these embellishments were purchased from German firms.  The result is that to-day some of the quarters are as attractive and as comfortable as a flat.  When the camp is broken up these articles will have to be left behind.  Although under the hammer prices will and must rule low, in the aggregate many thousands of pounds will be realised.  What is to be done with this 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 countries which has taken place, because those who were left behind were deprived—­through no fault of aught but the German authorities and their ridiculous regulations—­of their wage-earners.