Segregating the Canadians

Segregating the Canadians

By Lacey Amy

From Saturday Night magazine, Toronto, Canada, 28 October, 1916.

Digitized 22 September 2017 by Doug Frizzle for Stillwoods.Blogspot.Ca

With thanks to Irene Kuhirwa, and Robert Higgins from the Dalhousie University Library.

FOR the past few days a section of the London press has been in throes of anxiety concerning the rumored decision of the Canadian authorities to place the Canadian wounded in a “concentration area,” in other words, to treat them in hospitals of their own instead of scattering them through the country in Imperial and in pseudo-Canadian hospitals.

The protest was started by Lady Drummond, whose work in the offices of the Red Cross has earned her a right to speak. In a long letter to “The Times” she quotes Sir Robert Borden’s early-war utterance on the “immense advantage of the association” of the soldiers of the Empire, and a similar opinion from Mr. Arthur Balfour. To that she adds a vague declaration of “a General Officer” that “Canadian soldiers wish to be treated like soldiers of the Empire and not like anything else.” Later came a letter along the same lines from Mrs. Goodcrham. also a high official in women’s Empire work.

“The Times” and another Northcliffe paper, as well as one or two others, took the matter up editorially, always adhering to the protest side. There followed letters from a Canadian honorary Major connected only with the “Eye- Witness” phase of active service, from a French-Canadian civilian, who saw fit to compare such action with the Indian reserves in Canada, from an unnamed officer—but not one to date from the only person concerned, the Canadian private.

There are some features of the discussion that impress a Canadian in England. In the first place the question is so essentially a domestic one for Canada that it is difficult to justify the interference of the London papers. That they entered it honestly is no doubt true, but when it is known that they consistently refused publication to a number of statements of the other side, the existence of some other motive is apparent.

It is remarkable that the protests come only from those whose connection with the Canadian soldier is but general. Lady Drummond is too busy, I am sure, to get out among the Canadian Tommies for their personal opinions; her sphere is too large for that. The Canadian “Major’s” experience on Sir Max Aitken’s staff, can scarcely be said to make him an authority—especially as most of his life has been spent in England—and even a Canadian officer is not expected to discuss in a friendly way with his privates their preference in hospitals.

A detail that puzzles me is that Lady Drummond herself is concerned with a “segregated” branch of an organization, devoted exclusively to Canadians. Mrs. Gooderham is the much-appreciated donor of a hospital for Canadian officers. The “Major” is connected with a segregated end of the news service. But poor Tommy isn’t expected to have anything to say about his segregation so long as the officers may have their exclusive hospitals, the Red Cross its exclusive Canadian branch, the publicity service its exclusive Canadian staff.

It does not require, I think, more than a glance to appreciate the mistake of discussing in London papers a matter of policy so essentially Canadian. Its very essence implies a comparison between the virtues of Imperial and Canadian hospitals, treatment and methods. To Canada it is an important question for her private settlement.

Personally I can speak from an intimacy with the Canadian wounded denied the protestants. The Canadian Tommy, in my experience, is not apt to express himself freely either to women or to officials of any kind. I am fortunate enough to be neither.

And this is my unqualified statement: In intimate conversation with many hundreds of Canadian privates I have not heard one express himself otherwise than preferring treatment in Canadian hospitals. And it is a favorite topic of conversation among them. I am willing to accompany any opponent of segregation to any hospital in England without previous preparation and accept the verdict of the Canadian patients. The result would be somewhat staggering to those whose vague ideas of Imperial advancement overtop their consideration of the wounded. Apart from those Canadians whose residence in Canada has not been long enough to break the bonds of the Motherland, I doubt if five per cent would not favor segregation.

The reason is apparent enough, one would think. Let any Canadian at home imagine himself sick in England. Would he not prefer to lie among his friends, to be treated by those who understand him and whom he understands? Does any civilized nation urge the casting of its sick to the care of strangers when they can be as effectively treated at home?

Did the protestants see, as I have seen, scores of times, the flood of joy that comes to the face of the wounded Canadian in an Imperial hospital, when a Canadian voice sounds in his ears, they would realize that there is a homesickness in illness four thousand miles from home, that is unknown to health. I have visited Canadians in the finest London hospitals, where their treatment was perfect, who have almost wept with pleasure when they discovered that I even knew their home towns, or a friend, or an officer of theirs. I am willing to admit that the Canadian officer in a London hospital, his wounds on the mend, may prefer the opportunities afforded by an Imperial hospital for extended entertainment. But there is woe of that for the private.

There are many more reasons for segregation than the wishes of those whose happiness of body and mind should be our first consideration. -The Imperial hospital, in plain fact is not suited to the Canadian, admirable as it is for the Imperial soldier. The hours, numbers and quality of English meals are disturbing even to a Canadian in health. At Epsom Camp, where the Canadians predominate, where Canadian officers are in charge, but where the Imperial War Office is in control, the afternoon meals are at 4:30 and 8 p.m. And the average Canadian private longs for his good old sapper from five to six. I have heard Canadians complain that the constant succession of meals at an Imperial hospital made them unable to eat.

There is, too, a difference between the Canadian and the Imperial nurse. It is admitted—I have it from some of the biggest English doctors at the front—that the Canadian nurse stands alone. She comes from a different level of society, as a rule, is paid enough to make a lengthy and complete training worth while; and, of her Canadian patient and his whims. But there is, understand, no fault to be found with Imperial nurses. I could not but feel regret that the grand Ontario Hospital, at Orpington, provided by Canadian money with the best of doctors and nurses and equipment, should be enjoyed by Canadians to only about a fifth of its capacity. (My figures do not pretend to be exact, but are near it.) And away off in lonesome semi-isolation are thousands of Canadians to whom Orpington would be home. There does seem something wrong in depriving our boys of their friends for the sake of Imperials and Australians who would be quite as happy elsewhere.

It is admitted here that the Englishman does not know how to handle the Canadian. The English Tommy is a different creature, brought up to different treatment, accustomed to the galling class distinctions that exist here. It is not lack of sympathy which attempts often to apply the same methods to our boys.

