The Telegraph Book of Readers' Letters from the Great War

by Gavin Fuller

  1. No Irish Nationalist ever promised peace in Ireland except on condition of Home Rule. The feebleness – not to say double dealing – of two English Ministries has left us in a chaos in which Home Rule is neither granted nor rejected – neither dead nor alive. And this torment of Tantalus has been rendered unbearable by Mr Lloyd George’s success in procuring from a pensioned Irish party their consent to what Mr Sexton (surely no mad Sinn Féiner) has described as the vivisection of our country.

  Irish at the Front

  2. Nevertheless, even a disappointed Ireland has not only contributed to the Army 100,000 Nationalists resident in Ireland, but 150,000 no less ardent Nationalists in Great Britain, and at least 150,000 more from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa – a considerably larger contingent than even Canada, with twice Ireland’s population, and five times her wealth, has been able to put in the field. Sir Edward Carson has not been able to furnish more than 25,000 of his Covenanters, but because they have been concentrated in one purely Covenanting Division, and have been allowed to fight as a unit in the same field, with a gallantry of which all their countrymen are proud, England rings with gratitude to the Ulster Division, while Nationalist soldiers, at least fifteen times more numerous, and nobody will deny equally gallant, are unfortunately scattered incoherently among dozens of divisions, and, far from earning England’s undying thanks, read little except bitter reproaches and insults to their race. Those who would have Englishmen believe that Irish soldiers in Picardy and Macedonia are indignant that compulsory service is not enforced against their kindred at home know so little of these soldiers’ inmost hearts that the effect upon their moral of conscription in Ireland is, on the contrary, one of the gravest of the dangers that ought to give wise statesmanship pause. And those who are horrified at the wastage of the Irish divisions being made up by Englishmen strangely forget that the wastage of dozens of London, Liverpool, Manchester and Tyneside regiments is very largely made good by Irish Nationalists.

  3. What would be the practical effect on England’s fighting strength of a campaign to enforce Conscription in Ireland? I am quite aware of the bearing a candid answer may have on the future prospects of Home Rule. That consideration has quite certainly its weight with the English and Ulster politicians, who are stirring up the clamour for the coercion of Ireland. It is nonetheless of as much importance to England as to Ireland that those who have struggled hardest for peace and goodwill should fearlessly declare that the enforcement of Compulsory Service would mean the most horrible campaign for the reconquest of Ireland England has ever had to undertake. No Nationalist member of Parliament of any section could let a Compulsory Bill pass through the House of Commons without a resistance taking every possible form of violent and world-resounding protests, and without devoting their lives to an uncompromising campaign to make oppression bitter for the Government and Parliament of England. It is not even certain that they would be without an unexpected amount of aid from English Liberalism of the old strain, laid under enchantment though it has been of late by the wizardry of Mr Lloyd George, and from the Labour Party, not a dozen of whom could hope to be re-elected without Irish Nationalist votes.

  A Desperate Struggle

  And the Parliamentary resistance would be only the preliminary to a struggle from parish to parish in Ireland, in which England could not count upon support of any kind, moral or material, except her own bayonets and machine guns. For obvious reasons, I abstain from gratifying the enemy by particularising the nature of that resistance. Mr Duke is doubtless in possession of information sufficiently enlightening on the subject. That part of it which would be carried on with firearms before recruits could be laid hands upon would be the smallest part of the difficulty of coping with a universal system of passive resistance, such as all who have endeavoured to coerce Ireland in the past can picture to themselves, and such as no army can effectively conquer. There are those who would console you with the suggestion that the Irishman is a dangerous man to run away from. Ask your German enemies whether an Irishman is not sometimes a dangerous man to stand up to.

  All is lost as between the two countries if it be held a bad turn to England to make her realise that in such a struggle she would be dealing with a race as solid and as desperate as the people of France, Belgium or Serbia in their own fight for life. And for what is this deadly enmity of a race to be challenged? To add a body of at the utmost 60,000 valid recruits to an army of five or six millions, and to do it by maintaining in Ireland an army as numerous at the least, with the certainty that whatever Irish recruits might be kidnapped by the press-gang would return from the war a trained army of infuriated enemies of England. What would be the effect upon the Allies, upon the United States and upon the weakening Central Empires, of this bitter and, in the nature of things, never-ending war upon the Irish race, surely no man in the Cabinet can be so infatuated as to speculate without horror.

  Nor let it be imagined that Ireland’s resistance would be daunted by the fate of the Home Rule Act, should English prejudice grow unhappily once more uncontrollable. What Cardinal Logue said of partition can be repeated with redoubled emphasis of conscription, that all Irish Nationalists worth their salt would ‘prefer to go out into the wilderness for fifty years more’ rather than submit to the one or to the other.

