Yet, however excellent the impression may be, an internment camp is a miserable place.[27] It is, of course, especially miserable for those whose nature is at all sensitive, and it is surely such men whom we shall need everywhere if we are to make a less brutal world. Man after man has gone into internment seeking to employ himself and to make the best of it. For months, for a year, less often for nearly two years he has succeeded. But slowly success has dwindled and turned into failure. The monotony, the sense of oppression, the physical and mental discomfort, the deadly uselessness of the life—even where to these things is not added concern for those outside—have made him incapable of fixed attention, incapable of effort, incapable of rest, alternately nervous and torpid, fearful, despairing. The “barbed wire disease” has him in its grip at last. “Another winter interned here,” wrote such a one, “and I shall need a padded cell.” He had a fine nature and had struggled hard. But “the people outside do not understand.” Certainly, there are those who can hold out to the end. I admire and envy them. I do not think any of us could predict with certainty that we should not give way. There is only one remedy short of stopping the war, and that is the release of all civilians. Those who wish to remain, either in Germany or here, should certainly be allowed to do so, and if the police have no case against them, and if they can support themselves, they should be set free. Others should be repatriated or sent to neutral countries. The imprisonment of civilians is against the usage of war, and it is this fact which gave force to the claim of the German Government that there should be complete release on both sides. I append extracts from a Swiss appeal to the belligerents on behalf of the civilian prisoners. It was issued in August, 1917, and has already appeared in _Common Sense_. A civilian is not a prisoner of war. We gladly acknowledge that the belligerent powers have effectively lessened the sufferings of the prisoners of war with an intelligent understanding of their duty; the military authorities have listened favourably to the proposals of the Red Cross, and already the soldiers have been spared many unnecessary sufferings. Humane measures have softened the captivity of military prisoners. In the name of Justice we now address this urgent appeal to the authorities in the belligerent countries to adopt the same attitude towards civilian prisoners.