And there are many reasons whose discussion even in Canada would be unwise. I need only say that they are matters of temperament, moral standards and discipline. What reasons the authorities may have as affecting administration and economy are for them to consider.

And now to approach the question from the only argument of the protestants. Their sole contention is that a mingling of the units of the service is good for the Empire. My own experience has been directly opposite. In mixed hospitals the Canadians, Australians and Imperials mingle so little that I have never yet talked to a group not composed entirely of one or another. It is notorious that the Canadians and the Australians have no great affection for each other, and association only increases the division. There is, too, such a wide disparity in the pay of the different countries that human nature cannot view it with equanimity. The shilling-a-day Imperial is not likely to be impressed with the justice of facing the same danger for one quarter the pay of the Canadian and one sixth that of the Australian.

The very kindness of the English people has brought dissention into many an Imperial hospital. I know one, at least, where the Imperials dub the Canadians “mother’s pets,” or similar terms. Twice a day English visitors call with motors for the Canadians and ignore their own soldiers. It is an injustice far which the Canadian is in no way to blame. For the Canadian soldier in England is a much feted man. The result is doubly serious—an envious Imperial, a somewhat spoiled Canadian.

The very atmosphere of a hospital is antagonistic to an improvement of relations. A sick man is an intolerant one, and the slight differences in temperament and training becomes tremendous to lads in unhealthy condition of mind and body. A Canadian admires the English soldier in the field; in the hospital they see through magnifying glasses each other’s smallest uncongenialities.

The discussion simmers down to the purpose of hospital treatment, even if the contentions of Imperial theorists be true. Is the purpose of the hospital to advance some speculative Imperial interest of the distant future or to give our wounded boys the best treatment we know of? Is it to use the wounded for ulterior motives or to make them happy or contented? Must our war hospitals become further sacrifices for the wounded? In all reason is it to be expected that a sick boy is as happy among strangers as among friends? There is good reason for to segregation. It has been declared by more than one London paper that the Imperial soldier is improved by association with the Canadian. My personal opinion js that our boys are out here to fight, not to evangelize during their off hours. Giving one’s life is about all to expect of a man at one time.

I am gravely anxious that nothing I have said should be interpreted as a slur on Imperial hospitals. I have heard no more adverse criticism of them than of our own. A Canadian in such a hospital is sure of the best attention available, as the Imperial is in ours; the Empire’s facilities are a unit in that. Neither do I impute to the London papers more than an understandable selfishness which they do not view as meaning any sacrifice to us. Canada can never say that England has not been appreciative. Indeed, to the strict Imperialist England’s almost extreme kindness to Canadians implies that which we Canadians do not agree with—that our participation in the war has been a favor, an unexpected sacrifice, an expression of friendliness justice would not have demanded. The Canadians who have protested against concentration are so seriously convinced of the theoretical righteousness of their claim that they have neglected, I fear, to consider the subject from the standpoint with which one can become acquainted only by the closest intimacy with the soldiers.

Most people are more concerned about the war than about advertising Canada through our wounded. To blazes with Imperialism and Canada’s boom in 1917 until we’ve won the war that settles the existence of Empire!

An Eskimo Patriot

An Eskimo Patriot

By Lacey Amy

From The Canadian Magazine, July 1918

The grief of it is keener to me to-day than it was a week ago when the news first reached me; and I know the shadows of time will never hide it, though tingeing the grief to a brighter hue in a great pride at hav­ing known him, at having been called by him one of his two friends in Eng­land during his trying days in khaki.

To know John Shiwak, even in the old days of peace, was to be filled with a mysterious admiration that grew without realizing its own roots, a quiet fondness that complimented one’s self-respect. But to have been in touch with him even by mail at the end, to have heard from his lips, in words only a few hours old, the unfaltering admiration of him, was to be branded with a mark time dare not try to obliterate. And to have seen him in the moment of his pass­age! But John’s story must be told first—and I hope that ten thousand slackers may read it and see the pic­ture as I see it—which is infinitely better than I am able to present it.

It was in the summer of 1911 that I met John. It was only in that sum­mer that I met him. But to have met him once was to remember him al­ways. Seeking new out-of-the-world places in or around Canada, I had picked on the bleak coast of Labrador. Across the straits from North Sydney the boat had plunged through a par­allel swell all night, and in the morn­ing landed us at Point aux Basques. Twenty-six hours of travel on a nar­row-gauge railway, through hours on end of manless land, had brought us to St. John’s, that inimitably quaint capital of Newfoundland.

And one afternoon we pushed our way through the heaped boxes of cod and salt and general merchandise that line St. John’s piers and boarded a little mail steamer that ran twice a month—seldom more than five times a year—“down” the semi-settled coast of Newfoundland for five hundred miles, and then another five hundred far off to the north, into the birth­place of the iceberg, along the un­charted, barren, rugged shores of a country God never intended man to inhabit—Labrador.

Yet it was a pleasant trip, one to look back upon with no shuddering memories, but with a dreamy halo of unreality dimming its thousand un­wonted events and sights, a composite picture that frays off about the edges and centres about one lone figure—John Shiwak, the Eskimo.

We were a motley crowd on board. For the next two weeks we would be bound to each other in the depres­sions and exaltations, the trials and strains of a confined existence that centred and circled and spread no farther than the tight dining-room and the after-deck. My personal variation was visits to the bridge, where I spent days at a time. The transient passenger list consisted of the woman-who-worries and myself, three professional world-vagrants who travelled as most people work, a mysterious newly-married couple whom none knew better at the end than at the beginning. And below decks crowded a score of Newfound­land fishermen and fish merchants on their way to the great cod grounds along the Labrador.

And there was John.

I was aware of him at first as he sat at the Newfoundlanders’ table in the dining saloon, never uttering a word, watching with both eyes every movement at the table of the “for­eigners”. Presently I noted that he ceased to spread his bread on his hand, that he gave up his knife ex­cept for its legitimate purposes, that he stopped reaching as the others at his table did. Frequently I caught his eye, and always it dropped in con­fusion—only to return in a minute to the ways of our table. In a couple of days he was eating in the manner of so-called culture.

