The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-08-15
Labor Russian Prisoners Are Now Doing Worth Hundreds of Millions
 to Germany
REPAIR RAVAGES
 WROUGHT BY WAR
 AND TILL THE SOIL
All Prisoners Taken Enables the Sending of So Many More Ger mans to the Front for
 Real Fighting
By RICHARD $. SCOPE

By RICHARD s. SCOPE
 Berlin. August 3-(Special Correspond ence)-Runnng your war with your prls- oners is Europes latest discovery in bel 1gerency By making her prisoners work, Germany is feeding her people, reducing the cost of fighting, and carrying out vast engineering and other works of util- ity. Make the war pay for itsen,' was the preeept of Frederick the Great. He carried it to extremes by exacting money from occupied territory, and by enrolling in his forces captured Saxon army. Germany has enrolled in her service a captured army hundred times greater in size. but instead of making the cap- tives fight for her she is making them work for her, and this is enabling her tt send more and more of the male popu- 1ation to the battle line.
 Germanys enormous economic resisting powers, the failure of the hope of beat ing Germany financially, economically, or by hunger, is due to the fact that Germany is using captured labor. As one class of landsturm men after an- other is called to the colors, the number of male hands in factories and farms decreases. The supply of prisoners is untailng and these provide substitutes The Hague conference rules permit the compelling of prisoners to work, and also requires it. Governments are obliged to provide work, so that prisoners in their years of captivity may not be spoiled. With all her able-bodied men in the field, Germany reaps an advantage rom The Jiague rules. She has d force of skilled and unskiled prisoner labor which is twice as big as her active army in peace time. The prisoners are just the kind or labor wanted. They are strong, obedi- ent peasants used to field work. All that Germany wants to carry the war is arms and food. Arms be supplied by keeping at home small proportion of male workers. The food problem is hard CT The factories have largely been closed: export trade has ceased; nothing can be exported to pay for imported food, and the enemy's superior navies prevent food getting in. The army eats far more than it's constituent members eat when they are civilians: and there is vast number of prisoners to feed. In peace time it takes all the male and fe- male farming popula tion plus about 400. . G0 imported Russian and Austrian la bor- CTS, to produce enough food to feed five siXths of Germanys population. The amount to be produced now is greater and all the male farm labor is enrolled in the army. Yet this year d third more grain is being soWn reaped and gar Eefed than in 1914, and the harvest this year has been got in about three weeks earlier The explanation is: The pris- eners The prisoners do the woIk Every prisoner taken is not only one fighter lost to the opponent, but is also a civil fighter gained to the Germans Today a million prisoners are tillng fields, mak- Ing roads, digging canals and building railroads for transport of the increa sed food supply.
 Organized Them During Winter
 All through the winter Germany has been organizing her new army Of farmers and navvies. Of the present million about S00,000 are Russian and 2oc,000 French Belgians and British count relatively few. Before Christmas there We're 100000 prisoners The first big patches of captives were taken in the Belgian and French fortresses: late Ill August, 1914, Hindenburg made his bis coup of 9o,000 Russians Since then there have been few French. prison- CTS. the biggest batch being 5000 taken at Soissons. The Russians have gone on multiplying. The battles round Lodz i'l November yielded 100 900; the sec ohd battle or the Masnrian lakes in Q February, another 100, 900. then came the battle of Gorlice- -Tarnow and the roconquest by Germany and Austria or Galicia, which cost Russia 800 900 prisoners. of whom 300. 900 fell to Ger. many In the early summer when hard Deld labor beSlns, tens of thousands Of healthy Russians nearly all farm CTS, were sent around labor poor Ger many and all were set at once 10 worl, The hafN est of 1915 Is assured and the future is made clear. If the war continues the prisoners will continue. If the million prisoners increase Ger many viii he able to send her women Into the field and the prisoners will be sufficient to supply all the needs Of civil life.
 Kind of LabOrers Germany Needs
 Seven hundred thousand prisoners are now at work in the fields, on roads and on railroads. They are the kind of men Germany needs. She needs rough workers. Skilled directorate she has Half of the prisoners come from the black earth provinces of central Rus sla. they are used to growing rye the chief German crop, and are used to much the same farming conditions Last September the imperial govern nent foresaw that great numbers of prisoners would be taken. and if de- cided to use them in the way most profitable. Ii asks every prigoner where he comes from and what was his oc cupation The facts are re gistered hy B central office. A register is kept of the condition of the labor supply in every part of the empire in every in dustry. farming center reports that A. is short of labor. A day later come down half dozen foremen carpenters and metal workers; with them a hun dred Russians under guard. The Rus eians are all good men at working woods: they can do with adz work for which German requires half a dozen tools. Under German leading. they make a prisoners fenced com pound. convert houses and barns into sleeping apartments and run up sheds. Within a week the carpenters and