The Telegraph Book of Readers' Letters from the Great War (42 page)
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Authors: Gavin Fuller
Yours, &c.,
Leconfield
Petworth House, Petworth
SIR â My attention has been drawn to Mr Smallwood's recent speech in the House of Commons, and I note with pleasure his generous reference to the YMCA. It is because I am afraid some points of his speech may give rise to misapprehension that I venture to intervene in this discussion. It is obviously difficult for the War Office to make regulations so as to ensure every case being dealt with as the very natural and proper sentiment may demand, and I believe that is one of the reasons that have led the military authorities to give such ample facilities to the YMCA for carrying on its humanising work at home and overseas. Though absolutely unofficial, the YMCA is to all intents and purposes an unofficial department of the military machine. It is in camp by the courtesy of the military, and all we do is done with the consent, and often at the suggestion, of the military authorities and its representatives.
Another great humanising element within the military machine is the medical and hospital organisation â RAMC, or Red Cross. No doubt mistakes are made at times â it is inevitable when operations are carried out on such a huge scale â but everywhere I hear nothing but praise and appreciation of the kindness and consideration shown by the doctors, nurses and attendants alike. We have every reason to be proud of them. Miss Brown, the lady superintendent of one of our big hostels for the relatives of the dangerously wounded men, wrote to me on 25 January, saying that her attention had been drawn to Mr Smallwood's statement in the House, and she had since discovered that it was one of
the hospitals in the neighbourhood in which she was working to which he referred. She adds:
I feel I am in a position to speak on the matter, as I have been here two years on the 14th of next month, and have had over 2,400 visitors and relatives of wounded in my charge. I speak entirely from the relatives' point of view, as I am seldom in the hospitals myself, and they speak very freely and always of the utmost kindness and consideration shown to them and their boys by all in the hospitals and on the journey. Their gratitude has been unbounded. Their treatment has been so different to anything they imagined possible under the circumstances, and again and again have I heard the assertion, even when they have lost their boys, that nothing more could have been done, no hospital at home could have better cared for them, and the patience and tact of both doctors and nurses has amazed them. Again and again has the tap at my window come in the night, which means send a relative along, the boy is worse, and again and again have they been kept the night at the hospital. Of course, there have been cases where absolute quiet was the only chance of recovery, and they have been told to leave the patient, and they have recognised and complied at once with the need. My experience is not only of the five hospitals at our doors, but also during the first sixteen or seventeen months of many other hospitals in the area, and the report has always been to the same effect. I think the true facts should somehow be made known to the people, for in the matter of caring for the wounded the soulless War Office has shown itself especially very kind
and human. The nation is at war today, and therefore everyone is concerned for their men, and nothing is too much to be done for them, but the whole truth, as a whole, not an isolated case for which there may be a special reason for special treatment, should be quoted â¦
I sympathise deeply with Mr Smallwood, but think it only fair to the devoted people who run our hospitals, as well as to the military authorities, to make this communication to the press.
Your obedient servant,
Arthur K. Yapp
YMCA, W.1
4 June 1918
SIR â It is admitted by everyone who knows the circumstances that at the present time there is almost a famine of qualified accountants and it is needless to labour this fact in the face of the revelations exposed lately in Ministry of Munitions, and so short is the country of accountants it has been found necessary to recall as many as possible from the combatant ranks, and also to obtain help from abroad, while there are also special instructions issued to tribunals with regard to their indispensability and exemption. The consequence is, that many young and healthy men of military age have of necessity been kept out of the fighting ranks. I do not for a moment question the wisdom of
this step, for if there is to be any proper control of the enormous expenditure now going on it can only be checked by those qualified to deal with it. What I desire to suggest is that the Government should take steps to try and remedy this shortage by offering special facilities and opportunities to wounded soldiers and other suitable candidates to acquire this special knowledge by means of training schools under the administration of qualified accountants. I would particularly emphasise the opportunity that would thus be offered to wounded soldiers with an aptitude for figures of acquiring a profession of great value to them after the war. In the training I suggest, frequent examinations should be held, to test the progress of the candidates, and if a candidate is found wanting in the necessary aptitude he should not be retained.