I watched for him on deck, but for several days caught only fleeting glimpses of him. And always he was the daintiest man on board. Evident­ly he had invested in a new wardrobe in St. John’s, and the muscular, short, straight-standing figure of him did each garment fullest justice. Twice a day he appeared in different array—in the mornings usually in knick­ers and sealskin moccasins.

Not a word did I ever see him speak to another. He would appear on deck for a half-hour twice a day, lean over the railing within sound of our voices, and disappear as silently as he came. I set myself the task of intruding on his reticence, of breaking his silence. In truth it was a task. Observing him one day watching the unloading of salt into the small boats that play the part of wharves on the Labrador coast, I leaned on the railing beside him and made some trivial inquiry about the scene of bustle. His reply was three words. To my second ques­tion, after several minutes, the reply was two words. And then he turned away. It was discouraging. But soon thereafter I noticed that when I stopped to look over the rail, if it were not in too quiet a part of the ship, John was leaning just far enough away to be out of range of questions. I took to wandering about, stopping by myself to look out on the sights of shore and iceberg. The in­terval between us decreased.

Then one night we stopped, in the sudden darkness that falls in that quarter shortly after ten of an Au­gust evening, to pick up a missionary and his wife and household goods. It was a task of hours, for everything had to be brought out to the steamer in one small rowboat. I was looking down from the forward deck on the twinkling lights below, hearing the oaths of busy seamen, in my ears the creaking of the steam winch. Sud­denly there broke on the night from the outer darkness the shuddering howl of a wolf, then a chorus of howls. I raised myself to listen, peering out into the darkness of the sea where there were only scores of tiny islands, and beyond, scores of towering ice­bergs.

“The Labrador band,” explained a quiet voice beside me, modest to the verge of self-deprecation, but with a twinkle in it somewhere.

It was John Shiwak. And the ice was broken. I soothed his obvious nervousness by keeping to the text for the moment. “The Labrador band” is the term applied to the howl­ing huskies, most of whom are set down on islands during their summer months of uselessness that they might be out of the way.

Far into the morning John and I sat up there in the dirty, deserted bow, as the ship felt its way through the islands on its northward crawl. By the pitch of the boat we knew when the islands ceased to screen us from the swell outside. Now and then an icy breath registered the pass­ing of an iceberg; and once a dis­turbing crackling far outside, and a great plunge, told of a Greenland monster that had yielded at last to the wear of sun and wave. Not a sound of life broke the northern sil­ence save the quiet voice of the cap­tain on the bridge above, and the weird howls of hungry or disturbed huskies only one stage removed from their wolfish origin. And in those hours I learned much of John Shiwak’s immediate history.

He was a hunter in the far interior by winter, a handiman in his district by summer. The past winter had been a good one for him—a silver fox skin, for instance, which he had dis­posed of to the Hudson’s Bay Com­pany for four hundred and sixty-nine dollars. And on the strength of such unusual profits he had gone down to St. John’s, Newfoundland, whence all good things come to Labrador—and whither all good and had things go from Labrador—and had plunged in­to the one great time of his life. His memory of that two weeks of civiliza­tion congealed into a determination to repeat the visit each summer. And I know that the dissipations of a great and strange city had had nothing to do with its attractions.

In his conversation there was the solemnity of a man who does much thinking in vast silences. Everything was presented to me in the vivid suc­cinctness that delights the heart of an editor. John’s life had been filled with the essentials. So was his com­ment on life. When we parted for our berths I was conscious of a series of pictures that lacked no necessary touch of a master hand; but repeti­tion in the stilted language and phrasing of civilization was impossible. The wonderful gift of nature was John’s, and the marvel of it grew on me through the night hours.

Next morning I smiled at him from our table, and some new life in his eyes convinced me the recognition was not unwelcome. And when we few wanderers collected as usual on the after-deck, there was John a few yards away leaning on the rail. I went to him, taking the woman-who-worries, and after a few monosyllabic words he took advantage of our in­terest in some scene on shore to glide away. But an hour later he was there again and thereafter he adopted us as his friends. For the next two days we separated only for meals and sleep. And on the night of the second day, as we swung a little into the open to make the Hamilton Inlet, a storm arose. And through the storm a tiny rowboat bobbed up to us in the moon­light, poised for minutes in the flush of a great danger as it struggled to reach us without crushing against our sides, and then quietly dropped aboard us two Moravian missionaries. And it was John who seemed to know just what to do to make the boarding possible. The missionaries recognized him and rewarded him with a smile and thanks, but John appeared un­moved. A moment later he was stand­ing beside me, staring into the torn reflection of the moonlight, held by the same strange affinity that had been working on me.

Early the following morning we cast anchor far within the Inlet, be­fore Rigolet. And as we glided into position, John and I were talking. In his manner was a greater solem­nity than ever. I believe now it was the knowledge that in an hour or so his new friend would pass from his life.

“Can you read?” he inquired. And the unusual embarrassment of his manner made me wonder. Then, “Can you write?” And when I modestly admitted both accomplishments he hesitated. I made no effort to draw him out. In a moment he explained. “I can, too.” There was a great pride in his tone. I recognized it quickly enough to introduce my commenda­tions with the proper spirit. “And I write much,” he went on. “I write books.”

Having received my cue, I succeed­ed in finding out that his “books” were diaries written through the win­ter months of his long season in the interior. For John, the Eskimo, had taught himself to read and write.

“Will you read my books?” he pleaded of me.

We climbed over the side then and sat together in the little boat that was to take us to the Hudson’s Bay quay. As I climbed first to the pier a great husky leaped at me. I had heard of huskies and their idiosyn­crasies, and I was prepared to put up some fight; but John came tumbling up over the edge and rushed. A sliver of a lad jumped likewise from the other side and drove a kick into the husky’s ribs—and then I learned that this particular husky was un­wontedly playful. Yet even the Es­kimo and the liveyere never trust the husky.

