Chapter III (4)

Nevertheless!--women’s hands that are, or that might be, as delicate and caressable as those of Fra Angelico’s model, or Heine’s unseen lady, are now at work in the strangest kind of “annunciation”!--the most amazing form of “confession”! Why do they toil in such a contrary fashion to their natural bent and inclination? The answer is swift and conclusive. Because Evil is let loose on the earth, and because Good must use all force to overcome it. And, out of sternest necessity, Good must arm itself with weapons that shall not only match but surpass those employed by Evil. In a fight against devils, angels must join battle. In some of the most magnificent scenes of Milton’s “Paradise Lost” when war rages between the warriors of God and the followers of Satan, the good are described as fighting against the bad with terrific weapons of attack, and the outbursts of fire hurled against the devilish foe were none the less potent because wrought by the angelic hosts. Our women workers who prepare the munitions of war are one and all inspired by the same fixed motive and desire--namely, to end the sorrows and suspense of the suffering nations who are involved in the disastrous upheaval which is the result of a people’s pitiful belief in the “divine right,” of a crowned madman. And as they turn out “shells” and yet more “shells,” we know that they hope and believe that for every one completed, at least one of the fiendish murderers of the innocent may be dismissed from a world which his presence has darkened. Perchance they may, as they press on with their work, hear more mystic sounds than are conveyed in the cavity of an empty shell “void of a living will” on the sea-shore--for their filled shell speaks of their own blood, burning with grief and indignation at the slaughter of their kindred--and of the roar and thunder of the guns instead of the crashing billows of the sea. Who shall count the throbbing thoughts of the women who fill these “shells”?--women who look calm enough and resolute enough, and who work on tirelessly and almost wordlessly, as though moved by a single heart, beating through each one’s separate labour! A visitor to a shell factory in the Midlands said to me,--“They work quite mechanically; I think they hardly know what they are about.” _Don’t_ they know what they are about? Indeed they do! They know they are making weapons of destruction that shall bring reprisals for the deaths of brave men--they know that they are helping to save the lives of their own kinsmen, and with all their strength they “speed up,” because they feel that by so doing they are pushing on the end of the war. We shall never be able to realise how much they have done for us, and alas!--the ingratitude of nations to its workers is proverbial. It takes a woman to understand woman’s enforced labour, and to enter with sympathy into all she loses by taking the place of man in hard and difficult times--what sacrifices in health and vitality she makes by long hours of steady application to monotonous factory work--what temptations she has to resist--what bribes--yes!--bribes of cash and comfort she has to forgo. For the enemy is busy elsewhere than on the field--insidious and indefatigable in stirring up strife in this country and sowing the seeds of disloyalty and discontent, and it says much for our women that they are awake and alert to the fact. Of the contemptible few who “make love” to “Fritz” in his prison camp, one can only be sorry that they are so “weak in the upper story!” The real women of the Empire--the women who, in the after-war days that are coming, will have so much of the country’s destiny in their guidance, are in the majority sound, sane, and loyal--we can trust them with work even more momentous than the making of shells! Meanwhile, we can try to be grateful to them for their steadiness and perserverance, their pluck and patience, and let us not forget at any time what we owe to them. It should be graven deep on the records of the nation that--_Without Women’s Work the War Could Not Be Won!_ And in the hour of victory let us not fail to pay them our debt of Honour!

DARKNESS AND LIGHT

(_Written at the request of Sir Arthur Pearson as the Prologue to an Entertainment on behalf of St. Dunstan’s Hostel for Soldiers and Sailors Blinded in the War_)

“Oh, dark, dark, dark amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark! Total eclipse
Without all hope of day!”
Samson Agonistes.

You, whose eyes are able to read these tragic lines of blind John Milton, can you realise what they mean? Do you feel to the innermost core of your heart the blackness of that “eclipse without all hope of day,” which like a never-lifting cloud envelopes those from whom the blessing of sight has been taken for ever! Can you, even by the utmost exertion of your imagination, truly grasp what it would mean to you if all light and colour were blotted out from your consciousness, and you had to rely on a merciful guiding hand to lead you to and fro, to hold you lest you stumbled, and conduct you from places of business or pleasure safely back to your home? If you could not see beloved faces?--if the sunlight could never again reach those poor closed channels of the vision you once enjoyed?--if the skies, the lovely country, the woods and the ocean were all glories that should never again gladden your sight?--if this were so, would you not pray to God that being thus handicapped He would at least give you _friends_? Friends who would be eyes to you, hands to you--who would cheer you in dreadful moments of depression blacker than blindness, and who would help you to find occupation and train you to do useful work, although sightless, so that the days and years should not be so fraught with monotony and dull regret; and that life, after all, should not seem a barren and empty thing?

