The Telegraph Book of Readers' Letters from the Great War (29 page)
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Authors: Gavin Fuller
It is terrible to refuse asylum to girls whom we know to be in danger. Yesterday an unusually pretty and refined young girl of fifteen was brought to us by her parents; she had been pursued all the way from W by an Army officer, but they had been able to elude him, and the police as well. Our hospital is too public to shelter her, and we are still looking for a place for her. Most of the people in town are scared to do anything at all, foreigners included, but we don't propose to show the white feather, and are only waiting for certain official persons to return from X, where they went a few days ago in order to get larger liberties for Red Cross activities. At present our hospital has taken in all the soldiers and refugees that it can, and we are seeing sick refugees in the clinic all day long.
Today I counted twenty-one women and children in one of our waiting rooms mostly lying on the floor from sheer exhaustion, one child moribund, two others nearly so, and half the rest of the group quite likely to die in a few days if they are allowed to remain where they are in the camp. Many of the villagers are mountaineers, and lying out in the hot dusty plain by day and exposed to the cold of night they
quickly succumb. Today I took a little girl into the hospital who had been perfectly well until four days ago, when everything was stolen from the mother and she had no place to lay her except on the ground, so that she quickly got up a dysentery and died a few hours after admission to the ward. The family were respectable Protestant people from V. Hardly had the little girl died and the sheets been changed than another child, this time a boy, was put into the same bed; his leg had been cut off by a railroad car, apparently there was nobody to take care of him. We found that the mother had been forcibly separated from her children further back on the road.
In that same ward lies a young girl who has recently had her leg amputated for the same accident, and who today was crying and screaming because some friends had told her that her parents had suddenly been deported to X without having been given a chance to see her. It is all horrible, horrible â no mere description can adequately portray the awful suffering of these unfortunate people whose only crime is that they are Armenian.
These people are being deliberately done to death at a sufficiently slow pace to allow their oppressors the opportunity of choosing out such of their women and their goods as they care for and getting all their money away from them before they die. Dr and Mrs A. went through the massacres of 1894 and 1896, and they and Miss B and I have been through two revolutions, one massacre and two wars
since then: but we all agree that we have never seen anything like this. Another outrageous side of it is that many of the fathers and brothers of these women and children are in the army fighting the country's battles: such was the case of the dying child that was brought to the clinic this afternoon, and another who will probably be in the same condition soon.
16 December 1915
SIR â Two pencil and wash drawings have come into my possession, as follows:
1. A Lady; the drawing having the following written on it: âA Sketch for Arthur's dug-out. â L.H.'
2. A Child; the drawing bears the signature: âDoris Hocknell'.
Both are enclosed in celluloid facings.
Being desirous of returning them to the owner I should be pleased if you will assist me by making it known through the medium of your paper.
I am, &c.,
W.J. Norburn, Major, AOD
Havre
30 December 1915
Utilising Every Class
SIR â We are an indifferently organised nation. The war has plainly told us that. We have prospered by individual effort, and big men with a genius for seeing along the road of progress have carried with them the smaller men unaccustomed to think out problems by themselves. But a nation organised in wartime to bring out the best its population can produce must be infinitely stronger than one which does little to concentrate the whole energies of its people upon the work of production.
How many have asked themselves the question recently, âWhat can I do to serve best the Empire at the most critical stage of its history?' The number of people unable to enrol themselves in the fighting forces, or to take part in the work of munition making, is extremely high. Whether it is one hundred thousand, half a million, or a million, it must cause deep concern to the Government if the energies of this mass are misapplied, or are not applied to uses which build up the national wealth. In the last few weeks the public have frequently been told how important it is that production at home should be increased, and now that the Army strength has been raised to four million men the economic problem of keeping the nation's trade going at high pressure is rendered more difficult of solution than ever it was. So acute must it become that the nation is bound to look for new sources of
labour supply, and to expect production from classes which hitherto have not entered the fields of industry.
