GERMAN SLAVE RAID

Nelson Evening Mail, 5 August 1916, Page 5

GERMAN SLAVE RAID

PARTICULARS OF THE DEPORTA-

TTON. f Australian and N.Z. Cable Association ) LONDON", Aug. 3.

A Yellow Book dealing with the slave raid in Northern France discloses the fact that the German authorities in April issued' an appeal for agricultural ilabour. A meagre response resulted in an order for wholesale deportation of all excepting young children, mothers, and old men "at one and a half hours' ingClerical and civil protests were disregarded. A ..bishop went to a general •who told him to be quiet and get out. The labouring classes mostly suffered, 20 to 30 per cent, of the women. being taken. Some parents lost then- reason when they saw their daughters- taken. German officers admitted that nothing could, cleanse the German flag from this latest foul stain. The splendid' spirit of the victims was an outstanding feature. They defiantly shouted "Vive la France" and sang the ' 'Marsedilai.se.'' The deported women are employed in digging, road-mending, trench-mak-ing, and munition work. The worst feature is that women' are employed as cooks for •German troops and servants for officers.

Other deportees are working on railways and in factories and mines. They work inhuman hours, are unpaid, and are liable to flogging. Some were sent to the mines and factories 1 in Rhineland •and Westphalia, while a large nurm'ber of civilians who have been, interned since the outbreak of) war are working immediately behind the 'German lines in France.