You have heard of St. Dunstan’s Hostel for soldiers and sailors blinded in the war? It is now one of earth’s “Holy Places”--holy because the benediction of heaven has made it a sanctuary--a sanctuary of love, patience, self-sacrifice and untiring devotion--holy, because the patiently endured martyrdom of a brave man has been and is its spiritual foundation. Sir Arthur Pearson--(some of you do not know it or think of it)--is himself blind. And what makes his sorrow darker for him, is that he has known all the blessings of perfect sight--he has enjoyed all the activities of an eager and vigorous life, and is still in the prime of manhood. “How sad for him!” murmurs the conventional Society voice--“Such a drawback!” Yes, how sad!--but what gladness for others he gathers from his own handicap!--what splendid results have sprung from his “drawback!”--what sunshine pours from the cloud of his night! The American essayist, Emerson, in advising one stricken with adversity, writes, “Be like the wounded oyster, _mend your shell with a pearl_!” With what a pearl of great price has Arthur Pearson mended his life’s wound! Knowing the bitterness of blindness, he has devoted all his energies to the care of the blind and to the lightening of their darkness, especially to those heroes who, in the very hey-day of their youth and manliness have gone unhesitatingly forth to face the foe in this wickedest of wars, and have been blinded by shot and shell explosions, losing all sense of vision in one cruel moment--a moment that rings down the curtain on all scenes and faces for ever! Shall we not, with all our hearts, help the sublime cause of “love to our neighbours,” and consolation to our self-sacrificing soldiers and sailors, taught to us by the example of this Englishman who does not protest, but _lives_ his Christian faith in a manner that Christ must surely approve? It would be trespassing on sacred ground to presume to guess how much heavenly light has been mystically shed on his own darkness by this noble dedication of his sorrow to noblest ends. But it may be reverently said that he has followed as far as is humanly possible the Divine Teacher who, in healing a blind man, “put His hands upon his eyes and _made him look up_.” In this we can all help. We can make our brave, blind friends, the soldiers and sailors, rendered sightless for our sakes, “look up!” We can make them feel they are not alone and helpless in a dark world; we can convince them that their welfare is dear to us, and that we are fully conscious of the immense sacrifices they have made for us and for the country. Let us all then do our utmost and best for St. Dunstan’s and strengthen the hands of its Founder, and let it never be said that we were guilty of the meanest vice known to humanity--Ingratitude!

