There are, I am reminded, two sides to the German
prisoner question. One side—a growing repugnance to the employment of forced labour in this country a year and more after the end of the war with Germany—has found adequate expression in the corre- spondence columns of this journal. The other, which has been very temperately put to me by an employer who has had a number of Germans under him for some months, is that these men are, in the main, willing workers so long as they are reasonably treated ; that they realise and admit that they can properly be asked to make this contribution to the payment of reparations by Germany ; that they are really learning something beneficial to them of the working of democracy in this country ; and that their efficient labour has been and still is a quite indispensable factor in the maintenance of our food supplies. It is added that the men are, in fact, almost always well treated both by their employers and by the officers in their camps. Personally, I still feel on balance that the sooner we get rid of prisoner-labour the better. But I am glad to give opportunity for a brief statement of the opposite view. * *
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