ST. OLGA'S SCHOOL FOR GIRL TEACHERS AT NOVO-ALEXANDOFKA
Roman lawyers were not kind to women. The code of Justinian says: "Women are not admitted to political activity," and adds laconically: "Propter animæ levitatem" ("They cause levity"). It is not unnatural if after such a compliment we lose the inclination to trouble ourselves about complicated and sometimes painful public questions. But—God helps the brave! And so, I take courage and step straight into the heart of a resolute and searching judgment on one such painful question: that of our prisoners of war. Men, almost without exception, maintain silence on this point, so why should I not try to investigate the matter? At the present moment our prisoners of war, including Germans, Slavs and Turks, number well over a million—that is, more than the entire army of, say, Bulgaria, Norway or Holland. Through the Press and private sources we know that Germany does not hesitate to make use of the working power of her war prisoners. They are kept hungry, and are forced to earn their bread by all kinds of labour, even purely military occupations.
How prisoners are employed in Germany is described by "The Man Who Dined With the Kaiser," that daring young neutral who penetrated into the heart of the enemy country and brought back much information valuable to the Allies. In My Secret Service he writes:
"At Buda-Pesth the Balkan-Zug was tidied and made presentable. Windows were cleaned by men having little ladders, and the compartments and corridors swept. To my great surprise I found that this work was being done by big bearded men in Russian uniforms. I spoke to one or two of them, but they had very few words of German. They explained that they were Russian prisoners."
What are we doing with our prisoners of war? This indiscreet question never receives a satisfactory answer. Forty thousand prisoners have been placed in Government and private employment, but the remaining mass are twirling their thumbs, languishing in enforced idleness. This hopeless and monotonous inactivity has even here and there developed hooliganism in their ranks. And further, how have we placed the comparatively few to whom we have seen fit to give employment? I have received a letter from a lady landowner of my acquaintance, who tells me that after a long and complicated correspondence, ten prisoners of war were sent to her estate. The men were quiet, polite and respectful, and on their arrival were sent to the cattle yard to dig manure. But at this point came surprises: one of these prisoners was a violinist from an opera orchestra, another a photographer, a third a skilled working optician, a fourth a clerk, a fifth—but good Heavens! what is one to do with such farm labourers as that? The dull misery of their long complete inaction had so depressed them, that they were only too pleased to be occupied even if only with the roughest manual labour; but of what use is such work, and what return can it give for the outlay of the employer?
On a recent occasion, chancing to meet at a friend's house several army men, Government officials and financiers, I reproached them for their lack of initiative in not more practically organising the means of using to our advantage this colossal and invaluable working force. As everybody knows, labour at this moment is so costly, that great national enterprises, such as the cutting of canals, the drying of marshes, the making of roads, the hewing of timber, are left neglected and unaccomplished through the costliness and general lack of working hands. Now I ask—where is the intelligent landlord, or other employers, who will take the risk of engaging, without even the roughest choice or selection, a heavily paid contingent of workmen containing the most fantastically mixed elements, persons of the most varied and contrasting stations and professions and habits, most of them in all probability entirely unsuited to, and incapable of, carrying out the work required? In addition, who knows or understands anything about the legal aspects of the matter?—all the special rights and special duties of these special workmen? All the special rules in connection with insubordination or any other misdemeanour, if only the much discussed refusal to work?
I will state my conclusions shortly: it is to my mind necessary, first of all, to compile and publish without delay, in the Russian, German, Turkish and all the Slavonic languages, a short and clear statement of the rights, the duties, the responsibilities of all prisoners of war within our Empire, pointing out that work is obligatory, that refusal to work will be punished disciplinarily and by maintenance on black bread and water. That remuneration will be given in part immediately, the remainder on the conclusion of peace, and on the condition that our prisoners in Germany receive the like remuneration.