SWEEPING THE COUNTRY

They say it does; and I hardly wonder! The broom is so long and searchful; it goes into so many holes and corners that surely not a single spider’s web is left unvisited. It gathers up the pale dust of British gullability with an admirable adroitness, and what is perhaps the best thing about it is that it pays for its sweepings. Not every broom does that! But I am told--I do not assert it or vouch for it--that it is a German broom; and no make of broom in all the world is more capable of industry or more resistless to wear and tear. Opposed as we are, and as we must be, to German militarism, German labour will, I fear, be always ahead of us, especially if the German worker puts in eight or ten hours where the British decides to give only four or six. This is a matter for future testing; in the meanwhile let us consider with attention, in capital letters “THIS MORNING’S NEWS ABOUT PELMANISM,” as it appears in that esteemed journal _The Sunday Times_, to which I have had the honour to contribute. It is but the other day that I was assured “on the highest authority” (as the bewildered press reporters at the Peace Conference have expressed it) that “Pelman” was originally spelt “_Poehlmann_,” and that at discreet intervals his “Magic Card” would be followed by another, inscribed “_Roth_.” Both names have the euphonious Teuton ring about them, and they both imply Money--money spent lavishly and magnificently on the “flowing tide of Pelmanism” by way of opulent and ceaseless advertisement in all the newspapers which joyously yield their columns to cash rather than to intelligent information, and give up whole pages to “Pelman” or “Roth” indiscriminately, in competition with a kindly Swedish masseur or exercise-man, who in equally lavish announcements and large type, promises health to the healthless even as “Pelman” and “Roth” promise brain to the brainless. Of “Roth” I know little except that according to advertisement “he is a remarkable man” (of which I am entirely convinced), but of “Pelman” I have learned something at first hand. I have learned, for instance, how it is that the spacious, tremendous, profuse, and overpowering advertisements of this system of brain-forcing flood every corner of the press, squeezing out by their size and the space they occupy legitimate news of interest to the public; of course, the first and chief reason is that they are paid for. Everything in every line of business, pleasure or social position, is paid for; even the clergyman who professes to show you the way to heaven is paid for. Then surely it follows that Pelman or Poehlmann must be a multi-millionaire? No! he need not be. As the controller of the “flowing tide” he may make others pay, and so may command cash without being personally wealthy. He no doubt realises the truth of what a certain frank proprietor of pickles assured me--“If advertising is done well and continuously it brings in double and treble the money it costs.” And the channels in which the “flowing tide” is set to run are cleverly prepared and delved out in the shifting sands of British innocence and credulity--two admirable traits of our national character. It is a touching thing to realise that the guileless Briton should so simply confess himself to “Pelman” as mindless and memory-less--and it is equally pathetic to discover in the “Census” of “Pelmanists” there can be counted one barmaid, one bacon-curer, and one “corporation official”! “Art and music and literature are being re-born,” says Pelman--and no doubt the Pelmanists are already in travail. It is all very clever and amusing; a little comedy in which the guileless Briton is the bear that dances to the Pelman pipings. I admire cleverness wherever I find it; it is a star in the general murk of stupidity, and I am the last person in the world to depreciate the brilliancy of its glitter. But it has interested me to study the movements of this particular scheme, and chance or fortune placed one or two threads in my hands which seemed to suggest a clue. Briefly then, I was offered Fifty Guineas to “write up” Pelmanism. The offer came through a very agreeable and enterprising journalist, employed, I presume, to secure fresh supplies for the “flowing tide,” and he added to his own personal and friendly entreaties a considerable quantity of literary matter setting forth the miraculous improvement in heretofore dull brains under the influence of Pelman or Poehlmann. I made a careful study of these documents, and the first thing that dawned on my own dim intelligence was that every would-be student of the “course” would be called upon to pay six guineas, either in one sum or by “easy instalments,” though one _can_ have a copy of the book entitled _Mind and Memory_ (which tell “all about” Pelmanism but does not instruct) _gratis_, and in that book are “particulars” showing how one can obtain the “course” at a reduced fee. Thanks to my journalist friend I had the _gratis_ book (in its forty-fourth edition, and for this reason called “The World’s Most Widely Read Book”--well! with all diffidence allow me to hint that this is incorrect, as I myself am the author of one or two books in their fifty-first editions), but the “Course” did not tempt me to disburse guineas, not even had I accepted the Fifty offered. (I may say here that I never accept “tips.”) But I could not, and cannot refrain from considering how, if the scheme works successfully, as of course it must, the British public are paying for these splendid advertisements! Paying so well that it is easy to understand how the Pelman promoters can afford to pay Fifty Guineas, more or less, to the obliging individuals who are ready and willing to praise the “system.” Canon Hannay (“George A. Birmingham”) for instance--does _he_ get Fifty Guineas? Or Mr. Spencer Leigh Hughes, M.P.? Or dear George R. Sims? Or Mr. Gilbert Frankau? Or do they send in their testimonials _gratis_? I feel that I cannot be the _only_ “eminent” (to quote advertisement) person who has received the munificent offer of Fifty Guineas, and _refused the same_! In the Pelman “Census” I note there are 339 accountants, 8 actresses, 490 clergymen, and--one archbishop! Whereby it would seem that accountants and clergymen need more brain-prodding than others. And if the “one Archbishop” should consent to “write up” the advantages of the “course” (like Mr. Will Owen, who declares that, artist though he professes to be, he had “hardly begun the first lesson in Pelmanism before he discovered something he had been drawing incorrectly all his life), sure His Grace would merit a Hundred Guineas for his good work at the very least? Anyhow his fee should be more than that of a “bacon-curer” or a novelist! In openly confessing the offer to myself of Fifty Guineas which I refused without a moment’s hesitation, I do so that I may call the attention and admiration of the public to the clever way certain people manage to make money through human gullability. The brain-prodders and memory-pushers are almost as astute as Government officials. The mass of people who never stop to think, still less to calculate, are their happy hunting-ground. Personally I think Pelman and Roth too “sharp” to be of the Anglo-Saxon race, though I do not assert them to be Germans, naturalised or _de_-naturalised. But they have the Teuton line of intelligence; that is, wherever they find a good thick soil of stupidity, they plant seed therein, fertilise it and make it grow. These special people who feed the coffers of journalism by purchasing whole pages of space for their advertisements, are so convinced of the thickness and richness of Anglo-American stupidity that they boldly offer to transmute it, like alchemists, into the gold of intellectual ability, and if this could be done ’twere a worthy thing. But one must pause at the idea they put forward--“If only we had 1,000,000 clever thinkers!” It is _too_ terrific! This poor earth of ours could not survive! Its rolling ball like a bomb would burst in space, overburdened by the sheer weight of brain! Be merciful, therefore, O munificent Pelman! spare us, gentle Roth! Do not instruct the bacon-curer or train the Archbishop beyond what we have the strength to endure! Do not compel us to bow the knee to the “barmaid” as another De Stael!--to the “corporation official” as a new Admirable Crichton! It is the American philosopher Emerson who writes, “Let the world beware when a Thinker comes into it!” But “1,000,000 thinkers!” The prospect is horrible--spare us, good Lord! We have much to be thankful for in Carlyle’s famous assertion “most fools,” for if our population were all wise, life would be dull indeed! Fools make the gaiety of nations--they are the staple support of all governments--the foundation of the press and the drama--the stock-in-trade of all authors, philosophers, and wits whatsoever, and Heaven forbid we should ever be deprived of their existence! We are always more or less in the position of Shakespeare’s “melancholy Jacques” and ready to say, “A fool, a fool, I met a fool i’ the forest! as I do live by food I met a fool!” and when we chance on company with this simple friend of all men should we “Pelmanise” or “Roth” him? Never! He is too valuable an asset to the world!

TO SAVE LIFE OR DESTROY IT?

