The Enemy in England

The Enemy in England

Part IX of the series ‘England in Arms’.

By W. Lacey Amy

From The Canadian Magazine, January 1918.

It is not inconsistent, though it is unfortun­ate, that those charac­teristics which, in time of peace, are counted to a nation’s credit, in time of war oft-times stand to its dis­service and mischief. Bound into the very foundation on which the British Empire was built, close, indeed, to its keystone, is tolerence; just as, sooner or later, the first crumbling breach in the walls of German resistance will show where intolerance has been so prominently fixed. But as even a virtue, uncontrolled, may approach a vice, so Britain’s (especially Eng­land’s) acceptance of the widest ap­plication of tolerance, in a time when little counts but the life of the nation and the sternest support of those great principles which focus only in the defeat of an inhuman foe, has become to it in certain stages of the war a menace it should not have risked. And yet it is so much easier to moralize than to follow the straight path of virtue as demanded by the altered conditions of war that his­tory is not apt to sum up England’s part in the war as a careless disre­gard for the sensible precautions that consider only victory.

Behind England’s calm tolerance of the enemy in its midst stand the principles of government that have held together an Empire more di­verse than ever before was bound to­gether even by the thinnest threads. The ancient Romans, whose dominion was more ambitious but infinitely less effective and extensive, never at­tempted the feat of welding such con­fusion of tongue, such diversity of character, such uncongenial spirits as Great Britain has governed with­out serious strife for generations Necessarily it had perforce to be a government of indulgence, of conces­sions, of licence. To weave into one fabric the Scotsman and the Indian and the Chinese, and the hundred distinct units of a hundred corners of the world, imprinted that on the English character which has made him a cosmopolite. It has opened his mind to a thousand vagaries of individual belief. It has opened his hand to the puny communities of dis­tant sections which would have been beneath the notice of any other na­tion. It has opened its doors to the world’s refugees—which means not alone the world’s downtrodden but its criminals, its outcasts, its great un­wanted. And with the unlimited opening has grown up an intolerance of intolerance, a firm reputation of the closed corporation, in national as in commercial life. Only in his pri­vate life does the Englishman cling to the barriers.

England became a haven, built in those principles. The Anarchists of France and Spain and Italy found a home there; the Nihilists of Russia fled there before the sword of unre­lenting Czarism; the political out­casts of a score of countries swarmed to the little island that refused to give them up to the avenging hand of their own countries. And, more dan­gerous than all, the spies of the na­tions that train spies as a feature of the national system, found there their mart of exchange, their delving ground, their most profitable source of the information which might some day be used against the country that gave them shelter. It has always been presented as the best justifica­tion of this attitude that the Anar­chist and the political exiles who harbour there have thrown aside their dangerous tenets in their relationship to England. But it is a defence which has been repudiated more often than has been made public and from which countries friendly to Great Britain have suffered almost without protest. When Winston Churchill turned machine guns on the foreign criminals of a street in East-End London he was but laying the foundation for an enlightenment which has been spreading over Eng­land since the greatest war in his­tory revealed new national prin­ciples. But tolerance died hard. Indeed, it is not dead, though the Empire pays for it in human blood.

One must let these truths pene­trate in any examination of the treat­ment that has been meted to the enemy alien in England. No nation, and especially not England, can throw aside the principles of genera­tions that have built up such an Em­pire. Add thereto the sporting in­stincts of the Englishman, the desire to give even the most powerful and menacing enemy the privileges of open combat, and there opens up some­thing of the reasons behind the leni­ency which met the German and the Austrian and the Turk who had found their homes in the British Isles. Consider therewith, too, the freedom of action which these foreigners enjoyed for so long that they had been able to make themselves powers in the land, hacked by the official support of their own govern­ments, aided by the co-operation of a million fellow-countrymen in other parts of the world. These men had wormed their way into the very na­tional framework, of finance and in­dustry and commerce, even into poli­tics. They had stormed society with gold and kingly honours. They had married their sons and daughters to English daughters and sons, often, it is certain, merely in pursuit of the common aim of influence. They had won or purchased staunchest friends, in civil as in political life. They held many of the imposing properties which commanded respect and sub­servience as ancient rights. In the House of Commons were ardent de­fenders whose honesty has never been impugned, as well as a few others whose motives might well be questioned.

