The Times Great War Letters: Correspondence during the First World War. James Owen
does not depend on statements made by employers, but upon independent inquires made on behalf of the Government. The result of these investigations will soon be published.
Yours, &c.,
D. LLOYD GEORGE
As chancellor of the exchequer, Lloyd George was to bring in new licensing laws which curbed all-day drinking for the next 80 years.
“KILLED”
9 April 1915
SIR,—THERE HAVE BEEN handed in here two returned letters which more than a few weeks ago the fair friend of a soldier, an English corporal, had written, addressing them to his regiment at different places in the wish to discover his whereabouts, and in the hope that he would be alive to receive them. Outside the envelopes appears the one word, “Killed.” The intelligence is conclusive, nor is any further information vouchsafed; but if this be the regulation made of breaking the news in such cases, it is a curt and cheap one and had need to be improved upon by more consideration being shown for the feelings of the friend writing the soldier and whose letters will, of course, have been opened in the post.
Yours truly,
JOHN KEATING
ARMED MERCHANTMEN
10 April 1915
SIR,—SURELY IT WOULD be no innovation if vessels in the merchant navy to-day were armed to repel attack. When I first went to sea in ’59 it was a period when the work of the old “John Company’s” ships was being taken up by what were known as “East Indiamen,” the fine ships of “Green’s” and “Money Wigram’s,” and other shipowners. These ships all carried in the waist on the maindeck two guns of the calibre of the man-o’-war gun of that day, and on the taffrail they carried two brass swivel long-carronades to repel chasers. They also carried an arm chest with muskets and cutlasses sufficient to arm the crew, also a number of long boarding pikes, these last being kept around the mizzen-mast on the poop deck, ready for instant use, and I as midshipman was responsible for them. The Straits of Sunda and the China Seas were then infested with pirates, and ships had to protect themselves. Enemy submarines would, I think, fare badly if merchant ships to-day were similarly armed.
Your obedient servant,
C. E. MOGRIDGE HUDSON
THE TREATMENT OF PRISONERS
13 April 1915
SIR,—IT IS DIFFICULT TO know how to act in the case of these European Red Indians who torture their prisoners. It is clear that we cannot retaliate by spitting on, kicking, beating, starving, or freezing the Germans who are in our power. All appeals to good feeling are unavailing, for the average German has no more understanding of chivalry than a cow has of mathematics. He is honestly unable to understand our attitude when we speak kindly of Von Muller, Weddigen, or any of our opponents who have shown some approach to decency. His papers ascribe it partly to sentimentality and partly to hypocrisy. I have no doubt that when German aeroplanes drove away our boats while we were endeavouring to pick up the survivors of the Blücher they were really unable to conceive what it was that we were trying to do.
It is worth noting, since they endeavour to excuse their barbarity by saying that it is a retaliation for our naval blockade, that they acted in exactly the same fashion to our prisoners before this maritime policy had been declared. The narrative of the British Red Cross doctors who were taken in Belgium shows that they endured a similar inhuman persecution. If there is no retaliation which we as a nation can employ there is at least one line of action which might be taken. That is to print Major Vandeleur’s account with the American official reports, and such documents as the narrative in the Dutch paper Tyd of the torture of three wounded British prisoners in a frontier station in October. This paper should be officially sent, not only to all neutral countries, but it should be circulated among our soldiers in France. No man fights the worse for having his soul aflame with righteous anger, so we should use the weapon which the enemy has put into our hands. It will teach our men, also, if any of them still need the lesson, that it is far better to die upon the field than to trust to the humanity of a German victor. If our enemy is unchivalrous he is at least intensely practical, and if he realizes that we are gaining any military advantage from his misdeeds he may, perhaps, reconsider, not their morality, but their wisdom.
Yours faithfully,
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
THE RECRUITING CIRCULAR TO HOUSEHOLDERS
21 April 1915
SIR,—WILL YOU GIVE ME the opportunity to ask a question, which I think you will agree is important? When the Circular to Householders was issued, many heads of families gave in their names on the assumption that they would be called up only in the last resort, and under circumstances in which no patriotic man could refuse his help. Married men with large families are now being called up apparently without the slightest regard to their home circumstances. Many of the best of them are surprised and uneasy at leaving their families, but feel bound in honour to keep their word, some even thinking they have no choice. The separation allowances for these families will be an immense burden on the State, and, if the breadwinner falls, a permanent burden. Is the need for men still so serious and urgent as to justify this? If it is, then I for one, who have up to now hoped that the war might be put through without compulsion, feel that the time has come to “fetch” the unmarried shirkers, and I believe there is a widespread and growing feeling to that effect.
I am, Sir, &c.,
CHARLES G. E. WELBY
A NEW SOCIAL QUESTION
24 April 1915
SIR,—IT IS TIME that a little common sense was brought to bear upon what is getting to be known as the war baby question. I speak from the standpoint of a middle-aged married woman who has all her life been interested and often a helper in social work among young girls. The town in which I have lived for the last 20 years has 30,000 inhabitants, including about 5,000 female factory workers, and since the war began we have had many thousands of soldiers, chiefly Territorials, billeted among us. The town took kindly to its astonishingly new state of things and has treated the men very well indeed. No sooner, however, had the first excitement died down, and the fear of invasion passed, than rumours began to be heard about the bad behaviour of our girls with the men. Nothing was done, as our only large girls’ club building had been taken for a billet. However, eventually it was suggested that we should follow the example of other towns and appoint women patrols to look after the streets. I was told on all sides that the state of things was terrible, that the number of “expectants” ran into hundreds, some even specified 900. This, coupled with a moving address from a lady from another town to a meeting of ladies in our town, was a little too much for some of us to believe. (I may here say that the stranger lady averred in her speech that a “level-headed” friend of her own had told her that in her particular village there was not one girl of suitable age who was not an expectant.) We therefore undertook to make inquires of every one having the knowledge and authority to answer that we could think or hear of, and two ladies went a systematic round of the doctor, Poor Law authorities, inspectors, insurance, and police, among other sources of information. I am thankful to say that the report was most satisfactory in every way. The doctor, who knows the most about the illegitimate births, said there were very few expected, under half a dozen, not more than generally