By
Lacey Amy
XI.
– After Three Years
From The Canadian Magazine, March 1918.
Digitized by Doug Frizzle, July 2016.
Since this series of articles began so
much has happened within their scope that anything approaching a complete examination
of the measures taken in the British Isles to cope with war conditions must
include those adopted after the trying experiences of three years of war. It
would be reasonable to expect that in such a period of unprecedented struggle
for existence the problem of the nation would be solved in so far as organization
and experience could solve them, that the difficulties still remaining would be
not in effective planning or decision but solely in the strain and deprivations
rendered necessary by a powerful foe. Yet only the blindest fatuity could
assert that England has solved the simplest of her war problems only the most
superficial student would declare that even the obviously wise and fair
measures have been taken.
The status of the women has been growing
stronger every day. More and more they have been offering themselves for the
needs of the war and more and more they have proved themselves the real
backbone of production. It is only due their earnest participation
in munition
making to admit that they perform their work more carefully and quickly than
the same number of men. They have been set by the thousand at tasks hitherto considered
beyond their capacity, in strength and brains, and in not one case that has
come within my knowledge have they failed to exceed the production of the men
in a very few weeks. The reason is not that they are more able, but that they
throw more vim and enthusiasm into it. They are not too busy haggling over
privileges to remember that the soldiers at the Front are looking to them for
the shells and the guns. The women have saved the Empire, though there are
hundreds of thousands of the better classes doing their utmost, by idling and
extravagance, to depreciate the sum total. More than a million and a quarter
women were engaged on the first of September, 1917, on work formerly done by
men. In government factories and in the Civil Service they have released a
quarter of a million men. In Government controlled factories half a million of
them have found employment, and in commerce generally more than three hundred
thousand more. In these two branches of service they have released
three-quarters of a million men.
All told, there are more than four and a
half million women and girls in classified employment, not including domestic
servants, hospital workers, and those employed in small shops.
Their interests have been studied by the
Ministry of Munitions, and after tests the standard number of hours of
employment has been reduced to forty-eight a week with increase of output;
and during the year two raises in wages have been officially declared. So
important a part do they play in the necessary war production that a special
committee has been appointed to deal with their wages, hours of labour, and
conditions of employment.
The latest call for their services has come
from the military organization in France. The first lot of ten thousand, for
office and mess duties hitherto performed by men, was overwhelmingly
supplied, and during the latter half of 1917 the demand was continuous. So insatiable
was it, and so eager were girls to undertake this new work, that the drain on
the munition factories in England was seriously felt, the type of worker
finding favour in France being the same as that sought for the factories. Now
the Admiralty has appealed for women to relieve naval ratings on shore duty.
Were all England imbued with the spirit of its average woman the war would be
further advanced towards victory than it is to-day.
The problem in the case of female labour
is the after-war results. Certainly thousands of women, having tasted the
pleasures of earning and of steady employment, will be unwilling to return to
idleness. It is the knowledge of this that has interfered with their
acceptance in the councils of labour. From the first, labour unions demanded
that pre-war conditions be restored immediately with peace, and as a further block
to the ingress of women into industrial competition, the same wage was demanded
for both sexes. The women accepted the wage at first with eagerness, but a few
of the leaders quickly discovered the reason end ere now insisting on an
equality that is not absolute but based on the differences in strength, sex,
and the requirements of physical well-being. For, while the women have a better
record of production than the men, it is telling on their health end nerves,
and without the incentive of war it is certain that their production
will
decrease.