  For the recruiting difficulty, as for all other Irish difficulties, there can be only one remedy that will not be worse than the disease. It is to call together the responsible heads of all Irish political parties, interests and denominations to devise a new basis of national self-government for their country, and to have their recommendations ratified by Parliament, subject to any modifications an Imperial conference may hereafter find to be equitable. One would suppose it is the most obvious of counsels, but it has never yet been tried, and if it is to be effective for recruiting purposes or for any others, it must be tried promptly and before the war is over.

  Your obedient servant,

  William O’Brien

  Mallow

  18 October 1916

  ‘FOR ALL WHO HAVE FALLEN’

  SIR – The mothers of England will owe you a debt of the deepest gratitude if through the agency of your columns you can open up the question of distinctive badges for the fallen, and obtain for us a coveted decoration in memory of our beloved dead. As the mother of an only son who volunteered in the first month of the war at the age of eighteen, and laid down his life at Ypres only seven months later, I thank you with all my heart for allowing your columns to voice this burning question.

  Yours gratefully,

  One of the Mothers

  Wembley

  2 January 1917

  WOUNDED OFFICERS

  SIR – For some time past I have received appeals regarding a hardship which officers sent home wounded or suffering from illnesses contracted on foreign service are encountering on their arrival in this country, from what I feel sure is mainly due to insufficient forethought or organisation. As the House is not sitting, may I be allowed to allude to it in your columns? It is the practice of despatching these officers to hospitals far away from their respective homes, where they have no friends, and where, owing to the increasing difficulties of travel, visits from any friends must necessarily be few and far between. It is not as if these officers were all cot patients. Many are convalescent, some are perfectly fit, and only waiting to have minor operations, and are not undergoing any medical or surgical treatment at all.

  Only recently a specific case was brought to my notice where some dozen officers, practically all of whom belonged to the south, were rushed up to the north of England, on the ground that ‘all the London hospitals were full’. We all know that this is not the case; some of the London hospitals are for the most part empty. Of course, it may be suggested that these men could be transferred to hospitals near their respective homes, but this is a three weeks’ business, and in the meantime many of these men are kept without leave, and only have permission to leave the hospitals for
a few hours each day. One would have thought that both in the interests of the State and of the men themselves it would be better to send them home, where most of them have hardly been for more than ten days since the start of the war, to benefit as much as possible by home comforts.

  May I suggest that in the case of officers who are sufficiently well to move about:

  1. They should be allowed to go to the hospitals nearest to their homes, should they so desire it, subject, of course, to there being room at the time.

  2. Transfers should be granted forthwith.

  3. Pending such transfers being arranged for, officers should be given leave.

  4. Commandants of hospitals should, subject to mutual agreement, have power to transfer at once by notifying headquarters, but without the need for the long waiting period.

  Many thousands of officers are affected by this matter, and I do therefore think that it is worth the attention of the authorities.

  Yours faithfully,

  Warwick Brookes, MP for Mile End

  London

  22 January 1917

  SAFETY OF MUNITION WORK

  SIR – We all recognise regretfully the necessity for tens of thousands of people working daily on munitions and handling in various ways high explosives. We also know that stringent precautions are taken in order to secure comparative safety and immunity from accident. The cause of the recent explosion is unknown, and may have been unpreventable, but as one who has connection with a number of such workers I am writing to urge, in the interests of the men, women, girls and youths who are thus employed, that the whole question of their safety should receive fresh and prompt attention. When we realise the loss of human life and property caused by the explosion on Friday last, and the amount of suffering caused thereby, we are compelled to ask whether the punishment meted out by certain magistrates to persons convicted of carelessness in such employment is adequate to the seriousness of the offence. Fines for such ought in the interest of the community to be abolished and imprisonment substituted in every case. The trade union leaders have done much in this matter, but so long as magistrates show such excessive leniency their efforts will be in vain. Possibly the law may have to be strengthened before the difficulty raised can be met.

  One other point. Is it necessary that such dangerous work should be carried on in crowded and poor districts? Usually the cottage property all round the works is crowded to excess; and is of such a nature that the slightest shock causes collapse, with disastrous results. Is it too much to ask that this kind of work should be removed from such centres? Not to do so is to court the maximum of loss and suffering when any disaster occurs. In the midst of the many matters requiring attention I trust that in the interests of the working classes, to whom the whole country owes so much for their loyalty and magnificent spirit in the midst of this titanic struggle, this matter may receive that careful attention, at the hands of the Government, which it certainly deserves.

  Sincerely yours,

  J.E.

