GERMANY AND BELGIAN LABOUR.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1641, 23 November 1916, Page 2

GERMANY AND BELGIAN LABOUR.

THE G(‘nuan “slave raids,” now of daily occurrence, have been long planned. In .Inly lasl, Mr Asquith, speaking in London, said: —-“As lately as last May—and I want, if I ran, to bring this fuel homo to the knwoledge of the whole civilised world —the German Governor-Gen-eral issued a new decree to give increased stringency to the law againsl Belgian workmen who refused to work for their oppressors. There can be no doubt of the object. It is to enable the German invaders to requisition Belgian labour for their own military needs. This new decree imposes heavier penalties <m those who refuse, and it contains further the remarkable provision which. I am about to read and which f hope will be recorded everywhere: —‘Instead of having recourse to penal prosecutions, the governors and military commandants may order that recalcitrant workmen shall be led by force to the places where they arc to work.' In other words, they are to be treated its slaves. This is the (dimax of a policy which has already resorted without success to starvation and deportation to subdue the untamable spirit of these brave men who refuse to become accomplices in the spoliation and oppression of their native laud.”