by Gavin Fuller
Untouched Resources
Now that the need has been shown for employing the best that the country can produce for national service in various ways outside purely military duties, voluntary enlistment is no longer to be relied upon. The latest figures give the total male strength of the nation, of conscriptable age, as seven million. On this basis it is obvious that vast numbers of men have not realised the necessity for their services either in a combative or an administrative sense. And the frankly haphazard method of our present system can never reach them, because it is not direct and personal.
Also, surely it is an economic blunder to use so many of our young married men (who are bringing up the coming generation – and paying for it!) while unmarried men, without responsibilities, are not serving. I think, too, we have to remind ourselves of the untouched resources we have in the educated young women of our country – the middle-class girl – who could be mobilised for very effective work in many of our national undertakings.
Organised Service
However effective voluntary enlistment has been for military purposes, it is clear, I think, that we now want a system of organised service, fair to everybody and helpful to employers – a system which would utilise as it is required, and where it is required, the utmost strength of the country. From all businesses large and small, the Government would take just so many men as it immediately required, practising a scheme of gradual depletion until the total recruitable strength was absorbed.
At present many men of military age are open to the reproaches of others without deserving it. A national call to service would remove this. Men there may be (I have not met them) who do not wish to serve – these merit all our contempt. Coming in contact, as I do, with men of all ages, I make bold to say that our manhood as a whole is fervently patriotic, and, so far as I have gathered, is unanimous in the demand for the immediate adaption of a plan of a compulsory service.
It should be simple enough for a central authority, working through departments split up territorially, to compile a new Domesday Book, wherein every man, with the kind of service to be expected of him, should be recorded, ready to be called whenever he is wanted. Businessmen could prepare this roll-call of the nation very expeditiously – a matter of a few weeks. I am sure the system could be educed very easily, if the Government would lay it down as a principle.
Yours truly,
Sydney M. Skinner, Chairman John Barker & Co. (Ltd)
Kensington High Street, W.
5 July 1915
HELP IN THE HARVEST FIELD
SIR – There is one possible form of help which seems to have been overlooked.
For some years past farmers, or their wives, all over the country, have made a practice of taking holiday visitors. I have before me lists of over a thousand, which could probably be increased.
If some scheme could be promptly devised for bringing together farmers and holidaymakers willing to help on defined, if limited, lines, the farmer, on his part, might perhaps make some slight concession in his terms to such paying guests. In any case, if this form of help appeals to any considerable number I have no doubt a practical provisional committee could be formed at once to consider the preliminaries.
Apart from the healthy satisfaction of ‘doing their bit’, working holidaymakers would find compensation in the discovery of many new delightful spots in rural England.
Yours faithfully,
Percy Lindley
20 Fleet Street, E.C.
7 July 1915
WORKERS’ SUPPORT
An Appeal to Employers
SIR – At this great national crisis, when it is the duty of all of us (including every employer who has any capital at command) to do our utmost to swell the new War Loan to really formidable proportions, we have felt it imperative to increase our holding of £100,000 up to £150,000.
Among small investors the easiest way to popularise the loan is to offer to pledge themselves to subscribe up to a certain amount, but at least £5. To do this a personal touch is necessary. An impersonal Post Office savings appeal will do something, but a reasoned appeal from an employer will do much more.
I think many employers may still be unaware that they can themselves use the Post Office department to hold any stock for which they pay and take up for distribution among their staff on payment (say) in weekly instalments. Out of £150,000 taken up by our firm, £140,000 for the company and £10,000 for the employees’ savings-bank account, we have found it possible to earmark £40,000 to be held by the Post Office authorities at our disposal for distribution to those of our staff who elect to pay small or large weekly contributions up to an amount to be chosen by themselves.
To these smaller subscribers we will ourselves pay 5 per cent on their subscriptions until the amount of a £5 bond is reached, and after that will make the 4 1/2 per cent interest allowed by the Government up to 5 per cent for a certain period.
As the time for subscribing is now limited to a few days; it is to be hoped that employers generally will make an effort worthy of the cause.
I am, Sir, yours faithfully,
Jesse Boot
15 July 1915
GAME AS NATIONAL FOOD
A Suggestion
SIR – Matters bearing upon public economy in wartime are now being discussed at length in the press. Much that is written, however, cannot usefully affect the situation, because its sponsors fail to offer remedies suitable for practical application. As concrete practice should take the place of abstract suggestion in these stressful times, it occurs to me to offer assistance towards insuring the more thorough administration of a most valuable food supply – the furred and feathered game of this country. This with troth, may be regarded, more than ever before, as a national asset of twofold value, for if this year a considerable portion of the game supply could be officially administered for distribution to the public, it would more than ever check the soaring prices of comestibles, and could to a greater extent be utilised as a welcome change of diet for our sick, wounded and convalescent soldiers and sailors, and all tending them.