A CHALLENGE TO CERTAIN CLERGY

(_Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”_)

Does the Christian Church profess to follow the teaching of Christ? Or the Law of Moses? That is to say: Is it Christian or Jewish? If Jewish, its “sabbath” should be kept on Saturday, in conformance with the rest of the Jewish world; if Christian, then, according to Christ, we may, if necessity compels, do imperative work on Sunday. But a section of our clergy are up in arms at the idea of “profaning the Lord’s Day” by allowing labour of tillage and planting the land on Sundays, for the necessities of the nation’s food. Where do these contentious persons get their authority? Not from their divine Master! Their spirit is that of the Scribes and Pharisees who “watched” Our Lord--“whether he would heal on the sabbath day, that they might find an accusation against Him.” The world has not outgrown that contemptible spirit. “That they might find an accusation” is often everybody’s aim and clearest business! “Then said Jesus unto them--I will ask you one thing: Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good or to do evil?--to save life or destroy it?” And when the hypocrites could not answer Him, He healed the afflicted man who had sought His aid, whereat those who had “watched” Him, so says the Gospel narrative, “were filled with madness and communed one with another what they might do to Him.” But, despite His scorn of their narrow sectarianism, “He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.”

No true servant of Christ can find the least excuse in any one of the Divine Teacher’s commands for a rigidly sectarian observance of Sunday. A seventh day’s rest was wisely and rightly instituted by Moses for the relief of the Israelites when they had been worked as slaves by their Egyptian taskmasters; but Christ never incorporated its observance as any part of the instructions He gave to His disciples. “What man shall there be among you,” He said, “that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it and lift it out? How much, then, is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore, it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days.”

Mark those last words! They were spoken by One “in whom there was no guile.” It is lawful to do well on the sabbath days. And yet, Oh! narrow and rigid men who “profess” Christ, you, who see and know that on the feeding of our population depends their health, their strength, and their ultimate victory over a barbarous foe, you would discourage the willing hearts and hinder the ready hands from virtuous and unselfish labour on Sundays in a time of unexampled national necessity! Shame! For the blessing of God must be on all such honest workers whose toil is for the help and honour of their country. Christ told us there were but two commandments, not ten--the first: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength”--and the second: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”

* * * * *

Now what do the dogmatists make of this? If we truly love God, we surely know His “work” never ceases. We could not live a second without His sustaining principle. Every moment of every hour some active propulsion of creative force labours to produce a result which is perfect of its kind. On whatever day we sow our wheat we cannot stop its growing on Sundays. The energies of Divine beneficence never slacken. If they did, existence itself would be at an end. Our “love” of God must therefore include our consciousness of His unresting “work” for His creation. Then, if we are to love our neighbour as ourselves, it follows that we must care for his sustenance as well as our own. In times like the present we must help him to produce food for himself and his family, even if we till the land on Sundays, which, so employed, may be considered truly “holy” days. For “it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days,” and it is better to benefit a neighbour than listen to a sermon. That is, if we accept the teaching of Christ and assume to be Christians. The times are pressing; the necessity for food production urgent; and men owe it as a duty to the land God gives them that it should yield sufficient to keep the population in health and safety. Therefore, if this needful, noble work has to be done quickly, there is no sin, but rather great virtue and self-sacrifice, in working on Sundays as well as weekdays during a time of war and stress. If any of the clergy can quote a single one of Christ’s own words forbidding necessary work on Sundays, let them do so. Christ’s own words, remember! They are generally ignored by all Churches. Had they ever been obeyed, the purity and strength of a perfect Faith would, long ere this, have exterminated War. Now, all good “Christian” clergy, who object to necessary national work on Sundays, produce your Master’s warrant for such action--if you can! I say you cannot!

THE WAR LOAN

HOW IT MIGHT BE INCREASED

(_Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”_)

We are all bound for victory. Every nerve and sinew of every man and woman in Imperial Britain is bent on the task of winning it, not only for ourselves, but for the whole civilised world. America knows, and the intimidated and secretly tampered with neutrals also know, as well as we do, that the full triumph of the Allies means their great peace as well as ours--their advantage, their progress, their commerce, as well as ours. That brave and straight-speaking hero of science, Thomas Edison, recently said: “The people of the world have willed that they shall be their own masters, and what the people will is sure to come to pass.” True enough, it is the people only who can realise every aim, every ideal, every conquest; and in this matter of the War Loan they can raise a veritable mountain of gold if they so determine. But--there is a “but” in their willingness: an obstacle in the race--they will not give as much as they would if they have to realise that some of it or any of it may be used to pay wages and provide food for German foes dwelling in our very midst.

* * * * *

Think of it! Is it reasonable, is it just, to ask this patient, docile, strong, and law-abiding people of Britain to give their lives, their homes, their children, their time, with all their service and money, towards the vigorous and incessant prosecution of the war, when they know that there are more than 20,000 German foes kept at large in this realm, free to do as they will? Twenty thousand, who go about in all towns and villages unchallenged, listening, spying, noting every coign and circumstance of vantage, and often (assuming to be English themselves) using persuasion to prejudice the Loan among the uninstructed classes.

Twenty thousand enemies, prepared and ready to work devastation at the first opportunity, while we “hush up” all that may seem unchivalrous or to the dear creatures’ detriment! Is it right that these same Germans should have their own meeting places and restaurants in London as freely as if they were in Berlin? And, to add insult to the injury of the whole position, is it even sane that our authorities should actually permit Germans to work in our munition factories? Germans who, when they leave the works and go to their eating houses, take off their munition badges and spit on them in token of their contempt for Britain, even while they are accepting British pay and eating British food!

