New Britain herald., 1916-02-03
PRISONER OF WAR
 NO FARM HAND
Has Natural Aversion to Work
 for Enemy

tcorrespondence of tn~ Associated Press,s
 Vienna, Jan. 26-Austrian and Hungarian land owners and farmers are not particularly impressed with the value of Russian and Serbian prisoners of war as farm laborers. Accounts from all sides generally support the old saw, You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink"
 A On the whole, the prisoner of war as a farm hand seems to have been 8 failure. This is true for other rea- sons than that the prisoners have natural aversion to work for their enemies. One of the great handi- caps has been that the Russian ard Serb farmers who were selected to work on the Austrian and Hungarian farms, were for the greater part un trained in the rather intensive farm ing methods employed in the dual monarchy. Though the men were shown how to go about their work most of them failed to understand the reason why 1t had to be done a cer- tain way. Others who did understand preferred to be careless, when not under the eyes of the overseer and guards. But few of the prisoners of war took any interest in the work. Patriotic feelings appear to have been an active deterrent for most of them.
 Has Splendid Crop.
 That Austria Hungary had d splen- did crop this year is due to unusu ai- ly favorable weather conditions. With an ordinary "crop year" and prison CTS of war on many of the farms, the country would have fared badly, say those familiar with conditions. It is asserted that the accession in crop returns due to the labor of the prisoners of war is hardly equal to what the Russians and Serbs held in Austria-Hungary will themselves consume during the year.
 1t seems, however, that the labor of prisoners of war was more produc- tive in other fields of endeavor, es- pecially is this true where the Rus s@&ns and Serbs remained altogether under the control of the military. In building roads and railroads no op- portunity for shirking was given. Each gang had to do a certain amount of work; results were immediately visible and therefore susceptible to prompt correction, which was not the case in farming. The engineer troops under whose surveillance rail road work was done could not be easily fooled by the prisoners of war while the farmer had he wanted to supervise his involuntary farmland closely, could have done the work himself. Since most of the old reser- vists guarding the prisoners ofhrwar were city people no improvements from that direction could be expected.
 Obtained Better Results.
 German farmers who employed Russian prisoners of war are said to have obtained better results, though the Associated Press corresponds cannot say that large landowner =: the Brandenburg province with whom thusiastic over the prospects of ha, - ing to raise another crop with the a.d ofprisoners of war. He said that in addition to being most unwilling workers. the Russians he had e,r. pIoyed failed to learn rapidly, thou 'h he had the services of an able inter preter.
 The handicaps of language have been sorely felt by both sides, of course. An improvement in this si1- uation is now expected. Many of the Russians and Serbs have learned Ger gan and Hungarian sufficiently we'll