FOREIGN LABOUR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 October 1941, Page 5

FOREIGN LABOUR

VAST ARMY EMPLOYED IN GERMANY RECRUITERS FOLLOWING ARMIES. NEW SOURCES BEING TAPPED. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, October 1. The German weekly paper “Deutsche Volksivirt” says (hat the number of foreigners employed in Germany has now reached the gigantic figure of 1,700,000, not counting 1,500,000 prisoners of war. The paper reveals that labour officials follow up the armies step by step, and immediately the fighting dies down they co-operate with the military in causing the native population to resume work or in sending labourers wherever they can bo directly employed in Germany. "Politically Germany is stronger than in the last war" it states. “She can exert greater pressure on all the European countries to fulfill her needs, especially as the unintended effect of the British blockade is to create a surplus of unemployable labour. The jobless at home are a serious social /problem, but from Germany they can send money.” The.paper instances Belgians saying that the Belgian workers in Germany have sent home 800,000,000 francs, but it does not mention that this was paid out of the occupation charges levied on Belgium. “The absorption of labour in the Reich also relieves the provisioningdifficulties in the countries contributing labour." it adds. "Germany is looking out for new sources of foreign labour, which may be sought in the near future in Spain, the Baltic States and the Ukraine.”