The position of the farmer has steadily
improved. But it cannot be said, unfortunately, that he has done much to
warrant it. While the farmer in England was, for many years before the war, in
the lowest plane of society and the least profitable, his rise to a deserved
recognition as the solution of the food problem of an island kingdom has had a
natural result. Filled with the idea of his unwonted importance to the
country and to victory, and thrilled with his new power, he has ignored the
demand for a common sacrifice and refuses to direct his efforts to production that
does not bring him returns consistent with the level established by the needs
of a country short of all food stuffs. He insists that his every acre be guaranteed
by a Government driven to extremity for supplies, otherwise he reserves the
right to confine his crops to the profitable grains and roots, or to leave it
idle. If he is asked to grow potatoes he must be protected in a
profit
beyond his wildest dreams of former years. If the profits of barley, for
instance, are eliminated by decreased liquor production, he must see the loss
made up from another source or threats of lessened production are issued.
And therein the farmer is but requiting for
the hardship of his lot before the war. Yet, great as are his profits to-day,
he resists the extension of the higher returns to his workmen. Three dollars a
week was the offer of a farmer for a man to work from 5.30
a.m., to
9.00 p.m., and from that the man must board and lodge himself.
Even the
Government established a rate of $1.50 a week above their billets for girl plum
pickers on the farms, railway fares to be paid by the workers. Girls on the
land were paid three dollars a week, supplying their own food.
The Education Bill, introduced by the
President of the Board of Education as a remedy for the glaring evils in the
education system of Great Britain, has been received by the people with the
loudest acclaim—and quietly shelved by the authorities. There was too much
innovation in it for those with power to accept it without serious misgivings.
Oxford University has led the fight against it, not
openly but none the less effectively. For Oxford University represents
education as it has been for centuries in England. It eschews science, clings
to classics as the soul of England, and resents the claim of anyone else to criticize
or advise on education.
The result is that the Bill, to the middle
of December, 1917, has not even been considered in the House. Public bodies
have protested. The new papers have made demands. But those subtle muscles
which wield the power of Great Britain from behind the scenes have intervened.
The Bill was at first refused consideration in the last session of 1917. It was
soberly contended by Bonar Law three months before the end of the session, that
there would be no time for discussing the Bill, although time was always found
readily enough for inconsequential subjects, and hours every day were wasted
on questions and answers which should have been deleted for the good of the
country. It was obvious that the majority of the Government were against the
Bill of the Minister. But the demand grew so insistent that finally the hope
was expressed of completing one reading, leaving the final stages to another
session. At the time of writing, there it
stands, the end depending upon whether the balance of power rests with the
people or with the forces for conservatism. It takes more than three years of
war to break the grip of tradition in England.
The liquor question has resolved itself
into a typical capitulation on the part of the Government. That started as an
apparent effort to conserve food stuffs for a more or less suffering country by
directing grains from beer to bread. has become merely another official failure
to live up to promises— or threats. After announcing drastic curtailment of the
consumption of food stuffs in the manufacture
of beer, the Government yielded to pressure,
largely artificial and concentrated, and increased the quantity one-third at
the middle of 1917. During the year ending September, 1916, there were 65,000,000
bushels of grain and 160,000 tons of sugar used for the manufacture of liquor.
During 1917 the quantity permitted was more than half that amount. When it is
considered that sugar is absolutely unobtainable by a great
part of the people of England, and the ration is set at half a pound
a week, this amount assumes considerable importance. The
Government's excuse
that the sugar thus consumed
is
largely unfit for human consumption is misleading, for not only is much
of it
exactly what is used on the table, but its importation into England takes the
same space in the limited shipping as the same quantity of edible sugar for
general distribution.
The cause of the Government’s surrender was a well-organized
campaign by the newspapers and brewers. One or two of the largest London papers
published
each day reports of serious disturbances throughout the country through the
shortage of beer, and although some of these were entirely
without
foundation, the workers of England were convinced that beer was a vital
necessity and that strikes were expected of them.
To meet the demand with the least
expenditure
of foodstuffs the Government authorized
a weaker quality,
termed government
beer, and
to it
thereafter was accredited by every
“drunk”
the cause of his downfall. Being a government
brand, the magistrates could scarcely convict. But
the main
result of the new liquor restrictions was an increased profit
for
brewer and retailer. The annual returns of the breweries show that
they never made such profits; and the
retailer,
working less than half the prewar hours, asked what he wished for his stock.
