In 1946, the UK contained more than 400,000 German POWs, with many having been transferred from POW camps in the US and Canada. They were employed as laborers to compensate for a lack of manpower in Britain, as a form of war reparations. A public debate ensued in the U.K. over the treatment of German prisoners of war, with many in Britain comparing the treatment to the POWs to slave labour. In 1947 the Ministry of Agriculture argued against repatriation of working German prisoners, since by then they made up 25 percent of the land workforce, and they wanted to extend the usage of them into 1948.