John led me off, past the white buildings of the company, past sev­eral ramshackle huts that looked as if a mild wind would make loose lum­ber of them, and stopped before one a shade more solid than the others, he paused before entering. It was but one of his expressive movements that meant more than words. I was not to follow farther; he did not wish me to see within. I read into it that it was not shame, but a fear that I might not understand his home life. Inside, a few half-hearty words were uttered, and John replied quietly; and presently he appeared with two common exercise books in his hand. These he handed to me and led away from the life of the company build­ings and the pier towards an ancient Eskimo burying-ground where we need fear no interruption. It would be a couple of hours before the boat would leave.

But someone shouted. The mission­ary who had boarded our boat two days before wanted someone to help to unload his household goods, and John, the always ready, supplied the want. And that was the last word I had with him.

I seated myself on the steps of the factor’s house and opened one of the books. The first thing I saw was a crude but marvellously lively draw­ing of a deer. With only a few un­common lines he had set down a deer in full flight. Therein were none of the rules of drawing, but in his own untrained way John had accomplish­ed what better artists miss. “This is a deer” underneath was but the ex­pression of first principles. And on the second page was a stanza of poetry. Unfortunately it is not at hand, but this dusky son of nature had caught from his mother what he had never read in books. There was meter and rhyme and a strange rhythm, and there was unconscious submission to something working within. I began to read.

It was all about his past winter back there in a frozen world alone. After a time I became suddenly con­scious that something was happening beneath me. I started to a cogniz­ance of my surroundings. A husky had crept beneath the step and jerk­ed from beneath me one of a pair of sealskin shoes I had purchased at the store. For huskies are immune from the appeal of an Eskimo’s soul. Any­thing is fodder to the insatiable fire of hunger that burns within.

They were shouting to me from the quay—and there are more attractive dangers than to be marooned on the coast of Labrador. With the diaries I started for the steamer, thinking to meet John there. But on the way we passed his boat returning with its last load. I shouted that I had his books; and his reply was to nod his head slowly, then to rest on his oars a couple of strokes, watching me as we drifted farther apart.

I never saw him again. During the six years that followed I received from him a half-dozen letters a year, all there was time for in the short two months of navigation along the Labra­dor. I wrote him regularly, sending him such luxuries as I thought would please him and add to his comfort—a camera and supplies, heavy sweater-coats and other comforts, books, writ­ing-paper and pencils, a dictionary. From him there came mementos of his life—a beautiful fox skin for a rug, with head and claws complete; a pair of wooden dolls made entirely by the Eskimo and dressed in exact replica of the sealskin suits of the farthest north; a pair of elk-skin moc­casins; a pair of seal gloves. It was significant of John’s gallantry that most of these gifts were specifically for the woman-who-worries. For me he was ever on the look for a polar bear skin, and had planned a trip farther north to get one, when other events intervened.

But, best of all, each summer there came out to me his diaries. Diaries have small prospect of breaking through my prejudices, but John’s in­variably inaugurated a period of se­clusion and idleness until I had read their last word. They were wonder­ful examples of unstilted, inspired writing. They started with his hunt­ing expedition in the late fall (Sep­tember, in Labrador) into the interior before the waterways froze over, and through the succeeding eight months, until the threat of breaking ice drove him back to the coast with his fur­laden sleigh, they recorded his daily life, not as a barren round of uneventfulness, but as a teeming time of throbbing experience. He felt everything, from the leap of a run­ning deer to a sunset, from a week’s crippling storm to the capture of the much sought silver fox, from the de­struction of his tent by fire to the mis­fortune of pilfering mice. And he had the faculty of making his reader feel with him. In a thumb-nail dash he could take one straight into the clutches of the silent Arctic. Now and then he broke into verse, although in his later diaries this disappeared, perhaps under the goad of more care­ful register. Breathlessly I would read of the terrible Arctic storms that hemmed him in, all alone in there, hundreds of miles from the nearest human being. And the joys and dis­appointments of his traps bore al­most equally for the moment on the one to whom he was telling his story.

From his diaries I gathered bits of his life. He had left home when only ten years of age, to carve his own for­tune, but his father and beloved lit­tle sisters were still to him his home, although he never saw them now. He was everyone’s friend, grateful for their kindnesses, always ready to help, contemptuous of the lazy Indian, whom he hated. In the summer he fished, or worked for a Grenfell doc­tor—all mere fill-ups until the hunt­ing season returned. But always there was a note of incomplete exist­ence in his writings, of falling short of his ambitions, of something bigger within the range of his horizon. Even before I waved farewell to him that day, I had him in my mind for a sketch, “John, the Unsatisfied”.

Throughout his diaries were many gratifying references to the place I had strangely attained in his affec­tions—communings with himself in the silent nights of the far north. And each summer his letters almost plaintively inquired when I was com­ing to the Labrador that he might take me away up the Hamilton River to the Grand Falls. Even in his last letter, written from a far distant field, he reintroduced our ancient plans! Once he informed me in his simple way that he had his eye on the liveyere girl for his future home, and ask­ed me to send her a white silk hand­kerchief with “F” in the corner. John was growing up. During his last summer in Labrador he was much absorbed in an ambition to set up as a Labrador merchant, but he had not the money.

During the first three years of our friendship he embarrassed me much by proposing each summer to come out and visit me; and in one letter he had almost made up his mind to come to me in Canada and take his place permanently in the competition of the white man. I funked the issue each time. I had no fear of his ability to hold his own with brain and hand but the Eskimo in civilization seemed too large a responsibility to assume. At every landing-place in Labrador was, at the time of my visit, a notice threatening a fine of $500 for anyone inducing an Eskimo to leave the coun­try. It was a result of the dire conse­quences of the Eskimo encampment at the Chicago World’s Fair, in 1893. And I could never rid myself of the solemn warning of an Indian chief friend of mine against the risk.

Once a letter arrived in midwinter. The familiar handwriting on the en­velope was like a voice from the dead, for I knew Labrador was then frozen in impenetrable ice. Inside I learned that a courier was coming on snow-shoes overland through those hun­dreds of miles of untracked wastes of Quebec. I replied immediately. And his diary the next summer told of his joy at the receipt in mid-winter of a letter from his friend. A pair of hunters, on their way to their hunt­ing-ground somewhere beyond John, had carried the letter from the little village on the river and left it in one of his tilts.

