The Telegraph Book of Readers' Letters from the Great War

by Gavin Fuller

  A responsible committee should be formed, either by the Government, or outside the range of politics, and make the national registration forms the basis of their work. With the co-operation of newspaper proprietors the public would soon become acquainted with the fact there was a central bureau (with branches) to whom to apply for work of any kind during the progress of the war.

  The real work of decentralising into areas of cities or counties and corresponding with likely applicants, &c., could easily be carried out if office expenses were defrayed out of public funds.

  I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

  Organiser

  Bristol

  5 January 1916

  LINES OF ATTACK

  SIR – Having read with great interest the admirable letter of ‘Middle Class’ which appeared in your issue of 30 December, will you allow me to suggest that many of your correspondents seem to have missed the main points of his idea?

  Surely his argument was this: There is still a vast amount of energy in this country not being used directly or indirectly against the enemy; let us then put our heads together and decide (1) into what channels that unused energy may be directed; (2) the best means of collecting and directing that energy in the channels chosen.

  For example, all methods of increasing the food production of this county would economically strengthen us; I take it that practical suggestions to this end are invited from experienced and competent authorities. There are thousands of men and women who might be led on this line of attack. Are there not other lines along which we may harass, and thwart and harm and weaken our enemy?

  Every ounce that we as a nation can put into the weight of our blows should be used now. Is not that what ‘Middle Class’ means? We want to be shown and instructed in all possible weapons of attack. The personnel is waiting.

  I am, Sir your obedient servant,

  Basil Hood

  88 St James’s Street, S.W.

  THE STEREOTYPED REPLY

  SIR – I have read with much interest the letter from ‘Middle Class’ on the organisation of the country’s resources. There are doubtless other cases similar to my own. At the outbreak of war I was practising as a consulting engineer in London. At the end of September 1914, I finished up the work I had on hand, and then went to the War Office to see if I could get anything to do in the motor transport service or in any direction where my knowledge of engineering could be used.

  I was requested to put in my application in writing, which I did promptly. About a week afterwards I had an acknowledgment of this letter from the secretary, thanking me for the offer of services, and advising me to take no further steps until hearing from him. I had no further communication, I am forty-six years of age, and in my application to the War Office I mentioned that I had already seen service in Rhodesia during the rebellion, when I was in the artillery.

  I next tried the anti-aircraft service, but was informed at the Admiralty that the lists were full. I then joined the Special Constabulary. With the advent of the Ministry of Munitions I applied there by letter, but was switched on to the Board of Trade, who wrote pointing out that there were no higher appointments open, but that the great need for the moment was for skilled workers, but that if I cared to put my name down on the engineers’ war service register I could do so. Having been through all the shops in one of the largest shipbuilding and engineering firms on the Clyde, and also having done a good bit of pioneering work in the Colonies, I have kept myself proficient in the use of tools, so that I thought myself pretty useful in this way, and at once put my name down. Still nothing doing!

  The only little consolation I can obtain is from the thought that I have produced a lot of chicken flesh, eggs and vegetables, and am keeping thirty-two laying hens and pullets, but I cannot help feeling that I could be doing greater things in taking an engineer’s part in what has been termed an ‘engineers’ war’.

  I am, Sir, yours obediently,

  C.E.

  Sunningdale

  6 January 1916

  ORGANISATION OF THE COUNTRY’S RESOURCES

  Wanted, a Businessman

  SIR – Now that the recruiting campaign has come to a close I quite agree with you that it is high time that far weightier matters should be earnestly considered. It cannot be denied that carrying on the war is the most gigantic business that the world has ever witnessed.

  To carry on this stupendous business successfully the whole of the organisation must be centred in the brain of one man who has had years of training and subsequent experience in organising and carrying on an extensive manufacturing business.

  The most serious point is the utter want of complete harmonious organisation of the country for the purposes of the war. The organisation falls naturally into four great classes, as follows:

  1. We have, say, 4,000,000 men in the Army and Navy, who must be provided with everything necessary to keep them up to the fullest possible state of efficiency.

  2. To provide for all their wants an enormous army of men and women is required.

  3. To maintain these providers another section of our people must work to produce enough of the necessaries of life to maintain the whole population.

  4. Beyond these requirements we have to provide the sinews of war. This can only be done by keeping up and increasing our exports to such an extent as will pay for our imports, the cost of which, however, is very largely reduced by sums due to this country for interest on foreign investments, shipping freights and other matters; in short, every effort must be made to pay for imports otherwise than with gold.

  Failure in one of these classes spells failure of the whole business. These four great classes would each be sub-divided, but not too minutely. Ever since the beginning of the war the nation has been fed with the ridiculous swaggering nonsense that our silver bullets would win the victory for us. Certainly, the Government has been firing off the silver bullets fast enough, but the victory is still far out of sight. It is time that we abandoned the silly silver bullet craze, and realised the fact that victory depends on hard work, governed and regulated by the very best organising talent we possess.