So independent did he become that there were saloons in London showing signs prohibiting the
entrance of women, an unusual sex distinction.
At last the Government was forced to intervene and establish prices. But the
Government scale of prices, in the experience of this war, protects the
merchants in a percentage of profit on which he can afford to smile
benevolently.
In the
meantime government purchase has advanced no further. The report of the
Commission appointed to investigate is against purchase, and everyone seems
content to leave it at that as a plan too radical to adopt without several
years of deliberation.
The
fondest admirers of the war government of Great Britain must admit that the
methods of handling labour, man-power, food, and the enemy alien have savored
little of real war. Great Britain labours under a number of special
disqualifications. These might be summed up as excessive deliberation and
delay, class distinctions, unpardonable tolerance, and conventionalism. And
the last includes all the others. Somewhere in this short list might be found
the foundation of every obstacle to victory. Lack of decision and firmness, of
organizing ability, and excess of pride are other descriptions of the country’s
deficiencies.
Inexperience
in organization, where a country has succeeded fairly well on the plan laid
down by former generations, has exhibited itself in almost every move since
the war began. Today it is evident in the internecine strife among the
Government departments. It is plain in the food muddle, which is to-day in a
more chaotic state than ever. It is to be seen in the labour troubles, the
record of the navy, the shortage of man-power at the Front, and of production
in England.
The
position of labour offers the most serious trouble. Asquith’s foolish promise
of exemption to twenty-nine unions is an instance of the weakness of a war
government in the national extremity. Irrespective of any crisis, these unions
insist on adherence to the promise, and the blame is not so much with them as
with the Cabinet that had a country on its shoulders. Union labour has not changed
its opinion noticeably since it lent itself to conscription under certain
conditions, but union labour, as governed by its main executives, is almost a
negligible power now, partly from its own thoughtlessness, partly from governmental
weakness. The Engineers’ disloyal strike in May, 1917, brought to the fore a
power that has been robbing the executives of their authority. The Engineers
struck for nothing but fear of being taken into the army. Whatever other excuse
may have been given, determination not to serve with the colours was the real
one. They had no complaint, but new orders for obtaining the necessary
additional soldiers by extending the dilution of labour gave them a pretext
for calling a strike. And they won. The Government rescinded everything,
although it had the country behind it and could have taught a much needed
lesson in patriotism that would have solved for the duration of the war every
difficulty of man-power. Were the workers convinced that the penalty of
loafing was fighting in France two-thirds their number would produce what they
are now producing, and there would be no thought of strikes.
Having
obtained almost all they wished, the engineers resumed work; and for a time
there was comparative peace. But during the last two months of 1917 the labour
situation was a boiling disturbance. The South Wales miners frankly took a
vote to decide whether they would resist the Government in combing out the new
men introduced into the mines since the war began. The Coventry aeroplane makers,
engaged in the most vital of munition production, walked out and remained
idle a week until they, too won all they asked. All over England were demands
for higher wages, shorter hours, greater privileges, and the reinstatement of
employees dismissed for the most outrageous offences.
The
reason for the ferment was easy to
find. The Government lacked back bone—simply that. The submission to the
engineers, although the whole country was so strong against them that at the
end they were but looking for an excuse to return to the shops and feared to
wear their union badges, paved the way to every strike that has occurred since.
Winston Churchill, already convicted of incapacity by an official commission,
was appointed Minister of Munitions purely as a political expedient. And
Churchill’s first few months in office seemed to justify his selection. Never had
there been so few strikes. But suddenly they blazed forth all over the country,
so seriously as to jeopardize the war in 1918. And the secret was out when,
without consulting those directly affected, he declared a general increase of
pay for the engineers. Immediately other unions struck for increases and
other advantages. It was found that railwaymen had long suffered from a
ridiculous discrepancy between their wages and those of even the unskilled in
other trades which had ignored the war and thought only of self. It was found,
too, that the increase so lightly granted affected a score of trades not
contemplated.
