The Times Great Letters: A century of notable correspondence. James Owen
amount or say £120,000 which will purchase £150,000 of the new War Loan, and present it to the Government for cancellation.
I give this portion of my estate as a thank-offering in the firm conviction that never again shall we have such a chance of giving our country that form of help which is so vital at the present time.
Yours, etc.,
F.S.T.
The writer refers to ‘the eve of peace’ as the letter was written a few days before the Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919.
The initials F.S.T. stood for Financial Secretary to the Treasury — Stanley Baldwin, who would become prime minister for the first time in 1923. His net worth was equivalent to about £50 million now. The scheme he proposed does not appear to have caught on.
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Here’s how
15 July 1919
Sir, Will you permit an elderly man, who is not a politician nor a public character, but merely an individual among millions of honest, sober persons whose liberty is attacked by a moral tyranny, to state an opinion with regard to the crusade which is being started against moderate drinkers?
It is not needed even in the cause of morality. That drunkenness has not entirely ceased is obvious, but that it is rapidly declining, from the natural action of civilization, is equally obvious. When I was a child, even in the country village where I was brought up, excess in drinking was patent in every class of society. Now, in my very wide circle of various acquaintances, I do not know of one single man or woman who is ever seen “under the influence of liquor”. Why not leave the process of moderation, so marked within 60 years, to pursue its normal course?
It is untrue to say that a limited and reasonable use of alcohol is injurious to mind, or body, or morality. My father, whose life was one of intense intellectual application, and who died, from the result of an accident, in his 79th year, was the most rigidly conscientious evangelical I have ever known.
He would have been astonished to learn that his claret and water at his midday meal, and his glass of Constantia when he want to bed, were either sinful in themselves or provocative to sin in others. There is no blessing upon those who invent offences for pleasure of giving pain and who lay burdens wantonly on the liberty of others. We have seen attempts by the fantastically righteous to condemn those who eat meat, who go to see plays, those who take walks on Sundays. The campaign against the sober use of wine and beer is on a footing with these efforts, and should be treated as they have been. Already tobacco is being forbidden to the clergy!
The fact that Americans are advertised as organizing and leading the campaign should be regarded with alarm. It must, I think, be odious to all right-thinking Americans in America. We do not express an opinion, much less do we organize a propaganda against “dryness” in the United States. The conditions of that country differ extremely from our own. It is not for us to interfere in their domestic business. If Englishmen went round America urging Americans to defy their own laws and revolt against their national customs, we should be very properly indignant. Let crusading Americans be taught the same reticence. It was never more important than it is now for Great Britain and the United States to act in harmony, and to respect each the habits and prejudices of the other.
These considerations may be commonplace; I hope they are. But many people seem afraid of saying in public what they are unanimously saying in private. The propagandist teetotaler is active and unscrupulous. He does not hesitate to bring forward evidence, or to attach moral opprobrium to his opponents. He fights with all weapons, whether they are clean or no. We must openly resist, without fear of consequences, what those of us who share my view judge to be cruel and ignorant fanaticism of these apostles. We should offer no apology for insisting on retaining our liberty.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
EDMUND GOSSE
The next year, the sale of alcohol was banned in the United States: Prohibition.
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The Future of War
6 November 1919
Sir, By land and sea the approaching prodigious aircraft development knocks out the present Fleet, makes invasion impracticable, cancels our country being an island, and transforms the atmosphere into the battle-ground of the future.
I say to the Prime Minister there is only one thing to do to the ostriches who are spending these vast millions (“which no man can number”) on what is as useful for the next war as bows and arrows! — “Sack the lot.”
Yours,
FISHER
Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher
Postscript.—As the locusts swarmed over Egypt so will the aircraft swarm in the heavens, carrying (some of them) inconceivable cargoes of men and bombs, some fast, some slow. Some will act like battle cruisers, others as destroyers. All cheap and (this is the gist of it) requiring only a few men as the crew.
No one’s imagination can as yet depict it all. If I essayed it now I should be called a lunatic. I gently forecast it in January, 1915, and more vividly on July 11, 1918. We have the star guiding us, if only we will follow it.
Time and the Ocean and some fostering star
In high cabal — have made us what we are!
On Friday last the presiding genius at the “Marine Engineers” said, “The day of oil fuel and the oil engine had arrived.” In 1885 I was called an “oil maniac.” — Nunc Dimittis
The former First Sea Lord Jackie Fisher was a prolific and often percipient correspondent to The Times on naval matters, and blessed with an inimitable style of writing. He died in 1920, before much of his vision of future warfare was vindicated.
NEW TIMES AND
NEW STANDARDS
1920–29
To-day’s young men
3 August 1921
Sir, May I, as a middle-aged spectator, write a few words in your columns to call attention to a curious change in the younger generation of men now, or lately, in residence at the universities, and of ages from 20 to 25?
In many essentials they are the same young men as those of 20 years ago. They are generous and loyal; they are gentle and kind hearted; they are full of spirit and pluck. But there is one great difference. More than ever before in the history of youth do they defy discipline and worship independence. More than ever do they brush aside experience and do exactly as they please.
The writer’s observations are based chiefly on recent visits to the universities, on watching cricket matches, and on meeting the younger men in private houses and at tennis and golf.
Many of them, when they are talking to other persons, including people older than themselves, never take their pipes out of their mouths. When asked to luncheon with hostesses in London many of them appear in under-graduate clothes and flannel collars. When they are in London they never dress for dinner except in case of absolute necessity. They often associate with very odd friends, and with the female companions of these odd friends. At the Eton and Harrow match the writer saw in the pavilion a group of young men who were, for any other occasion, rather nicely dressed. They wore blue serge suits, summer shirts and Zingari1 straw hats. But had they not forgotten that the 1,200 boys who were present were wearing, compulsorily, the kit which for generations had been honoured and welcomed in London as one of the most charming sights of the ceremonial year, and that the great majority of grown-up people who came to the match were showing their respect for the boys by donning the same kind of dress?
The last point I wish to mention is that young men are showing an increasing toleration and fondness for lawn tennis. Breaking away from the general opinion of the masters of our public schools, and from the athletic traditions of many decades of university