NOT A STROKE OF WORK FOR THE HUNS.

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2777, 23 May 1916, Page 6

NOT A STROKE OF WORK FOR THE HUNS.

BRITISH PRISONERS STAND FAST. (By Fredericic William Wile, late • Berlin Correspondent of the *®aily Mail.-") News has just reached me : from "Berlin .whicii ought to make every • heart glow .with pride in the .captive British in the enemy s hands. They, are resolutely refusing to do a stroke of work for Gerlnany. • They are refusing in the face of tempting" proofs that work • means agreeaWe relief from camp drudgery and sorely-needed comforts for body and soul! Their • attitude is of stubborn unwillingness to do anything, remotely capable of helping the enemy to fight their own flesh and blood.' -Work by prisoners of war'is, of. course, wholly voluntary. Aono is compelled to perforin it. The German authorities have adopted a system of refined cruelty to break-, the Britons' determination. . , For some months, especially .in view of .the:'forthcoming Germany /has been .investigating the individual- capabilities of her hundreds of thousands of war prisoners. Men have been allocated to given trades or industries according as their ordinary peace-time occupations •. equip them for this or that work/ They are. then given the_ choice of entering. • the branch for which experience best fits them—miners being sent to the'collieries, •artisans to the munition, factories, agricultural labourers to the farms. Rather good wagfs are .paid in almost every case. With these wages prisoners are enabled to purchase various comforts withheld in camps, chiefly proper clothing, boots; and food. • "Working prisoners who have spent their.wages in acquiring those "luxuries" are then sent back to camp. with their ■purchases openly displayed-nothing being allowed to enter ,in wrapped-up parcels, tlio idea being that tho sight of these , precious articles and the knowledge-how they may be acquired will so arouse the envy of the "bull-necked British" that they will eventually decide to procure them for themselves. •

Up-to-date, I am assured, tie number of British prisoners who have been 'broken" is infinitesimal. -It is almost as small as the - number of Irish Who yielded to the seditious blandishments of bir Edger Casement, who for more than a year has been engaged in a frantic, though fruitless, attempt to .form an Irish Brigade" for the Kaiser. It is said that a "company" of sixty odd Irish \ prisoners is Casement's muster, and the efcory is in circulation in. Berlin, that _these are soon to inarch against the British.