* * * * *

What does it mean, this employment of Germans in British munition factories? Death-dealing explosions, of course! What else can any one, not entirely a drivelling idiot, expect? Is it likely that a German will make shells absolutely as they should be made for the destruction of his own countrymen? No; he would rather burn down the whole factory!--and he does if he gets the chance. Nor can he be blamed; it is the authorities who are to blame for putting him in the way of temptation to murder. There is something so “dumb-driven, cattle-like” in the sheer stupidity of two or three of our Governmental Departments that one is fain to compassionate them as one might compassionate sheep bumping their heads against a stone wall and expecting to get through.

* * * * *

If a house is threatened with burglary, is it reasonable to ask the burglar in on a “dine and sleep” visit? Yet that is what is being done with the Germans in our country to-day. And it is not possible that our people can or will rise to their full strength, either in service or in money, as long as they are affronted by the presence of the enemy in the centres of their business and social life. The extraordinary indulgence shown to the Huns in London is a perpetual worry to our French friends, who cannot understand it. They discuss it and deplore it as a sign of weakness. But whatever it is, we may be sure it will not be allowed to last. Once the people take the law into their own hands nothing will stop them. _Après ça le deluge!_

No spitting on British munition badges then! No extra allowances of food to German prisoners while British folk are ordered to measure their rations! No “official” posts for men with German wives! Taken as a whole, the position is more than scandalous. The British people have every right to demand that their own land shall be cleansed of all the associates of the pirates and murderers who slay their men, women, and children without mercy, and who yet remain here, living at the nation’s expense. Every German at large in these islands is a walking “wireless” of swift and useful information to headquarters. Each new device of Britain for worsting the foe is at once conveyed to those most interested, and our newspapers, frequently more zealous than discreet, lend their aid by giving details, and often illustrations, of the latest of our scientific inventions for warfare.

* * * * *

It is time this matter was handled boldly, with “gloves off,” as Queen Elizabeth would have handled it. She would have sent all Germans out of the country at the very declaration of war, and so would have saved an infinite number of treasons against the State. Late in the day as it is, why not send them now? Send them all, in comfort and luxury if you will, with “rations” of first-class food, on British ships flying the British flag, and let them take their chance of the kindness and humanity of their own countrymen. They will be useful additions to the “national service” of their Vaterland--we do not want them here. Our own men and women will suffice us for our own labor, and work will be done more readily, while money will flow in more plentifully, when we are sure that our own land is purged of the Hun, and that we are not, like fools, paying to keep and feed plotters against the peace of the realm.

FOOD PRODUCTION

A PLEA FOR COMMON SENSE

(_Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”_)

Talk of “National Service!” Where is the man, woman, or child that refuses to do any really necessary or useful work for the country? Such cannot be found! There is an eager and splendid willingness in every one to give his or her best; but without proper organisation the fine forces of this fine, patient, and enduring people are scattered and disunited. From all that the bewildered mind can gather through the roaring megaphone of an apparently semi-crazed and ruinously expensive system of advertisement, the National Service most demanded is “food production.” So says Mr. Prothero. Very well. Then why not set about it in an orderly practical manner, without screaming our shortcomings aloud for the amusement of the Germans? There is no difficulty whatever in sufficient food production if some sort of method be brought into the present chaos. Take this for an example:--

With the help of an old soldier with a wooden leg and an old man of seventy, a pig farmer and market gardener was able to put on the market in six months £1487 worth of pork and £174 of garden produce.

In the next three months he anticipates an addition to his stock of about 240 pigs from his twenty-five breeding sows.

Already he has 211 pigs on the place, apart from the breeding animals.

What can be done in one place can be done in another, and if every rural town and village were encouraged to work its own allotments, if every cottager were persuaded to grow his or her own garden produce, and keep pigs and poultry, half the food problem would be solved. Why not organise such a plan and concentrate scattered forces? It would be a mistake to confide the management of such a scheme to “local” magnates, whether mayors or members of corporations, for those who have any experience of such “bodies” know well enough what hindrances they are in the way of active progress, having always their own axes to grind. But an impartial, unprejudiced, friendly director of each agricultural centre, a man or woman of helpful, sympathetic and practical knowledge, who would encourage the workers and spare them any of that “superior” tone of insolence so hurtfully employed by some of the temporary jacks-in-office on our military tribunals, could very easily energise the whole business. Suppose, too, that instead of a daily patter about potatoes and “shortage,” the Government were to offer prizes from ten to a hundred pounds for the cottagers and holders of allotments who, in six months, should produce most food for their own families and neighbours, would it not cost less money than the printing of millions of “food tickets”? Certainly, it would hearten, not dishearten, the workers, and give them an extra zest for “production.”

Moreover, it is high time our rulers and Ministers left off talking about “shortage of food” altogether, if the following is true:--

A statement made in the House of Commons recently emphasises the fact that German agents are still active in this country. In refusing to supply a member with certain information about the supply of aeroplanes, he said: “Any answer we give in this House is at once sent to Germany.”

