On the right of the British line — Part 71

So he is. But when the time came for the civilian to take up arms and supplement the professional fighting force, there fell into our hands an industrial fighting machine in the guise of a military prisoner.

We have the impression that a military prisoner is an individual whose one desire is to escape and jump at our throats; and that the safety of the nation compels us to stand over him with a bayonet and regard his every movement with suspicion.

Yes, I do not deny that a very large number of prisoners in our midst would be glad to get back to their homeland, especially if there was no further prospect of having to face the British in the firing-line. But keep a man idle for months behind barbed wire, like an animal in a cage, and you encourage his desire to escape far more than if you diverted his mind by industrial employment.

Have we not a barbed wire supplied by nature completely surrounding our country? Are we not on an island?

I had many opportunities of talking with our men in Germany and of gaining information as to the manner in which the German authorities were taking advantage of the problem we avoid, or occupy our time in idle discussion.

I will take one concrete example. In Hameln Lager the commandant has charge of 50,000 prisoners, of which 30,000 are "living out"! They are working out in commandos on the farms, in the factories, in the workshops; in large batches, small batches, and even singly.

I met one man who had been employed alone in a wheelwright's shop. He was a wheelwright by trade. How many wheelwrights' shops are there in England which could do to-day with one of the wheelwrights we are keeping idle behind barbed wire?

What information did that man's employer gain by the way the work was done? How simple the method of obtaining the labour: simply go to the labour bureau attached to the imprisonment camp nearest to your workshop, and ask for a wheelwright. You keep your industry going, and thus in the only practical way keep open the job for the man who is called to the colours.

The employer pays the man no wages, but the local trade-union rate of wage is paid to the commandant who supplies him. Thirty thousand prisoners from a single camp contributing to the industry of the nation, and the wages of 30,000 prisoners contributing to the cost of the war. The prisoner receives through the commandant 30 pfennigs (3d.) per day, and is glad of the employment.