§ EARL RUSSELL rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether arrangements cannot be made to facilitate the employment of prisoners of War; and to call attention 1109 to some of the difficulties that are now put in the way of those desirous of employing them.
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The noble Earl said: My Lords, owing to the rapid march of events since I put this Question on the Paper, its subject-matter is perhaps going to disappear very soon, and it might hardly have been worth while asking it. But since I put it on the Paper I have received a letter from another noble Lord which shows that I am not quite alone in my experience. He says—
I have experienced considerable difficulty. This time I applied for prisoners of war to cut cord wood and clean up after timber felling as soon as they could be spared from harvest. I asked for six and got three, but after a few days they were taken away, and I am still without any. It is impossible to employ prisoners of war if they are to be taken away at any moment, and if one is only to get a few days work at any time.
§ That was my personal experience too. I was told that I could have prisoners of war by applying for them. Sure enough, without any difficulty, six prisoners and an escort were provided. I procured several extra tools to enable them to do the work, and they worked for one week. After that they disappeared, and I have never been able to get them again, nor have I been able to obtain any real explanation why I could not get them. I was ultimately advised to write to the Colonel of the district, and he merely said that they were not available. As a matter of fact, I fancy that in West Sussex—the county of which I am speaking—there were a good many German prisoners of war, but I do not know whether they were all employed or not. So much for my own experience.
§ I also have had experience of another matter where it seems to me that prisoners of war might have been employed if it had been possible to find out how to get them, and to get over the serious difficulties that there seem to be in having your applications considered by anybody responsible who can give you a reason why you can have them or why you cannot. I am referring to the tin mining in Cornwall. The Government are anxious, I understand, to get tin, particularly to get tin produced in this country, but in the particular mine with which I happen to be connected we have never been able to get German prisoners. I am told that we could get them if we applied in the proper way, and further efforts will be made.
1110§ What I thought when I put the Question down, and what I could not help feeling, was the fact that there were several thousands of prisoners of war in this country who were merely a charge on the Government instead of earning money for the Government, as they would be if employed. I have, however, been assured that this is not so, and if all prisoners of war fit to work are employed that really satisfies me. I am indifferent whether they are employed by me or someone else so long as they are profitably employed, and that is really the point I wish to make. But there seem to be extraordinary difficulties in knowing who to apply to, or how to get the prisoners of war. It is also very awkward, as the noble Lord who communicated with me put it, if you are left in a state of uncertainty as to how long you are to be allowed to keep the prisoners when you get them. It makes it difficult to allocate work, and to carry it on with regularity.
§ THE ASSISTANT UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD NEWTON)My Lords, as the House is aware, it was a very longtime before prisoners of war were employed upon any extensive scale in this country. I think that I am within the mark when I say that the war had lasted for something like eighteen months before there was any regular employment of combatant prisoners of war here. I remember very well, long before I had any connection with prisoners, visiting a prisoner's camp and finding, to my astonishment, men who had been imported from a great distance carrying out some perfectly simple work at the camp at very high wages which should have been performed by the prisoners themselves at a nominal charge. As the noble Earl and the House are aware, this difficulty in the employment of prisoners did not arise from any reluctance on the part of the Government Department, but on account of the decision of the trade unions and of the general dissatisfaction on the part of private individuals. It is an open secret that the employment of prisoners was strongly opposed by the various trade unions. This opposition has to a great extent now disappeared. Moreover, every private individual in this country was under the impression that because a man was a prisoner of war he was a dangerous anarchist whose first object would be to cut the throat of his employer and destroy any machinery or anything under his 1111 charge. People have now realised the groundlessness of those fears, and there is a considerable demand for the employment of German prisoners of war.
I may add, to confirm what fell from the noble Earl, that all German combatant prisoners of war in this country who are capable of being employed are employed at this moment, or, if they are not employed, they will be very shortly. As I explained the other day, the only combatant prisoners of war who are not employed at the present moment in this country are non-commissioned officers, who, as the noble Earl knows, cannot be employed against their will under The Hague Convention. The noble Earl's complaint seems to me to refer not so much to the difficulty in obtaining the employment of these men, but to the difficulty of keeping them when they have once been allocated. I understand from the War Office, in cases where men have been taken away at very short notice, that they were only allocated for temporary work, and that if prisoners are allocated, so to speak, permanently to any employer, there is no danger of anything of the sort happening. I do not know whether the noble Earl requires any further information on the subject, but I should like to reiterate that all prisoners of war who are capable of being employed are now employed, and that the War Office is only too glad that their services should be used in the most useful capacity.