Printed or written information can always be stopped by the censor. The question remains: How is the information conveyed?

How, indeed? Why should we give the Huns the satisfaction of supposing we need food? Or allowing them to think their U-boats are “blockading” us into famine? Let the public keep its “weather eye” open, and consider recent events in Russia! There, part of the German scheme was “to create an artificial scarcity of food, so as to precipitate food riots and compel a separate peace.”

Beware of the dog! How about Great Britain? Who can swear that the same “influence” is not at work here, “to create an artificial scarcity of food”? And if it should be so, why do our politicians fall sheer into the trap and spread the mischief which the foe may have started? Food was poured into Petrograd as soon as the German “unseen hand” was cut off. It is a significant fact worth remembering!

* * * * *

Again, let it be emphasised that there is no difficulty about food production in these islands if the work be properly organised. Food is not grown on emotional impulse, such as that displayed by a charming lady I lately met, who told me with sweet resignation: “I will not have flowers in my window boxes this summer. I shall plant potatoes in them instead!” Dear soul! She evidently thought it worth while! Just as some folks think it worth while to dig up and disfigure the parks of London with potato growing when there is any amount of waste land around which needs cultivation! One deplores “the falsehood of extremes.”

* * * * *

If we are to accept Mr. Prothero’s statement, the most important line of “national service” is this food production. Then, let him take action and not listen to hearsay or report. Let him see for himself the thousands of acres in this country waiting to be cultivated and to produce richly and royally all that is needed for the population. Let there be common sense organisation in each district--not “compulsion”; the people are too cheerfully brave and willing to be “compelled.” But no one cares to work in the dark without a plan, and without any encouragement. They are told to “produce food,” but are denied labour to produce it. The capable field-worker is taken, and inefficient substitutes sent instead--men who do not know how to plant a root or sow a seed, with the obvious result that plants and seeds represent so much money thrown away. But, once more to emphasise the need of common sense, let us hold fast the fact that no lack of food is possible to this country if things are properly organised. And as we see by report that, despite U-boats, ships laden with useful cargoes are constantly arriving in our ports, let us not forget the possibility of “the creation of that artificial scarcity” which stirred the blood and roused the devil in Russia!

OUR FORTUNATE “RESTRICTIONS”

(_Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”_)

The Germans are reported to be in ecstasy over what they call the “despairing appeal” of the Prime Minister’s great “restrictions” speech. But, however great their “ecstasy” may be, it can hardly equal ours! For we have sufficient sense to see what hope and strength for our Empire springs, like a bright rainbow, from what the Boche obtusely imagines is a cloud. Our “lead” is towards increasing prosperity and happiness for all. We are invited to look forward to a self-supporting country; we are given fresh chances of barring the ungrateful Teuton from our trades by showing him that we can do all our own work ourselves. We are promised another “Merrie England” of the spacious days of yore, when foreign supplies were rare and costly, and when all the fields were thick with golden grain and all the orchards glowed with many-coloured fruits and the agricultural population were given the chance to reap what they had sown.

* * * * *

Now, in our lovely rural villages we may perhaps hope to see the last of many frowsy, idle sluts who for years have preferred to gossip away their time rather than do any useful work; and in their stead we may look for healthy, active girls and women who are proud of their dairies and poultry farms, and glad to show interested customers the great bowls of milk, the churning of butter, the making of cheese, and all the endless charms of “country” work well done. If the submarine menace teaches us to produce all the food that can be produced in these islands, it will be a blessing in disguise, a helper and saviour of the grit, stability, and fine reasonableness of the British race. Talk of potatoes! There are many hundred of acres of waste land in South Cornwall alone, notably wide, treeless fields running into sand dunes by the sea, where the potato would flourish as well as it does in similar Dutch soil, and all this precious land is empty and untilled. To urge the digging up of parks and public recreation grounds, where it is doubtful whether potatoes would grow at all, when there is all this acreage available, is sheer nonsense. I would that I had even a hundred acres of that Cornish sandy soil by the sea just now. With a few skilled labourers (for one must know _how_ to plant potatoes) it should yield gold! At Newquay, by the way, there is a golfing ground reserved for the amusement of a dozen or so of privileged selfish persons; it would grow tons of potatoes and other good edibles with very little trouble.

* * * * *

Nothing has ever been a greater source of wonder to me than the improvidence of such British folk as prefer to buy their vegetables and fruit food rather than grow it. Nowhere are allotments so untidily kept or so altogether neglected as in certain parts of England; nowhere is so little grown in them. Surely it stands to sense that if each cottager grew his own vegetable and fruit food there would be less need for foreign supplies. And if every waste field were made to produce _something_ in the way of foods a submarine blockade must needs prove futile in any attempt to starve the population. We may, if we will, foresee the vision of a happier, grander Britain than ever, when the people of these fruitful islands are given _their own_, and no longer have need to sever their lives from the homes of their kindred because there is no work for them here owing to the intrusion of German influence and German labour. We might also consider with belated sorrow the depopulation of the Scottish Highlands, and the preservation of vast tracts of moor and forest for mere “sport,” which has for years been a scandal and a disgrace to the nation. Let us have the people back on the land, and let the deer and the grouse take their own wild chances of existence. The submarine menace has come to teach us what we ought to have learned long ago--namely, that what we want on our own land are our own men, as skilled farmers and workers in every useful and profitable department, and that it ought never to be possible to see, as I once saw posted up on a large factory in London itself: “No English Need Apply.”