The
temporary immunity from strikes had been because every demand had been met. The
unpardonable extent to which this weakness went may be illustrated by one
example. When a shop steward was caught making tools for himself from
Government material (it was a government controlled factory) in government
time and promptly dismissed, a strike was declared for his reinstatement. And
the Government forced the firm to submit. Besides the principle involved, it is
natural that ever since then the reinstated employee has been a cause of constant
trouble and agitation. Such folly was rampant all over England. The natural
result was that strikes were called on the flimsiest pretexts. The men
jeeringly declaring that the Government was afraid of them.
But this
was not union labour as constituted before the war. Every strike has been
engineered by the shop-stewards,
a new force that has crept in since the
factories were filled with able-bodied young men whose only concern is to
escape service in France. The regular union executives and power of unionism
to-day is in the hands of those young shirkers who do not hesitate to declare
their reasons for working on munitions. Unionism thought to protect itself by
forcing all workers to join. In reality it lost every shred of power by the
act. To-day every local union is a law unto itself. The Coventry strike was
called by the shop stewards against the union leaders’ instructions, just as
the engineers’ had been. And the only bone of contention was the recognition
of the shop stewards.
Wrapped
in this question of labour is the other of obtaining men for the trenches.
Anyone who knows conditions in the factories of England is aware that hundreds
of thousands of fit young men could be cleared out with profit to production,
even though they were not put in khaki. The majority of these are doing as
little as possible, they are always on the watch for grounds for striking, they
interfere with those who would produce to their utmost, they refuse to permit
the women to be taught certain operations well within their capacity, and they
are almost all recruits to this kind of work since 1914. Yet the only apparent
concern of the Government seems to be to assure them of exemption. And since
more soldiers are an absolute essential, raising the age to 45 is being seriously
considered while these young slackers loaf in security. It is a fact that
experienced factory hands discharged from the army have been called up again
from the munition factories while these young fellows look on from the next
benches and laugh. It is also a fact that married men with large families, men
too old for the hard life of the Front, others whose businesses will close with
their conscription, are relentlessly put into khaki to fight for these strong
youths without dependants or extra bills of expense to present to the
Government.
Every
government department seems to delight in refusing to release its youthful
clerks for service. Each being king in its own realm and jealously guarding
its power, there is none with authority to comb them out, although battalions
could be replaced by girls and older men. It continues, too, to be a
department habit to order tribunals to exempt applicants for no reasonable
excuse. And England is teeming with non-combatant young men wearing the red
tab of headquarters or the khaki of soft jobs far from the sound of war. It is
not lack of men that keeps the army in want.
The food
problem is too wide to be more than touched here. There is no daylight showing,
even after almost a year of submarine war. Hundreds of orders have been issued
by the Food Controller, thousands of appeals. But they have affected little
save to establish prices at an unjustifiable level, force the poor to stand in
queues hours of every day, and reserve to the merchant an exhorbitant profit.
The House of Commons is made up of men interested in trade—one would know it
without acquaintance with the members. It may safely be said that not a single
law observes the good of the people at the expense to the merchant. Merchants
are making more money than they ever dreamed of. The country is bringing in the
food stuffs and handing them over to the stores for extreme profits. And when a
law threatens to interfere, the merchants ignore it with impunity. Laws that
appear every few days in public print are openly flouted, and to protest is to
be denied supplies. Every time a maximum price is established by regulation it
instantly becomes the minimum price as well. Now and then a merchant in some
distant village or in the East End of London is proceeded against, and the
papers are so filled with threats that few read them.