During the fall of 1914 my letters to him were going astray. His ar­rived regularly, always lamenting my seeming negligence. A dozen times I wrote on alternate days. The sum­mer of 1915 opened with his diaries and more letters of lonesome plaint. Through June and July they con­tinued. Not a letter of mine was reaching him. Then one day came his despairing effort. On the outside he had written in his most careful hand: “If anyone gets this please send it to Mr. Amy”. Whereupon I wrote to St. John’s friends to get in touch with John at any cost.

In a couple of his letters he had mentioned his desire to be a soldier, but I had dismissed it as one of his ambitions unattainable owing to his race. In the one that was to be for­warded to me he announced that he had enlisted and was going to Eng­land immediately to train.

I ask you to consider that. An Eskimo, a thousand miles from the nearest newspaper—no outside life but that of the Newfoundland fisher­man for eight weeks of the year, no industry but hunting and fishing, eight months in the snowbound sil­ences of the most desolate country in the world! And John Shiwak, of an­other race, untutored, a student only of nature, was going out to fight for his country! Hundreds of thou­sands of young Canadians could scarcely read it without blushing. Within the little Eskimo was burning that which put conscription beyond the pale.

In the early spring of 1916 I came to England. Within a week I had found where the Newfoundland regi­ment was in training. John’s reply to my letter is too sacred to publish. There was joy in every line of it. “I have nothing to write about,” he said as usual, in his simple way. And then he proceeded to impress me with a mission in life I had scarcely appre­ciated. But he was in Scotland, and I in London. And travel in Eng­land is vetoed during the war. With­in a very few weeks he was on his way to France, full of ardour.

Almost every week, and sometimes oftener, I heard from him. He was not liking the life. There was some­thing about it he did not understand—this killing of men week after week—and his modesty and reticence, I fear, made him a prey to more asser­tive fellow soldiers. And thereafter, for months, for some reason, no letter of mine reached him. His petitions for news of me drove me to drastic mea­sures, and then I regained touch with him. Once he was sick in hospital “with his neck”, but apart from that he was in the lines every time his bat­talion was on duty. And after eleven months without leave, suddenly he came to England.

It was unfortunately characteristic of our merely spiritual propinquity that I had left only two days before for a holiday in Devon; and when his wire reached me on a Friday night there was no train to bring him to me and return before Monday night, when he was due in Scotland. I has­tened back from Devon to catch him on his way through to France, but the letter he sent me from somewhere in London neglected to include his address, and I could not find him be­fore his train drew out that evening.

His letter of regret, written from Folkestone as he waited for the boat to France, is by me. “I hope we will meet again somewhere,” he said, and I imagined a tone of hopelessness rang in it.

Upon his return to France sorrow seemed to dog his steps. He had in­duced two other Eskimos to enlist with him, but they could not stand the life and were sent back. But his real grief was the loss of his hunting mate, who often shared his winter rounds in Labrador, a white man. “I am the only one left from the Labra­dor,” he moaned. And the longing to get back to his old life peeped from every letter. But to my sympathy and efforts to brighten him he re­plied: “I am hanging on all right. The only thing to do is to stick it till it’s over.”

It is through misty eyes I read his letters of those last three months. The duration of the war was wearing on him. He had no close friends, none to keep warm the link with his dis­tant home. In September he lament­ed: “I have had no letters from home since July. There will be no more now till the ice breaks”. And in his last he longed again for the old hunt­ing days. Labrador, that had never satisfied his ambitions, looked warm and friendly to him now. He wonder­ed what the fur would be for the coming winter, what his old friends and people were doing, how the Gren­fell doctor managed without him.

I had been sending him books and writing-paper, and small luxuries in food and soldiers’ comforts. “It is good to know I have two friends,” he thanked me. (The other was a woman living near his training camp in Scot­land). “I don’t think a man could be better off.” Simple, grateful John! He complained of the cold, and I des­patched a warm sweater and a pair of woollen gloves. But they never reached him.

That was in mid-November. A month later an official envelope came to me. Inside was my last letter. On its face was the soulless stamp. “De­ceased”. More sympathetic hands had added: “Killed”, “Verified”.

It was a damp-eyed sergeant told me of his end, this native of Labra­dor, the only Eskimo to lay down his life for the Empire.

“He was a white man,” he whisper­ed. Would that John could have heard it! It happened in the Cambrai tank drive. The tanks were held up by the canal before Masnieres, and John’s company was ordered to rush a narrow bridge that had unaccount­ably been left standing. John, chief sniper of his battalion, lately pro­moted lance-corporal, the muscular son of the wilds, outpaced his com­rades. The battalion still discusses which was the first to reach the bridge, John or another. But John ran to the height of the little arch and turned to wave his companions on.

It was a deadly corner of the battle­field. The Germans, granted a res­pite by the obstacle of the canal, were rallying. Big shells were dropping everywhere, scores of machine guns were beginning to bark across the narrow line of protecting water. And just beyond the bridge-head, in among the trees, the enemy had erected a platform in tiers, bearing machine guns. As John stood, his helmet awry, his mouth open in unheard shouts of encouragement, the deadly group of machine guns broke loose. That was why the bridge had been left.

The Eskimo swayed, then sank slowly. But even as he lay they saw his hand point ahead. And then he lay still. And they passed him on the bridge, lying straight and peace­ful, gone to a better hunting-ground than he had ever known.

And my thoughts of John Shiwak, the Eskimo, to-day, are that he must have been satisfied at the last.

Conservation of Materials

Conservation of Materials

Part VIII of the series ‘England in Arms’

By W. Lacey Amy

From The Canadian Magazine, December 1917.

