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Saturday 23 February 1918 - Letter from F R Pearson of Peopleton

Category World War I: Prisoners of War in Evesham
Publication
The Evesham Journal
Transcription of article

WHAT GERMAN PRISONERS ARE PAID

To the Editor of the “Journal & Advertiser”

Sir

In your issue of February 16. 1918, I read with amazement the letter of Mr W Masters to Mr Will Thorne, MP. Mr Masters asserts that it is “necessary” that employers should pay the same rate of wage for the unwilling and inefficient labour of German waiters, barbers, and schoolmasters, as they pay British workmen who know their job! A more gratuitous insult to British labour it would be difficult to find – that our local men should be placed on a level with our enemies, whose chief aim is to do as little as possible for the “hated English.” I have found German labour the most expensive I have ever employed, and it is only the urgent need for the greatest possible  production of foodstuffs and the impossibility of obtaining sufficient British workmen that compels me to have recourse to this prisoner labour.

Can Mr Masters prove his assertion that “employers prefer to employ prisoners because they are cheaper, although they could very often get residents in the district?” I know of no such case.

Yours truly

F R PEARSON

Hallgarth, Peopleton, Pershore, February 20 1918