s of our idle prisoners.

It has never occurred to us, or if it has we have ignored it, that
without contravening the law of nations, prisoners can be made to
feed themselves, and be employed in any industry, provided they are
not put to work connected with the war.

It has never occurred to us that we have in our midst many of the
trade secrets of a country which for generations has been our rival in
commerce.

It has never occurred to us that Germany has in her midst men who hold
the trade secrets of our empire, and is learning them day by day by
the employment of our men in her industries.

If we neglect this problem any longer we may find that when the world
resumes its normal trade activity Germany, on this point at any rate,
will have scored a commercial victory.

The nations of the world are at war. But the armies of to-day are
civilian armies, comprising men of industrial and commercial
education, and the prisoners of to-day are men of commercial and
industrial value.

Our adversaries have been quick to recognise this. We seem to be still
imbued with the idea that the German soldier in our midst is simply a
fighting machine!

So he is. But when the time came for the civilian to take up arms and
supplement the professional fighting force, there fell into our hands
an industrial fighting machine in the guise of a military prisoner.

We have the impression that a military prisoner is an individual whose
one desire is to escape and jump at our throats; and that the safety
of the nation compels us to stand over him with a bayonet and regard
his every movement with suspicion.

Yes, I do not deny that a very large number of prisoners in our midst
would be glad to get back to their homeland, especially if there was
no further prospect of having to face the British in the firing-line.
But keep a man idle for months behind barbed wire, like an animal in a
cage, and you encourage his desire to escape far more than if you
diverted his mind by industrial employment.

Have we not a barbed wire supplied by nature completely surrounding
our country? Are we not on an island?

I had many opportunities of talking with our men in Germany and of
gaining information as to the manner in which the German authorities
were taking advantage of the problem we avoid, or occupy our time in
idle discussion.

I will take one concrete example. In Hameln Lager the commandant has
charge of 50,000 prisoners, of which 30,000 are "li