  Energy Running to Waste

  At present all is confusion; energy runs wild because such vast numbers of the population, being anxious to assist, get no direction of any kind. All this energy ought not to be allowed to run to waste for a single day. To every man, woman and child between the ages of eight and eighty should be allotted such work as he or she could do. Such apportionment of work must be made with discernment of the individual capability; no round pegs in square holes.

  At first sight the foregoing suggestion appears to be utterly impossible of realisation, but, fortunately, we have great organisations which readily lend themselves to adaptation to the object in view. The first, and by far the greatest, difficulty is to find the man, with great knowledge and brain power, in whom the whole scheme of organisation must be centred; there must be no divided authority at the very top. A head having been found, he gives to each member of the Cabinet a department of the organisation work. Each of the Ministers will employ his particular department in carrying out the duties assigned to him, but each must report to the head. The Ministers will further delegate to county councils, corporations and councils (urban and district) such further detail work as they can undertake.

  All these bodies are responsible to their superior department, which in turn is responsible to the head. The necessity for having an autocratic head is that the working of the organisation must be perfectly harmonious; in a multitude of counsellors there may be wisdom, but very seldom perfect harmony. As a matter of course, the head would receive many suggestions from the Ministers, but he must be absolute judge of the value of such suggestions in the matter of harmonious working in the great machine.

  Such an autocratic head as I contemplate would not be a great speech maker; he would have known for years that ‘great talkers are little doers’.

  Yours faithfully,

  Wal
ter East

  AN EMPLOYMENT CANVASS

  SIR – The letter signed ‘Middle Class’ comes at a most opportune moment.

  I wrote on Tuesday to the Local Government Board, and pointed out that when the local tribunals began to hear appeals for exemption by employers, it would greatly ease the situation if the employers had access to extracts from information furnished under the National Registration from women of no occupation who professed their willingness to undertake work of any kind.

  Such women would readily respond to appeals for their services, endorsed as they might be by the local tribunal, and feel they were doing a most direct, personal and patriotic duty in thus facilitating the release of men for the Army. The requests for service would come largely from local employers, and be directed to local residents, and would reach a class of women that would never see ordinary advertisements for workers because it does not look for work.

  As regards the main question, why not a Parliamentary Employment Committee, working through the local Parliamentary associations and the local tribunal? This method of utilising the local agents, as your correspondent points out, has produced splendid results; the organisation is intact, it has the workers, and is thoroughly experienced. And why not an employment canvass to ascertain exactly the feasibility of utilising the services of each of the women who declared willingness to serve? Such a canvass working in close unison with the local tribunals should have the very best results.

  As a member of an important London local tribunal, I should like to see all tribunals assume some responsibility for replacing labour recruited for active Army service, thus satisfying as far as may be both the needs of commerce and the necessity of filling up the ranks.

  Yours,

  T. Owen Jacobsen, JP

  Newton House, Paternoster Square, E.C.

  WORK FOR WOMEN

  SIR – Your Civil Service correspondent’s interesting communication requires one addition, or, perhaps, correction. He says that no serious attempt has been made to bring in for war service the huge mass of the educated middle-class women of England.

  He should have added that the War Office, through the Head Mistresses’ Association, are offering women of this type holding the equivalent of honours degrees at Oxford and Cambridge, and of the highest intelligence, 25s weekly for a forty-eight-hour week, with an obligation to work unlimited overtime at 9d an hour. It may be possible to justify the wage on the ground that people anxious to help are willing to accept it. It is not possible to justify the length of hours per week wherein labour is required.

  My company, with a wide and long experience of women clerks and typists, are satisfied that only a woman of exceptional physique, of whom, alas, there are but few, can work continuously at office duties for more than thirty-nine hours a week. Any attempt to extend this working time, if it lasts for more than a week or two, leads to tired and inefficient work, and a heavy sick list.

  If women are to take the place of first- and second-division clerks they should be paid not less than half of the salary of the men they are replacing, and the hours should be carefully adjusted.

  Yours,

  Secretary

  THE ANTI-AIRCRAFT CORPS

  SIR – I have read with considerable interest the letter in the issue of the 29th signed ‘Middle Class’, and I think my own experience will show how very discouraging the authorities can be, however anxious one may be to render some little assistance. Being upwards of fifty years of age I many months since offered my services to the Anti-Aircraft Corps, and was told that I should be called upon as further stations were opened. From time to time I have called and have written, with no result, but a few weeks since, I received a summons to report myself, when my services were not only accepted, but I was told the station I should be sent to as soon as it was ready.