Trained accountants will be required just as much to clear up the aftermath of the war as now, while with the expansion of trade which is to be expected when the war is over the opportunities for employment should be much increased. It will be argued by the âtrade unions' in the accountancy profession that it is impossible to make a qualified accountant without years of training and experience, but the war has shown the fallacy of most preconceived ideas â gunners and airmen can now be trained in a few months, and even Cabinet Ministers have risen from obscurity in the course of a year or so. Therefore, why cannot qualified accountants be made within a reasonable time, given the opportunity of training?
Yours faithfully,
G. Bettesworth-Pigg ott, Deputy-Chairman, Appeal Tribunal, House of Commons
5 November 1918
SIR â As I read the brilliant pen-picture written by your correspondent Mr H.C. Bailey on the âGreat Advance' this âquestion presented itself to my mind'. âAlways,' he says, âwhen we talk of peace let us remember that belt of desert forty miles broad, and remember that the men who willed and ordered its desolation have boasted of it and gloried in it as one of the triumphs of the German war.' Stretch county upon county as long and as deep as Sussex, picture towns and hamlets bashed to pieces, plough and pasture churned with shell, untillable for a generation, woods and coverts stripped and shattered, and then you get some little idea of what France and Belgium have endured. Desolation of desolation such as Daniel the prophet never dreamed of. Some day a less squeamish authority will tell what the daughters of those countries have endured, and the women and maidens in this country may thank God for their island home, their fleet and armies. They were saved on the high seas and on the fields of Flanders. The women have the vote. Trade union leaders have toured some of these districts. Send women, young women from every county and every town in the United Kingdom, from the Greater Britains beyond the seas, from every state in the United States, from all neutral countries, organise these parties officially, let the states pay the expense, let armies of them be taken over the shell-shattered soil of France, that they may tell their children's children of the Hell of the Hun. I don't want the tea-gossipers of the West End alone to go.
I want the women from every class to see these things. Then they will know what war is in all its fearful brutality. Seeing is believing, and there is precious little imagination in a hard-working labourer's cottage or a working man's tenement. Let the women from neutral countries, whether from Spain, Scandinavia or South America, see and hear in France and Belgium what hell on earth is. The seamen know in every Allied and neutral state, and their vengeance is deep. Vainly will a German ship call for aid. But the women of the world cannot realise the sufferings of France and Belgium until they gaze on their scarred and wounded soils. Let women visit the war zone, let them come from the four quarters of the world as soon as time and circumstances permit. They will understand why their menfolk fought and died. This war may then end war.
Your obedient servant,
Templar
7 November 1918
SIR â Thousands of women will endorse unreservedly the excellent letter of âTemplar' in today's
Daily Telegraph
, urging that parties of women should go to France in order to learn by actual fact the terrible meaning of war. But while any little group of men are granted all facilities to see what our armies
have accomplished and the deliverance that has been wrought, such privileges have been constantly and persistently withheld from women. May I remind you, sir, that in August last Sir Harry Brittain suggested in your own columns that a representative party of women munition workers and aircraft workers should be sent out, that they might see for themselves what their handicraft had achieved in the liberation of Belgium and northern France. The suggestion enjoyed your own powerful support, and Sir Robert Hadfield generously offered a hundred guineas if desirable towards the expenses. I understand that the scheme was viewed with approval in high official quarters, but it was passed on to the War Aims Committee, who have done nothing in the matter, and who should be compelled by public opinion to make some movement.
The General Election is close upon us, the women's vote will be of vast importance, and nothing would have greater influence towards a sternly just settlement when peace can be discussed than a realisation of the unspeakable crimes and wanton destruction wrought by the German invaders. There is a strong feeling among working women that their reasonable claims to recognition are being overlooked, and that as taxpayers and voters they have the right to see something of what their labours have contributed to the naval and military triumphs that have been won. âThe prospect now before us has been made possible by the women of the country,' said Mrs Lloyd George at the City Temple, on Monday evening. There is no reason whatever why parties of women selected by the votes of their sister workers in the factories should not start next week. Accommodation can be arranged for them in the camps of
Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps, and the minor details would not need an hour's arrangement.
I am, Sir, yours obediently,
Working Woman
London
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