It required the war to convince the most pat­riotic of us that Great Britain was year by year becoming less self-contained, that by pro­cesses subtle or open her rivals in the world’s commerce, especially Ger­many, were gradually ousting her not alone from the foreign markets but from her own. And in the revelation that came with war one more eco­nomic theory received a staggering blow that manufacture of specific commodities should be left to the countries in a position to produce them most economically. The theory was unassailable were peace a per­manent blessing. But war has a habit of uprooting theory with relentless hand. There still remain in England those who resist the apparent corol­lary, that unprofitable national pro­duction must be protected, but the teachings of war are rendering their ideals at least momentarily unobtrus­ive. The grim straits through which Great Britain has passed since Au­gust, 1914, have impressed her with the national helplessness that accom­panies the relinquishment to foreign countries of national necessities. And as manufacturers are not the class who willingly produce at a loss in competition with their foreign rivals, there exists only the solution of Gov­ernment protection in some form.

Great Britain never realized how the very essentials of life were drift­ing into the hands of the Germans, until the sudden closing of the Ger­man market forced her to review her own industry. The facts forced home to her might well have discouraged another less resourceful coun­try. Not alone were the needs of everyday life unfulfillable, but some of the very weapons of war had so subtly trickled from British control that only British brain was able to cope with the situation without more than a temporary setback. Perhaps had the war been delayed ten years British brain might not have been so ready to re-grapple with a produc­tion she had lost only for a few years.

It is the popular impression that German dyes represent the climax of British dependence, but the dyes themselves are the least material of the deficiencies of British production. Not yet has the dominance of Ger­many in this commercial commodity been overcome, but adaptable substi­tutes are readily available, and dyes are in their nature immaterial to na­tional victory or even national life. Where the German monopoly of dye­stuffs looms most awkwardly is in the fact that Great Britain did not grasp their real significance as an indirect factor in international relations; for Germany’s monopoly was the result of her preparations for war, not of her superior inventive powers, the basis for dyes being the by-product of the manufacture of munitions. German dyes were subsidized in order to util­ize the coal-tar resulting from certain munition-making processes, and every dye-works was instantly convertible in time of war to war services. Dyes, therefore, have been the least of Great Britain’s troubles in the war.

In a thousand household needs Bri­tain’s dependence became revealed al­most with the declaration of war, and some of these were of sufficient im­portance to demand official attention at the same time as the more intimate ones of munition production. Since their manufacture has been permit­ted to creep into German hands more as an economic measure than through any inability to fulfil the local needs, they presented no striking problem. But in a score of the prime require­ments of war the effect was different. Certain processes of steel manufac­ture suitable for munitions were not practised in England. Electric sup­plies for Great Britain came almost entirely from our enemies. In the outskirts of London to-day lies idle an incomplete electric railway, be­cause construction was in the hands of German engineers using German fittings and principles. The little magnetoes that are essential to the aeroplane and the automobile were so completely of German manufac­ture that even to-day they are pro­duced in England by only two or three firms and their efficiency and cost is still not such as to supplant the German article should open com­petition recommence immediately. Germany was selling Great Britain all her finer grades of glass, such as those used for lenses and laboratory purposes. Great Britain had even permitted Germany to enter her dis­tant possessions for the practical monopolization of the minerals used in the working of steel processes. For her finer machinery required in the production of munitions Great Bri­tain is to-day at the mercy of Am­erica, since the English working engineer has not yet arrived at that nicety of adjustment, that perfection of specification which is absolutely necessary for serviceable and reliable instruments of war. I admit it with reluctance but with certainty of my ground. Indeed, English manufac­turers are candid in their statements that they must still look to America for the mechanical delicacy and nice­ty which have made British munition production one of the marvels of the war. This they may well leave where it is for the present, so long as Bri­tain’s energies are completely util­ized for more immediate require­ments. Its unsatisfactory feature is that this very mechanical perfection will be as essential to much of the coming industrial struggle of peace as it is now to the war output.

Toys, dolls, metal and leather novel­ties, gas mantles, brushes, certain popular earthenware, office requisites, musical instruments—these are a few of her daily wants for which Great Britain had been wont to send her travellers to the great German mar­kets, such as were represented at the Leipsic Fair.

There were other disadvantages under which Britain laboured on ac­count of her insular position. For her timber she was dependent largely on Norway, Sweden and Russia, and to a less degree on America. The skins for her leather came for the great part from abroad. Her paper was the product of foreign pulp. Her metals arrived by boat. In the bulk­ier raw materials England may be said to have been self-supporting only in coal.

Her problems would have been sim­ple, even in the face of these de­ficiencies, had it not been for the submarine warfare adopted by the en­emy. British control of the seas and of the shipping covering them would have assured her of sufficient supplies for her every want. The demands for war transportation would have embarrassed her shipping capacity to such a small extent that the simplest expedients of conservation would have sufficed. But with the sinkings and delays of unrestricted warfare conservation became a question equal­ly vital with the protection of the merchant shipping and the upkeep of the army. How she went about it is peculiar to a nation, proud, bound by tradition, reluctant to admit even in­convenience—and certain to overcome in the final emergency.

With the requisitioning of tonnage for war purposes—the transportation of soldiers, wounded, and supplies; patrolling the coasts, mine-sweeping, auxiliary cruiser duties—the neces­sity for some control of importations became evident. Certain luxuries were gradually eliminated from the freight lists, the bulkier unessentials first. A part of the tonnage was re­quisitioned for stated importations at Government rates. But the inade­quacy of these measures became ap­parent long before the sinkings were numerous enough to be an immediate menace, and the injustice of singling out a few ships and depriving them of the high rates obtainable by free ships clamoured for redress. In ad­dition, it gradually impressed itself on the nation that any satisfactory solution of the submarine menace en­tailed a more perfect organization for the elimination of delay in loading and unloading, as well as the speed­ing up of construction. For these purposes experienced officials were appointed. Construction was not only standardized, but workmen were utilized where they were of greatest service, irrespective of firms and em­ployers. The difficulty of delays in loading was met to some extent by mobile dockers’ battalions, and by a more strict supervision of transpor­tation and labour.