  On this I resigned from the Special Constabulary, giving my reason that I had joined the Anti-Aircraft Corps. Yesterday I received a notification from the corps that as the defences of London had been taken over by the military authorities, my services would not now be required. This I contend is hardly what one would call business.

  I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

  A.E. White

  Hampton Wick

  7 January 1916

  ENGINEER’S EXPERIENCES

  SIR – Having read with much appreciative interest the letter signed ‘Middle Class’, I would like to place before your readers my experiences as an engineer, having a matured knowledge of most of the natural sciences, a practical experience of over thirty years in engineering work generally, and a speaking acquaintance with at least six different languages, and, perhaps what is most to the purpose, a knowledge of organisation, having at one time occupied a high position in the Government service as inspector of mines and explosives. Since the war started I have made several applications for work, as follows:

  I applied through the Labour Bureau and was directed to the Board of Trade department connected with engineers at Queen Anne’s Gate, who referred me to the chief inspector, Woolwich Arsenal. Having filled in two forms, in duplicate, giving a detailed account of my education and experience throughout my life, I waited patiently and am still waiting. I also was recommended by a high official at Scotland Yard to apply to the Censor’s Department for work, as I had a good knowledge of German, French, Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, Russian and Turkish. After waiting several months and also filling in three forms, and giving two first-class references, I was finally informed that my services would not be required. I then made an application to the Committee for the Relief of Professional Classes in Wartime, not for charity, but for work, and all the satisfaction I got was to be referred to one of the most prominent institutions of engineers, of which I was not only a late member of council, but practically a foundation member!

  On the other side of the picture I have given all my time and energy, free of pay, to Government service, 1) as a special constable, having the privilege of paying £5 for my uniform; 2) in assisting the Criminal Investigation Department in, of course, an amateur capacity, in trapping spies and undesirables generally, and succeeded, so I was informed, in doing very efficient work for the department. I also offered my services, free of all charge, expenses only to be paid, to the Red Cross and St John Ambulance, but, not having sufficient money to pay the expenses of living, &c., I was obliged to refuse all offers. Finally, I enlisted in the Sportsman’s Battalion, age thirty-nine and ‘a bit’, no questions being asked as to the amount of ‘the bit’, which should have been twenty years more! Anyway, now I have the satisfaction of being able to comply with His Majesty’s request to wear the armlet, when it is finally delivered to me.

  This is the story which I hear repeated on all sides by brother engineers of the greatest ability and experience. Surely nothing but sheer want of proper organisation in the Government departments, save always the Admiralty, which has never been ‘too late’, could warrant such ‘blinking incapacity’, as Tommy would call it.

  I am, Sir, yours, &c.,

  Special Constable

  1 January 1916

  A NEW YEAR’S WISH

  SIR – At the turn of the year, the second December that has witnessed the continuation of the lurid drama enacted by the international players on the chessboard of the world’s politics, permit me to offer you the greetings of the new year, with the fervent prayer that it may prove to you and us all a far happier one than that of 1915.

  This is no conventional wish: there is something specially opportune in rendering to you these good wishes, shared, I am convinced, by your large circle of readers; for, frightful as have been in more ways than one the attendant miseries of the holocaust ‘war’, your journal has ever been prompt to the fore in the humane effort to alleviate the brutal effects of this world struggle, to soften the wounds that have been so mercilessly inflicted in this premeditated attempt to set back by several degrees the hands of the dial and to arrest that phase of the world’s progress termed ‘civilisation�
�.

  In other words, by the splendid manner in which you have intuitively grasped and strikingly expressed the needs of the hour, by your timely and eloquent advocacy on behalf of the wretched victims of the various forms of suffering entailed by warfare’s insane methods, by the princely and magnanimous response you have always been able to evoke in aid of suffering humanity in this country and in the countries of our Allies, you have earned a debt of gratitude from those who witness in silence, as well as from those who are directly benefited by the working of the powerful means at your command for influencing public opinion – a debt that can never be expressed in words, and one that is bound to grow with the months of conflict that are still before us.

  I am sure you will agree with me that there can be no more solemn aspiration at the present hour than the prayer that the day may not be far distant when the maxim ‘Peace on earth, goodwill towards men’ may prove not merely a splendid text for this time of the year, but a living reality for all times and all seasons.

  Yours obediently,

  Hermann Gollancz

  3 January 1916

  A DERBY RECRUIT’S COMPLAINT

  SIR – Yesterday most of the daily and evening newspapers published a request to all those men who had been attested under Lord Derby’s scheme to wear the armlet, and thus show a proof to one’s fellow countrymen of one’s response to the call. I am one of those who are entitled to wear this much-talked-of armlet, but I am unable to show this proof of my response to the call for the simple reason that I cannot get possession of one, and write, in view of the King’s request, in the hope that my grievance, which is no doubt borne by countless others, may soon be rectified.