What are the factors which enable Germany to call this number or a little more than this number to the Colours?  First, the organisation of the women.  I have seen them even in the forges of Rhineland doing the work of strong men.  “The finest women in the world, these Rhinelanders,” as one manager put it.  “Just look at that one lift that weight.  Few men could do better.”  And his eyes sparkled with enthusiasm.

Second, and of tremendous importance, are the huge numbers of prisoners in Germany, and her sensible determination to make them work.  She has taken about one and two-third millions on the field of battle. There also happen to be in Germany nearly a million other prisoners, buried alive, whose existence has apparently escaped the notice of the outside world.  These are the Russian civilians who were caught in the German trap when it snapped suddenly tight in the summer of 1914.  Before the war 2,000,000 Russians used to go to Germany at harvest time.  The war began at harvest time.  The number of these men, which from my own first-hand investigations in the remote country districts I estimate at nearly a million, would have escaped my notice also, had I not walked across Germany.

Another important factor in the labour problem in Germany is the employment of the Poles.  Not only are they employed on the land, but great colonies of them have grown up in Dusseldorf and other industrial centres.  I saw an order instructing the military commandants throughout Germany to warn the Poles, whose discontent with the food conditions in Germany made them desire to return home, that conditions in Poland were much worse.  This, then, is an official German admission that there is starvation in Poland, for much worse could mean nothing else.  Germany is keeping Poland a sealed book, although I admit that she occasionally takes tourists to see the German-fostered university at Warsaw.  Just before I left Germany still another order was issued for the regulation of neutral correspondents.  Under no circumstances were they to be allowed to talk with the natives in Poland.  From unimpeachable authority I learned that the Poles were intensely discouraged at the thoroughness with which the Prussians stripped the country after the last harvest, and that in some sections the people are actually dying of hunger.  Even in Warsaw, the death-rate in some neighbourhoods has increased from 700 to 800 per cent.  I was witness to German rage when Viscount Grey stipulated that food could be sent there only if the natives were allowed to have the produce of their own land.  Prussia wanted that produce, and she got it.

I mention these supplies here because the Poles who worked to produce them must be included in German labour estimates just as much as though they had been working in Germany.

Germany also adds to her man-power by utilising her wounded so far as possible.  Her efforts in this direction are praiseworthy, since they not only contribute to the welfare of the State, but benefit the individual.  I have seen soldiers with one leg gone, or parts of both legs gone, doing a full day’s work mending uniforms.  The blind are taught typewriting, which enables them to earn an independent living in Government employ.  In short, work is found for everybody who can do anything at all.