The
attempt to regulate prices and supplies have demonstrated the inability of the
authorities to organize and devise reasonable methods. Only those of the lower
classes who have time to stand in queues can obtain supplies. Thus the
hard-working munition makers find themselves short half the week. England’s
short stocks seem to be reserved for the idle, and no attempt has yet been
made to change it. Take sugar as an example of muddling. Although the
rationing of sugar was determined on more than six months before it was put
into force, the plan had to be completely altered during that six months, after
the first scheme had been issued and everyone had done his part in the registration,
and for reasons that were obviously insuperable defects from the start. It is
also an instance of the wasted and misdirected zeal of officialdom that the
postal customs filched two pounds of sugar from a small gift sent from Canada
to a Canadian war worker in England, and at the same time, on the Government’s
own figures, 8,000 tons a week were being issued above the rations without any
effort to trace them.
A half
dozen food commodities have been short, not so much because they were not in
the stores but from unfair and unequal distribution. In every commodity in
which the demand seems to exceed the supply there has been a riot of
mismanagement and unfairness. The last month of 1917 saw an insistent demand
for rationing all round, to prevent queues and to ensure something resembling
even distribution. If there was one thing in the situation that was
threatening unrest it was the manner in which the food question was handled.
The
shortage of other commodities has been equally mismanaged. Petrol affords an
illuminating example. Given over finally into the hands of a pool formed of the
importers themselves, it travelled upwards in price until a government
investigation was demanded, when it immediately dropped several cents a
gallon. The Government’s later efforts to control its use
have driven many cars from the streets,
but more by threat than by force. Petrol may still be used for domestic
business, for business purposes, for going to and from the station, and for everything connected with
war work. The loopholes were innumerable. So long as a man is in
khaki no questions
are asked. Business men have their cars for running to the office, actors have licences
at their pleasure, but, worst of all, the taxi is practically unrestricted. For
the Lord Mayor’s
banquet orders were given that anyone might use his car.
Now and then the law bestirs itself
in a
characteristic manner. A taxi driver was fined $250 for carrying a
government
official and his wife many miles into the country to
bury their pet
dog in a dog cemetery—but nothing was done to
the official.
A poor street match
vendor was fined for overcharging for
a box of matches—
but a hundred stores were at the same time openly doing
the same, and other laws
were being broken. A Canadian General’s mother
was summoned for using
petrol to attend church—but
she might have
hired a taxi to take her to a restaurant and have kept its engine running
during the meal. Two women
were fined for engaging a car that was not
a taxi to take them to the
theatre—but had the garage keeper sent a
taxi nothing could have been done to them.
It is such
inconsistencies that bring the authorities and
their methods into disrepute,
until one wonders how much it takes at home to
discount the
country’s best efforts in the field.
A similar indecision and
fatuousness
exists in the treatment of alien enemies. There is no reason why
Germany should
not be kept informed of all that England contemplates, if
freedom of German-born means espionage and all the world knows by this time that
it does. Scores of influential Germans continue to be granted freedom and
other favours, each backed by prominent politicians or titled
people.
When Laszlo, a popular Austrian painter, proved by a letter three years ago to
be an Austrian at heart—when he was brought before a court
of inquiry for internment, several of England’s most prominent men protested
against locking him away; and because they were of the upper classes the
Government refused to divulge their names. There is a large fund collected in
England for the dependants of interned Germans, Cadburys, of cocoa fame, being
the main supporters. And the wives of these interned Germans are already
granted an allowance higher than the wives of the British soldiers used to get.
The interned ones, too, were given more liberal allowances of food than are
prescribed for the British people. The brother of the German Governor who
murdered Nurse Cavell, interned in England, was allowed to enter a nursing
home on the plea of ill-health. An army officer, once Krupp’s agent in London,
ordered out of France as a suspicious person, although with the British forces,
was immediately taken on the British Intelligence Department where military
secrets are the only commodity dealt in. These instances of extreme tolerance
and folly might be multiplied over and over again.
For almost two years I have studied
Britain’s methods at home for making war. I have made every allowance for
tradition, for excusable conditions. I have looked through the eyes of an Imperialist.
But in the end I can see an early end to the war only by more aggressive and
sensible methods. England does not make war with both fists—that is the
trouble.
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