Next month the game shooting season will be inaugurated by the killing of tens of thousands of grouse. Therefore the time remaining for the elaboration of methods is not over long. I suggest two courses for consideration.
First, I think it might be well if the Government itself were to supervise this important matter by actual purchase of a fixed percentage of all game killed, the provision of sufficient cold storage facilities at suitable centres, and means for the carriage of the game, and its most effective distribution. The railways being under state control, everything that would assist to insure the success of the measure is now in the hands of the Government. The prompt despatch of game from any wayside station to the local centre, without waiting for the collection of large consignments, might prevent wastage taking place in the hot weather generally experienced in the first haul of the shooting season.
Another method, alternative to the foregoing, would involve less responsibilities and a narrower scheme of operations. This plan might insure the purchase of a smaller percentage of game, its carriage and cold storage, for the use of our warriors, hale or sick, at home or abroad, ashore or afloat. Doubtless so soon as a proper working scheme were known to be established, many large game proprietors would feel inclined to offer and to place on rail, free of all cost, considerable quantities of game for distribution in this commendable direction.
I shall be very pleased to expand these ideas, and to assist the Government, or other responsible body, to operate any measures of the sort herein indicated.
Yours, &c.,
Henry Sharp
Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire
VILLAGE SHIRKERS
SIR – It would be interesting to know upon what system recruiting is being carried out in the country districts in England. I live in a village in Bucks, which has apparently been overlooked by the recruiting agents.
There are two young men eligible for serv
ice working on the farm next door to me. A young chauffeur drives me from the neighbouring town to the village, a young butcher brings meat from the same town. These four cases have come under my own eyes; there are many others. I taxed one of these young men with not enlisting. His answer was: ‘Plenty of Canadians and Australians; they like it. I haven’t been sent for yet.’
As I belong to a family of which not a single male is left in civil occupation, I fail to see the justice of our system.
The last two of my own menfolk to go are a portrait-painter, over forty-five, whose work hung on the walls of the Royal Academy, and who is serving now as an orderly in a hospital; and a nephew, of nineteen, who, the only son of his parents, has come to England to enrol, being under the age limit in Australia.
Surely there is something radically wrong and unjust in the system which works like this. I enclose the name of the village, the neighbouring towns, and my own name in the hope that you can bring this district to the attention of the recruiting agents.
Yours truly,
Officer’s Wife
19 July 1915
THE TRAINING OF MEDICAL WOMEN
National Work An Urgent Call
SIR – The war has constituted a turning point in the position of medical women, and there are new openings and new opportunities for them in many directions.
Increasing numbers of women are desirous of entering the profession, and to provide for their adequate educational needs the London (Royal Free Hospital) School of Medicine for Women is now practically doubling its laboratory accommodation.
The council of the school has already received £15,000 of the £30,000 required for the additional buildings and their equipment. We would direct your attention to the effort started by a number of representative men and women to help to raise the balance of £15,000 by means of subscriptions of £1 each.
Yours faithfully,
H.H. Asquith
Curzon of Kedleston
Arthur James Balfour
20 July 1915
GOVERNMENT AND THE MINES
SIR – Coal being an absolute necessity for the prosecution of the war, and its production being interfered with by quarrels between capital and labour, the duty of the Government is plain. It should at once take over the mines and hold them for the war.
If this is done the question which is the root cause of the present strike, and which if allowed to fester will produce further trouble, would be settled. From profits a fair wage should be paid to men, and a fair interest on their capital to employers.
At the same time the consumer would get his coal at a fair price, while the men would know that their labour and the country’s necessity were not being exploited by the employers for their own undue advantage.
Delays have dangerous ends.
Yours faithfully,
Robert Yerburgh
Barwhillanty, Parton, N.B.
23 July 1915
20,000 PIPES WANTED
SIR – I received a letter from Brigadier-General F. Koe, asking me to send out to the soldiers at the Dardanelles 20,000 wooden pipes, as if their own are lost or broken the men have no means of replacing them.
I should be very thankful for any subscription towards buying these, and will acknowledge the same. This number of pipes will only go a small way among the soldiers at present out there.
I am, yours truly,
B.F. Koe
Curragh Camp, Neragh, Co. Tipperary
24 July 1915
HOLIDAYS AT MARGATE
SIR – Will you very generously permit me the use of your valuable and most patriotic paper as a medium for an appeal to those about to take their holidays, and to say that the Corporation of Margate have made every provision for entertaining their visitors as in normal times?