But shipping cannot be said to have been brought within the scope of a thorough control until the middle of 1917, when the Government took over ninety-seven per cent. of the entire British registry at Government rates. By this means it was not only assured of reasonable freight charges, but the entire capacity of the boats was di­rected with a sole eye to the real re­quirements of the situation. The move took the place of the scores of former regulations. It became no longer a case of publishing prohibited impor­tations but of satisfying the Govern­ment that purchases abroad were in the interests of the country at large. Every British liner was taken over, and the profits derived from private freight went to the nation. The re­sult was a pooling of interests by the large transportation companies. Long voyages gave place to short substi­tutes, and the facilities of the near­est ports were always available to save time. Shipowners arranged to purchase their ships’ stores and pro­visions abroad in order to save home stocks—an obvious act of wisdom that was so little recognized even during the early months of 1917 that Span­ish and Dutch and Norwegian ves­sels were continuing their custom of drawing their supplies from English ports. At the very moment when not a pound of potatoes was finding its way to the majority of tables in Great Britain these foreign ships were tak­ing away with them thousands of tons.

Land transportation, while not in the same emergent class as shipping, entered the scheme of conservation on account of the shortage of men, and because trucks and engines had been requisitioned for the use of the army in France. This was effected by reducing passenger service to the minimum, and by organizing deliv­ery so that the shortest route and dis­tance was compulsory. For instance, coal was brought to London only from the nearest mines and by the short­est line, the railways being brought under Government control to a dis­interested co-operation. One striking failure to complete the simplification of transportation was in the neglect of the canals that cut England in every direction. Whether this was owing to their railway ownership or to Governmental thoughtlessness is not clear, but such bulky freight as coal might have been poured into Lon­don by this means of transportation without disturbing the material so much in demand for quicker delivery.

The immediate need for metals and explosive ingredients for war pur­poses, as well as for other commodi­ties hitherto imported, drove Eng­land to measures never before con­templated. The Explosives Depart­ment of the Ministry of Munitions was organized to assume the duty of acquiring the necessary raw material of explosives. Glycerine was early placed on the controlled lists, and in February, 1917, was further restrict­ed to preparations of the British Pharmacopoeia and to uses approved by the Ministry. It was practically eliminated from dispensing. In March, the shortage being serious, a special branch of the Explosives De­partment was formed to take over control of all fats, oils, oil-seeds, and their products, including oilcake, soap, and margarine. For the same purpose the waste of camp canteens and messes has been carefully col­lected for more than a year. Since one of the by-products in the manu­facture of illuminating gas is a neces­sity for explosives, the people were urged to use gas where possible for heat, light and power. The huge de­mand for petrol led to the Govern­ment resuming the long-interrupted efforts to find oil in Great Britain, and in order to prevent exploitation the Crown assumed the exclusive right to bore. Should petroleum be discovered in quantity—and there have been signs that point to success—the submarine menace will be near­er to solution than it has ever been. The same prospecting is being under­taken for metals, although it is cer­tain that only small supplies of in­ferior quality will be found, lead and zinc comprising the bulk of British possibilities. Copper was requisition­ed in December, 1916, and its use for manufacturing purposes forbidden.

The control of petrol has been one of the big failures of attempted con­servation. For the first twenty months of the war this control rested in the hands of various inter-departmental committees whose main anxiety—as is the case in a hundred instances of divided control in England—was their authority and dignity. They competed against each other in the market and in shipping facilities and bought in the application of their au­thority even in war spheres. The Pe­trol Committee which succeeded them had not a petrol expert in its com­position, and at its best was impeded by a jealous Board of Trade. In dis­gust it resigned, after a period of in­adequate control and incompetent ef­forts. Its successor has proved more efficient. A different scheme has evolved. The principal petroleum companies have arranged a pool for distribution and importation, under the control of a Pool Board Petroleum Supplies. Restrictions were early put on petrol licences, and these have been extended at various times with the declared aim of cutting out pri­vate consumption. Business firms are allowed a certain amount for deliv­ery purposes. Taxi-cabs, of which there were 8,287 in London alone be­fore the war, were reduced to an al­lowance of thirty gallons a month, the most conspicuous result of which was to encourage the drivers to break the laws governing their service to the public. And motor-buses, which provide the popular means of trans­portation in London, were seriously curtailed. But the working of the restrictions was glaringly lax and un­fair. Petrol was wasted in the army sometimes used even for washing the trucks. Taxis, which usually carry but one passenger, were grant­ed petrol which if supplied to the in­terrupted bus service would have car­ried many times the number of pas­sengers. Until recently there were no restrictions whatever on the motor luxuries of officers, every one of whom of any rank has his own car and chauffeur for running about Eng­land. Day and night and Sundays this indulgence was unlimited until the middle of 1917, and since then its control has been evident only in the replies of Government officers be­fore the House of Commons. While private licences were supposed to be cut off in May, 1917, there is not a minute of the day when any import­ant street in London does not prove that civilians still ride at their plea­sure; and on Sundays the roads from London are still busy. In spite of the repeated official denials that pet­rol is granted for private use there is the frankest display of such waste. Even the social notes in the news­papers speak of wedding trips and visits to seaside resorts by motor, and the procuring of supplies demands but slight ingenuity. The greatest obstacle to such a perversion of a much-needed commodity is a price of $1.17 a gallon established in Au­gust, only twelve cents of which is Government tax. It is a detail of the recognized principle of regulation in England to reserve the privileges for the rich.

The shortage of petrol has led to the use of substitutes, but the fur­ther prohibition of liquid substitutes has confined the inventiveness of mo­tor enthusiasts to the utilization of gas.