* * * * *

Look at the thing squarely. With each householder, in rural districts at least, growing his own vegetable and fruit supply, and the farmers growing for the community in general, what lack should there be of the necessities of life? The Prime Minister has restricted nothing that we cannot well do without. Somebody has grumbled about apples. Where will you beat homegrown apples? Plant orchards of them without stint; they will repay the trouble. Somebody else grumbles--yes, we know somebody always grumbles! This time it is about “Paris hats.” They are “forbidden.” O wise judge! O learned judge! No more (for a time, at least) shall we be pestered by receiving elaborate circulars printed in gold stating that Monsieur Satanique “presents” his latest “creations,” as if the good Satanique were a sort of deity. Nor will he, with all his persuasive charm, be able to entice the foolish among women to pay him six or eight guineas for a bit of wire, a scrap of lace, a feather, and a ribbon. O bold “restriction”! No more “Paris hats”--but, let us hope, a great deal more common sense!

“HIS PAINFUL DUTY”

THE SORROWS OF THE HOME SECRETARY

(_Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”_)

We grieve for Sir George Cave. He suffers as a martyr suffers in the cause of his country. Martyrs are not so common as heroes nowadays, but Sir George puts in no claim to heroism. He leaves that to “Tommy.” “Tommy” makes short work of the Huns wherever and however he meets them, but Sir George is almost on the verge of tears because he is unable to make their stay on in this country as agreeable and profitable as he would wish.

* * * * *

In the House of Commons he said: “Only the other day it was his _painful duty_ to order the internment of sixteen members of one alien club alone!” Alas, alas! “Sixteen” out of twenty thousand wandering spies! “One club alone,” out of hundreds of enemy information centres! Poor Sir George! How his heart must have been torn! how it must, even now, be lacerated and sore! “Had this club been in existence during the whole war?” asked Sir Henry Dalziel pointedly. And surely Sir George must have fetched a sigh from the bottom of his soul as he was compelled to answer “Yes!” Mr. Herbert Samuel, the late Home Secretary, was also apparently in sad plight, for he “seemed very anxious about the thousands of friendly aliens” in the East End of London and other large towns. He may well be “very anxious.” For these “thousands of friendly aliens” are _not_ “friendly,” and in nine cases out of ten “show,” as Mr. Samuel gravely observed, “that their hearts are not with this country.”

* * * * *

Is Mr. Samuel really so ingenuous, so simple, so altogether infantile in experience as to suppose their hearts _could_ be “with this country”? Are the hearts of Britishers interned in Germany “_with_” Germany? The Germans have turned English and Americans out of Berlin; why is not the same course pursued by us with Germans in London? Every German in the British Isles hopes for their “invasion” by his countrymen, and with invasion the signal to mobilise. With 30,000 interned and 20,000 at liberty, 50,000 foes are in our midst, ready to turn upon us at short notice. Why should this matter be dealt with in such a spineless, semi-paralytic way? What are the British public to think of the Ministers who put them on “rations” of four pounds of bread a week, while the German prisoner is allowed ten? Two and a half pounds of meat to the German’s three and a half? And everything on the same scale, so that, summing up the total, the honest British worker gets seven pounds four ounces of food to his enemy prisoners’ _fourteen pounds fourteen ounces_! Can any Controller of any department be so blind as to think the British people will stand such injustice? Many of us know all about Donnington Hall, though an honest attempt to clear up that scandal was nipped in the bud by some “Unseen Hand.” But what of the life of ease led by the German prisoners interned in the Isle of Man? There, in the great internment camp, officers are “at home,” and are permitted to buy whatever quantity of food they like to pay for--food which the native population cannot get! Just as the enemy officers at Donnington Hall can order all they like “without restriction,” while British prisoners in Germany are given hardly enough to keep them from starving!

* * * * *

Sir George Cave, in his extreme solicitude for “enemy aliens,” has committed himself to one utterance which he may live to regret. It is this: “Enemy aliens freed from internment ought certainly to be employed on _useful work of national importance_.”

Ought they, indeed! The employment of enemy aliens on “work of national importance” would be little short of a criminal act. For human nature is the same as it ever was, and no “enemy alien” is likely to do “work of national importance” for his jailer or conqueror without at least _trying_ to do it in such a manner that it shall never be done, or else done so badly that it shall not serve its purpose. What sane Englishman imagines that an “enemy” born of a ruthless race, which has proved itself murderous and treacherous, will serve _him_ in “work of national importance” without a good effort to blow him and his “work” to the four winds of heaven? The guileless simplicity of Sir George Cave reminds one of the nursery’s “little lamb”:--

“Whichever way the German went,
The Lamb was sure to go!”