I am sure it will be of interest to the public to know that definite arrangements have been made for the appearance of the following artists during the season: Miss Carrie Tubb, Miss Dorothy Webster, Miss Lucy Nuttall, Miss Daisy Kennedy, Mr Robert Radford, Mr Fraser Gauge, Moiseiwitsch, Mr Albert Chevalier and Ysaÿe.
Our magnificent sands – the happy hunting-ground for the children – are all open and absolutely as free as ever they have been, and the sea bathing, so popular on account of its safety, is also largely patronised. I am pleased to state that the many other places of entertainment, including the Jetty Pavilion, are all carrying on as usual. I sometimes hear it reported:
1. That the public are not allowed on the sands.
2. That we are under martial law.
3. That all promenades are closed at 6 p.m.
4. That everyone has to be indoors by nine, and all places of amusement closed.
One can only imagine that such statements (entirely false) are made in Germany and no doubt apply there, but certainly not in our own borough, now so well known, and which should be better known, for its wonderful recuperative effects on all those seeking renewed health, with all the well-organised entertainments of a high-class Continental pleasure resort.
Yours faithfully,
Wm. Booth Reeve, Mayor
Mayor’s Parlour, Town Hall, Margate
STOPPAGE OF RACING
Effect on Horse Breeding
SIR – I see Mr Richard Ord, the well-known racing man, has written a letter in the Sporting Chronicle, making the interesting suggestion that a race meeting should be held in the north of England. Now, Sir, I yield to nobody in my anxiety about the war, and might mention that I have a son and many relations at the front, but I do ask why the amusement, if it is so, of racing should be stopped, though it carries with it the supreme test of thoroughbred horse breeding, while theatres and cinemas and concert rooms are allowed to remain open, which conduce to nothing but amusement.
The excuse we are given is that the horses and people cannot be conveyed to race meetings by train, and the only race meetings allowed are those at Newmarket. I am wondering whether the Government have realised that it would be quite possible, if the race committees at the various racing centres such as Stockton, Redcar, Doncaster, York and Newcastle wished it, to hold a race meeting without trains as Mr Ord suggests, and if this plan should not succeed, why should not one race meeting be arranged in the north, where nothing but north country horses might compete, and the same in the south, leaving Newmarket also as a racing centre? The horses have all been entered for their various engagements, and has it crossed the mind of Mr Runciman, &c., that all the men connected with racing, training and breeding establishments are now thrown out of work exactly in the same way as actors, theatre and cinema managers and officials would be should all the theatres, concert rooms and cinemas be closed?
There is another point on this question. Have they considered the depreciation the Government have brought about in thoroughbred stock? No doubt, people such as his Majesty the King, the Duke of Portland, Lord Rosebery and Messrs Joel can afford to keep their racing establishments in hopes that when the war is over racing may again be resumed; but take the case of the small breeder; take the case of the small owner. I mention two cases. The small breeder, perhaps, has two stallions, and perhaps ten or twelve mares of his own. Probably the stallions’ fees for these mares pay for the keep of his mares and the stallions, but he looks for livelihood in the sale of his yearlings at either Newmarket July week or Doncaster. One glance at the newspaper at the prices of the last July sales will show in a moment that the depreciation is enormous at a time when every farthing that can be made will be required to pay for the war.
Unequal Treatment
Then take the case of the small owner. I have a case before me in point now of an ardent supporter of racing. He has two good yearling fillies. In ordinary times these fillies would be worth £500 to £1,000 each for their racing career, being half-sisters to good horses; but he has to lease his fillies without any bonus, the stallion fee alone being £300. He also has a two-year-old colt and a mare in training – not first-class, but they might have picked up small races; but, owing
to the stoppage of racing, it is impossible for them to win a race at all, and such animals, unless extraordinarily well bred, just fetch the price of cat’s meat. Consequently, he will either have to sell them for £25 or £30 – their proper value being £500 each – or give them away.
These are not imaginary cases, but two for which I could give you chapter and verse. The net result is that horse breeders and horse owners are to be ruined while theatre and cinema managers and officials are allowed to make profit. It does seem to me straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel to put an end to racing all over the country (though I base my main argument on the damage to thoroughbred horse breeding and the damage to small breeders and owners), and then to allow every theatre in every place to be crowded night after night when they have nothing to recommend them but absolute amusement.
This attacking of one industry and allowing another is part and parcel of the Government’s action in wishing to fix the price of coal at the pit mouth, entirely forgetting the enormous risks and expense of sinking a coal mine, and then allowing butchers, fishmongers and nurserymen to charge exactly what they like for fish, meat and vegetables. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Either perfect liberty should be allowed to everybody to do exactly as they like re trade, or the same restrictions should be placed on every industry and amusement in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