  Bishopscourt, Chelmsford

  15 June 1917

  THE BAN ON RACING

  Mr E.S. Tattersall’s Views

  SIR – I read with much interest the articles which you published on Monday under the titles ‘The Ban on Racing’ and ‘Racing and Breeding: Danger to British Stock’. In the latter you say that owners and breeders have reason to hope that before the end of this month sanction will have been given to resume racing at Newmarket, and you most truly add, ‘Such a decision is urgently needed to prevent a catastrophe to horse breeding from which it might never entirely recover.’ You have not exaggerated the urgent necessity for the speedy resumption of racing, with, no unreasonable and unpractical restrictions. Everyone interested in horse breeding agrees with you. Having been hon. secretary of the Hunters’ Improvement Society, in its first two years – 1886 and 1887 – when the thoroughbred stallion shows commenced, and being now hon. treasurer of that society, as well as of the Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association, may I be permitted to say a few words endorsing your prophecy? Most breeders and owners and trainers of thoroughbred horses and people interested in horse breeding are my friends, and the outlook for them is gloomy in the extreme. Lord Curzon, in his recent speech in the House of Lords, to which I listened with interest, admitted that ‘in its wonderful thoroughbred stock the country possessed a national asset of almost incalculable value’, and said that ‘the Government had no desire to exercise a disturbing influence upon the position of that asset’. That asset, however, depends on being reasonably and publicly tested, and on an outlet being provided for it in the shape of a market within the United Kingdom, as well as for export. The average amount for which we ourselves sold horses for export in 1911, 1912 and 1913 was over £123,000, and many horses were sold publicly and privately besides to go out of the country. The horses we sold for export in 1914 made £30,000 only.

  It seems calculated to make us the laughing stock of the world to throw away such a valuable, useful and necessary product for an almost infinitesimal and negligible saving of oats. The lives of many men depend on horses. It will be remembered that at the beginning of the war 150,000 useful horses were quickly available in the United Kingdom, and since then 250,000 more, owing almost entirely to private enterprise in horse breeding, which may be looked on as a gift to the State. In any case private breeders have saved the State much expense and trouble. Racing is to some extent an amusement, but it is one which results in a useful product. Without racing, and a substantial amount of it, we shall be unable to distinguish between soft, unreliable horses and stout, enduring ones. There should be sufficient racing to enable the public to make a proper selection of our thoroughbred stock. The limitation of racing to Newmarket only, where it was carried out on restricted lines and with no sign of beanfeasting this spring, was only just sufficient to keep the stream flowing. What should we think of a Government which forbade or seriously hampered the production of sugar or cotton in the countries best suited to grow them? In the United Kingdom, thanks to our climate, we have been able, and shall be able, if the facilities are granted which expert opinion with regard to horse breeding considers necessary, to breed horses which all countries of the world envy and are compelled to come to buy, and the quality of which permeates to some extent nearly every type of serviceable horse. It is a necessity for all foreigners to return frequently to England and Ireland to buy our stock.

  It has already greatly cheered and amused our enemies to hear that racing is stopped here. They know well that racing is essential to test the merits of horses and prevent us breeding rubbish. So do our Allies. I have received messages lately from the leading owners and breeders in France, Italy, Russia and America urging us not to give up breeding and racing. Governor Stanley’s speech at Louisville, made before the decision of the Kentucky Derby recently, is quoted in today’s Sportsman, and he cannot speak too highly of the importance in wartime of the thoroughbred horse of Kentucky. In Germany and Austria racing continues; only in England has it been totally abandoned. It is, however, quite a mistake to suppose, as many do, that Irish breeders are able to keep up their studs if English racing is seriously crippled. The principal market for Irish breeders is in England, and many Irishmen practically depend for their living on the sales at Newmarket and Doncaster. One has recently written to me that he is ruined owing to the impossibility of selling his yearlings if the ban on racing continues. His case is one only of very many.

  The seriousness of the outlook at Newmarket, which has been compared to a mining town with the mines shut down, has been described by the leading clergy and bankers of the town. A reason advanced lately by an anonymous breeder, that horses now being bred will not be available in the present war, and, therefore, it will do no harm to stop racing for two years, and run the now two-year-olds as four-year-olds, and so on, is impracticable. He does not seem to know that colts cannot be turned out for a year or two (certainly no one could afford to keep them in training idle), without injuring them
selves and becoming useless. They would be undoubtedly operated on, and the continuity of horse breeding would be seriously affected. To insure this continuity racing is essential. The views of Professor Robert Wallace, given in today’s Sportsman and Sporting Life, are stated, so lucidly and convincingly that they should be read by the authorities. Coming from a Professor of Agriculture and Rural Economy at Edinburgh, they compel attention. Horse breeding and agriculture are bound together, as Lord Middleton and Sir A.E. Pease have ably written. I think the resolution passed by the War Emergency Committee of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, has not had the prominence given to it that it deserved, and with their words I will conclude this lengthy letter.

  ‘The Committee view with alarm the very serious effect the total stoppage of racing will have on horse breeding, and urge his Majesty’s Government to remove the present drastic restrictions, which must inevitably have a far-reaching consequence by the wholesale reduction of colts necessary for stallions to maintain the production of the half-bred stock so urgently needed for military and national purposes.’

  I remain, &c.,

  E. Somerville Tattersall

  Tattersall’s, Knightsbridge, S.W.