Down in the country, where we are commanded, with a sort of megaphone shouting through the Press, to “Grow food,” when we have no skilled labour to grow it, we are told that we can employ “enemy prisoners” on the land. A friend, anxious to get waste land under cultivation, asked what would be the rate of pay. The reply was: “One guinea a week; fifteen shillings if you feed him.” Compare this with the pay given to our British prisoners who work in Germany--“one penny a day,” _i.e._, sixpence a week! My friend decided to put guineas in the War Loan rather than spend them on a German prisoner who, if he worked on the land, would be sure to work “against the grain.” And one asks again: Why so much indulgence and care for the men of a dishonourable race who have plunged Europe into blood and tears, and who have murdered innocent women and children, and who, far from repenting their crimes, add to them the awful blasphemy of calling God to witness their “humanity”? Surely it is time this weak and nerveless inaction on the part of the authorities concerned should cease, and that they should, in the words of Shakespeare,--

“Take our cause
Out of the gripes of cruel men.”

THE POTATO “SCREAM”

A PROTEST AGAINST A STUPID PANIC

(_Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”_)

No potatoes! Dear, dear; whatever shall we do? Some of the clever boys who write the “purple patches” for the sensational Press say that the present shortage is “nothing compared to the grim possibilities of the near future.” “Grim possibilities” is good--a phrase that will delight the Huns! But, quite dispassionately, may it not be asked how Britain got on without potatoes in her historic past? Henry VIII. was a goodly King; he ate greedily, drank heavily, and married profusely, but never a potato adorned his groaning banquet board. He “fared sumptuously every day,” and his subjects were not starved. Strong armies, victorious navies, existed without potatoes. Crècy, poitiers, Agincourt were fought on other food. People lived in those days even more hazardously than they live now, and did not worry about “grim possibilities.” They grew their own food produce, and had no chance of Overseas supplies. And they never knew the potato!

* * * * *

The history of the potato is quite modern, proving that it is by no means a necessity of life. According to some historians, it is a native of Chili and Peru, and was introduced from Santa Fé, in America, by Sir John Hawkins in 1563--one year before the birth of Shakespeare. So, as it was a new product and uncommon, it is possible that the Poet of the World struggled up to manhood without so much as one potato scream! The soliloquy in _Hamlet_ owes nothing to the potato--the famous adjuration in _Henry V._:--

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the walls up with our English dead”--

has nothing of the “mealy”-mouthed about it! Other authorities say it was brought over by Sir Francis Drake in 1586, but not generally introduced till 1592, and that Sir Walter Raleigh cultivated it first in Ireland on his estates in the county of Cork. It apparently was not known in Flanders (according to its biographers) till 1620. Well, then, how on earth did we get on without it? And if we _did_ get on without it, why cannot we get on without it again? I imagine that it is very much the fault of our gifted melodramatic actors on the stage of the Press that we are startled and “shivered” by the thrilling exits and entrances of the potato at stated intervals. One Bathurst is responsible for an actual “potato boom,” he having made it appear that this particular edible is a main prop of existence, when it is nothing of the kind. He has frightened a number of unreasoning women into “long queues” that “besiege” the potato dealers. If these women would only stay at home and decide to do without potatoes at all, the “shortage” and the dealers would soon display an altered aspect! One does not like to be rude about any portion of the human anatomy, but surely people who know Ireland have heard of the “potato _abdomen_” (the actual word is too Scriptural for polite usage). There _is_ such a thing; and it is not at all a desirable ornament. Women who wish to keep graceful, _svelte_ figures never eat potatoes. In all dietetic rules for the fat, “grave” warnings are uttered against potatoes, and “grim possibilities” are in store for any obstinately large man or woman who continues to eat them!

* * * * *

Why should the restless Bathurst seek to create a sort of South Sea Bubble in potatoes? The frenzy need not spread, if reasonable folk will collect their wits (some of which have gone a wool gathering) and realise that the potato, though an excellent vegetable when properly cooked (which it seldom is) is not a necessity of life. If it were, the brilliant history of Britain from the beginning up to Tudor times would be a mere record of famines. Pessimist Bathurst “gravely” states that “there will be no potatoes for any one in about six weeks.” Well, all who have vegetable gardens know that there is always a scarcity of potatoes every year, when the old ones are practically finished and we are waiting for the new; and owing to the general “sensationalism” the scarcity this year is likely to be more pronounced. But it need not disturb any one’s equanimity. Potatoes are no more necessary to life and health than the “hot roll,” of which the following amazing report appears in the Press: “The passing of the hot roll is the chief sacrifice.” (Think of these noble words! “The chief sacrifice!” One would imagine it was the life of a hero!) “Tens of thousands of people will lament the loss of a breakfast luxury!” “Lament the loss?” Oh, oh! Tens of thousands of people lamenting a hot breakfast roll! Ye Gods! “A roll,” continued the Press-interviewed baker, “alters its character when stale.” True, deplorably true! But if those tens of thousands of lamenting people do not alter _their_ character and “lament” to better purpose than for the daily indigestion provided for them in “hot roll” at breakfast, it is time they felt the pinch, not only of “no potatoes,” but “no food” at all for a wholesome period of fasting, with shame and penitence!

“HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF”

A STUDY IN WAR BREAD

(_Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”_)