There is at this moment a great opportunity for rendering a national service of inestimable value by sound, practical men in thinking out and developing a scheme for utilising large classes of the people at present producing nothing. The bulk of these would be delighted to accept a suggestion as to how they could help the country. Men of leisure over military age or unfit for military service, professional men whose careers have been temporarily checked owing to the war, and employees in industries which the war has injured form a considerable portion of the population, and anyone who is aware of the efforts made by these classes to obtain some useful war work knows how wide a demand there is for any scheme under which they could be employed.
The war has brought home to us that we had been too hesitating in the employment of women in many industries. Institutions which before the war scorned the idea that women could do the work then performed by men have availed themselves of women's help, and speak in the highest terms of the performance of their duties, of punctuality, good temper and steady application to their tasks. In factories of all descriptions women have taken the place of men who have patriotically gone to the colours. If it be true that there are hundreds of thousands of women earning honourable wages today who had never sought employment before the war, it is clear the nation must be
the richer for their services. It may be a labour problem will be created after the war, for, these women, having entered fields of enterprise for which they have proved their fitness, will not readily give up their employment. But that is a matter for after-war settlement. The point is that a great army of women is, in the time of the country's need, helping in a marvellous way to keep industry going, and what they are doing ought to prompt an enormous number of their sisters who are doing nothing for the country to come out and assist for the national good.
The question is how can these men and women be helped to devote their energies for the welfare of the country. There must be countless ways for their profitable employment. The most attractive, of course, is munition-making or the manufacture of equipment for the troops, for everyone so engaged rightly appreciates that each article made goes directly to the defeat of the Allies' enemies. But so does the production of every necessary article made at home. This is a war in which money plays a part as vital as that of men. Anyone devoting money and labour to the production of food in this country is preventing the importation of a corresponding amount, and keeps money at home which would otherwise go abroad. The balance sheet of the amateur poultry farmer, even if it shows an adverse balance, is a patriotic document during the war, and anyone who has cut his flower garden in half that he may grow vegetables may be satisfied he is doing a service by raising food. Similarly, every week employed in maxing articles which, if not required at
home, may be exported and bring money into the country, is given to the nation's cause.
The people who could be employed, and â there is no doubt about it â who wish to be employed, if there was some organisation to direct their energies into appropriate channels, are waiting a lead. Cannot some method be devised for utilising the services of the mass of people who, if not idle, are not doing all they can to promote the national welfare, and whose inactivity, owing to the weakness of national organisation, constitutes a national waste? Would it not be possible for some practical men to consider how all the available material in men and women could be passed into spheres of usefulness, where each person, while profiting by the output of honourable labour, will get an even greater return in the knowledge that he or she has done some part in helping the country to win the war, and to prepare for the struggle for industrial supremacy when peace comes?
If a number of public-spirited ladies and gentlemen could be got together to organise and control a central bureau in London, with branches throughout the country, to arrange that the unemployed energies of the people should be directed to the work of production, the country would conduct the final phase of the war with a greatly increased force. Many people believe they have qualifications which would make them useful, but they do not know how or where to offer their services. There are others who do not
know they possess qualifications, but they are ready and anxious to be instructed, and if they could be informed how they could do something for their country they would render willing service.
The central bureau could inquire what lines of employment would be useful, collect the personnel for such employment, and develop schemes for the employment of all possible workers outside the existing lines of public service. What the labour exchanges do for skilled and unskilled labour, the central bureau, or by whatever title it was known, could do for the large class which is not doing, but is anxious to do, all it can for the good of the country. This body might have a small beginning, but it would work for a class which is as patriotic as any in the country, and if its labours were well directed there are possibilities of effecting great and far-reaching benefits for the Empire.
Suggestions for the carrying out of such a scheme would be helpful to those who are considering it, and would be welcomed. While any hastily formed ideas might prejudice the chances of success, the question of utilising the fullest possible strength of the nation to finish the war is of such importance that it brooks no delay. A plan to bring to the country's aid the majority of the non-productive elements of the population does not necessarily mean the setting-up of a new and costly organisation throughout the kingdom There is already in being the machinery for assisting in the carrying out of such a scheme as is suggested in this column, and the
advantage of employing that machinery might be obtained if it was made evident that a well-considered and useful scheme was framed.