Conservation of coal has been taken up officially, not because of a national shortage, but to save labour and trans­portation. In 1915 the price was fix­ed to prevent exploitation. In the spring of 1917 there was in London a severe shortage that bore heavily on the poor, who purchase in small quantities; and in the summer of that year steps were taken to prevent a repetition. A Coal Controller was ap­pointed to arrange delivery from the nearest mines and to equalize distri­bution. The Board of Trade issued advice to the people to purchase their winter supplies early, but when the orders poured in it was found there was not the coal to fill them. It was another instance of neglected prelim­inary organization before urging the public to action. The several in­stances of this which have occurred have done much to discourage public co-operation in attempted conserva­tion. The next step was to ration the coal according to the number of grates. A house with not more than four grates was allowed two hundred­weight a week, and the allotment was detailed up to two tons and a half for a house of more than fifteen rooms. Every consumer using more than two hundredweight a week had to register. The Controller’s plan was to work up to a five weeks’ stock in the coal yards, reducing the allow­ance as this quantity was reduced. The difficulties of such a system of rationing are obvious, since the ex­tent of occupation of a house, rather than its number of grates, determines its consumption. There is, too, no assurance that the rationed quantity will be available.

One of the early materials to be controlled was paper. Newspapers were cut down to definite quantities, based on their consumption during the year before the war, and this amount was further reduced in 1916. Importation was in the hands of the Government. The result was a dwin­dling of size and a consequent in­crease in price owing to the curtail­ment of advertising space. The Times rose by halfpenny stages to twopence, and many of the halfpenny papers advanced to a penny. In March, 1917, posters over a certain size were for­bidden, and tradesmen might not send out catalogues or price lists ex­cept on request. The newspaper con­tents bill, a feature of street an­nouncement in England, was pro­hibited. By the last measure alone it is estimated that 500 tons a week are saved. In July, 1917, the War Office arranged that, since the cas­ualty lists could no longer be pub­lished in the smaller papers, they should be issued weekly to the book­stores for sale. A few days later tradesmen were limited in their cir­culars and catalogues to a third the weight of paper used in the same period of the year before. And the whiteness of paper has been sacrificed in order to save bleaching powder.

In the matter of wearing apparel control was delayed as long as pos­sible. Leather had first to be taken in hand. The huge call for army boots was eating into the available supplies with disturbing rapidity, and in March, 1917, the Government took over all sole and upper leathers suitable for army use, following a less complete requisition of the previous December. Civilian footwear immedi­ately advanced. In June the Govern­ment made arrangements for the sale of old army boots at fixed centres, with the stipulation that they should not be patched but taken to pieces for repairing other shoes. The ob­ject was to prevent the scrapping of serviceable army boots. But shoe re­pairs continued to rise so seriously—soling advanced more than three hun­dred per cent. from the period before the war—that in September the Gov­ernment was forced once more to in­tervene and release for civilian use at fixed prices quantities of leather suitable for repairs.

An Advisory Committee on Wool Purchase was set up, representing the various Government departments con­cerned and civilian interests. It fix­ed prices and prescribed uses. Wool was not largely imported, but it was deemed advisable to continue exports as well as to supply home needs. Standard cloth is now produced for officers’ uniforms, and civilian wear will probably be similarly controlled. The manufacture of cotton has had to be curtailed, although it is one of England’s leading manufactures. Blankets are in Government control for army use and only such quanti­ties released for civilian use as are considered necessary.

All stocks of sawn timber in the United Kingdom were taken over by the Government in February, 1917, and in July the Local Government Board urged local authorities to for­go the use of wood-paving for the period of the war. In January anastigmatic lenses of defined focal lengths were requisitioned. In Feb­ruary the supplies of jute in the coun­try were commandeered. In June citizens were requested by the Board of Trade not to waste glass recept­acles of any kind. Metal spur, chains, buttons and badges of rank on officers’ uniforms were abolished, leather spur straps and buttons, and worsted badges of rank taking their place. Stone quarries were taken over in July.

General prevention of waste and of misdirection of effort was applied in a score of ways. Building and pri­vate motor-making were stopped. A new Bill was introduced for the pre­vention of corruption in Government contracts. A department was set up for the utilization of idle machinery. In 1916 an Order-in-Council empow­ered the Admiralty and Army Coun­cil to regulate or prohibit transac­tions in any article required in con­nection with the war. No horse suit­able for cultivation of land might be sold by the land occupier without licence. To save fuel illuminated ad­vertisements and lights outside shops and theatres were prohibited in May. 1917. In extension of this principle two of the large London stores closed on Saturdays.

Of course, with all this evident shortage there was profiteering. The case of matches affords a good ex­ample. These sold before the war as low as three cents a dozen boxes. To­day they are as high as thirty-two cents, although the manufacturers in­sist that not more than sixteen cents should be asked the consumer. In addition to their high price there are times when they cannot be obtained at all, and the stores release to each customer only a small box or two. The Government, knowing there were sufficient stocks somewhere, has taken steps to control distribution. A pool of manufacturers has been formed, and orders will be taken only through a Match Control Office in London, which will be under the Tobacco Con­trol Board.

In these measures of conservation it was necessary at times to ignore the claims even of allied countries. France, being close at hand and Great Britain’s source for much that might be called luxuries, has suffered most keenly. Fruit, wine, and silk were the largest of these importations. At various times all these products of our friends across the Channel have been either restricted or prohibited. Protest has been made, and at times mild reprisals applied, but common sense has prevailed. In some cases the protesting country yielded, in others the restrictions were modified. A general agreement between the two countries was announced in Septem­ber. By it England takes from France goods of French origin, ex­cept such as wood, motor-cars, ma­chinery, gold, spirits, and ornamental goods; and France has thrown her doors open to everything but cotton and woollen piece goods, soap, and oils. The fact that England has the European Allies almost completely at her mercy on account of her con­trol of shipping is proof of the wis­dom and justice of her treatment of them.

The straits into which the war has thrown Great Britain in the matter of material supplies are not without their blessing. The people of the small island which has dominated the world for so many centuries are learn­ing how luxurious and enervating was their style of life among certain classes, how much they can eliminate without serious inconvenience—even with advantage—and how near they were to losing valuable markets. The necessities of war have developed an inventiveness that was tending to doze and have taught the wisdom of great­er dependence on their own produc­tions than upon those of other coun­tries who appraise more truly the value of industrial eminence in the world’s markets. England after the war will swing swiftly into the Eng­land she can be, a resourceful coun­try that need give precedence to no rival in commercial as well as in in­tellectual attainments.

The next article of this series is entitled “The Enemy in England”.