At the same time, I hope in due course, when the measures taken here have assumed a definite form, proper consideration having been given to reasonable claims for exemption as regards particular categories of persons, to address your Excellency further on the subject, with a view of obtaining the release at least of British subjects in Germany who correspond to those categories. I may state at once that no Germans over the age of 45 are being arrested.[13] I should, however, be glad if your Excellency would endeavour to bring home to the German Government that His Majesty’s Government are faced with a problem which does not apply to the same extent in Germany. There are, roughly, 50,000 Germans resident in this country, and the presence of such large numbers of the subjects of a country with whom Great Britain is at war must necessarily be a cause of anxiety to the military authorities who are concerned with taking adequate measures for the defence of the realm.[14] In detaining persons who might, in certain eventualities, become a source of danger to the State, His Majesty’s Government are only acting in accordance with the dictates of a legitimate and reasonable policy, and they would be clearly lacking in their duty to the country if they neglected to safeguard its interests by allowing the continuance of possible risks to the public safety. In proceeding as they have done they have only had this one consideration before them, and it has never once been their intention to indulge in a domestic act of hostility towards German subjects as such, or in any way to inflict hardship for hardship’s sake on innocent civilians. Every endeavour is being made, as Your Excellency is aware from Mr. Chandler Anderson’s report on the concentration camps, to mitigate the inconvenience to the persons detained, and to provide the best possible treatment for them under the circumstances.