So that when the war broke out they had behind them the English wall of tradition, the firm support of influential friends, the trust of the powers who alone could curtail their liberties, and the pride of the Eng­lishman who disdains to excite himself over any peril. They were many times entrenched.

To the man on the street it would seem to be the part of wisdom in­stantly to protect the nation against the machinations of the enemy resi­dent. But the man on the street finds the way to action long. Canada, as well as England, has been indul­gent to the German in its midst. The politician is bound by different views, by different motives and necessities. It happened that in the British House at the outbreak of war the Home Office was under one whose sympa­thies were loyal enough but more ac­tively tolerant. Indeed, the head of the office has at all times concerned himself with the enemy alien and his rights and protection more than is agreeable to the public and to his fellow Ministers. It may be more the fault of the estimated duties of the office than of the man himself. With the declaration of war nothing was done to control the spy. Evid­ences of his handiwork were not only suspected but revealed in a score of cases. Prominent Germans, known to be in the favour of the Kaiser, were afforded their customary liberties. Enemy firms whose interests were wholly German were permitted to conduct their businesses along the usual lines. England, with its eyes firmly fixed on the star of its lofty principle in entering the war, was far above the crude pettiness of in­dividual coercion and limitation. Glowing speeches, that might have sounded well in history had Great Britain won the war during the first four months, were delivered by the page to convince the public that we were waging war on Kaiserism, not on the individual German. It sounded well, but the public was going by sight not by sound. And in the meantime the individual Ger­man in many cases was doing his ut­most for Kaiserism.

The state of public opinion early in the war drove the resident Germans and Austrians by the hundred to take out naturalization papers; and, ac­cording to the law, there was nothing to prevent. The Schmitzs became plain Joneses, and the German signs on the fronts of scores of shops gave place to good old British names with­out changing proprietors. Protest by the press was met by lifted hands of helplessness. The announced de­termination of the German rulers to exact retribution from those Ger­mans who did not remain true to their homeland, the declaration that a German could secure naturalization in a foreign country without affect­ing his German nationality, had no effect on the stand of the authorities.

Only when the Zeppelins in early 1915, dropped death on innocent Britons and friendly foreigners did the public take the course of events into its own hands. Each raid was followed by rioting in the East-End of London that threatened much more than the destruction of a few German shops or injury to a few Germans. To hold the mob in check the Government was forced to take steps to intern 20,000 Germans and Austrians throughout England. In haste the internments were decided upon, but it was noticeable that only the uninfluential Germans were touched, with here and there one of note to make the total bulk large. The relegation to private life of the Prince of Battenberg from his posi­tion of authority in the navy early in the war was but one of these act’s of pandering to public clamour without realizing the justice of the protest. At the time the internments com­menced there was established an Ad­visory Committee whose duties have apparently been to find ground for excusing prominent Germans from internment, not to intern. In all the list of angry queries which have been thrown at the Government by en­thusiastic Britons in the House, there are remarkably few replies pointing to internment upon the advice of this committee, while every German at large has been protected by its re­ported findings. All over England well-known Germans went about their daily work, not quietly and inoffen­sively, but boastfully. Many instances have been quoted of a sneer­ing ridicule of their enemies. “They can’t intern me” has been hurled by impudent Germans in the face of angry fathers whose sons have died through the release of information that can have been obtained only through spies.

In the time of Asquith the Ger­man in England fared exceedingly well. Only after persistent pursuit by the press was he interned, and from his comfortable quarters in Donnington Hall or in the other elabor­ate quarters where he was semi-con­trolled, he looked out upon an England disturbed and suffering from a war that inconvenienced him little. He was clothed and fed and waited upon as few Englishmen. His wife was paid an allowance of from five to ten shillings a week more than that allowed the wife of the British soldier fighting in France. His business was run for him, either by an English de­puty who paid him the profits, or he was permitted occasional freedom to oversee it. In the two years and more of the Asquith war Premier­ship scarcely a German business was closed down, although hundreds of them were theoretically under con­trol. Asquith’s lax methods made action repugnant, in spite of the con­stant protest of an influential press. To be sure Enemy Trading Acts were introduced, intended to prevent enemy profit, but there was nothing to prevent a Briton carrying on the business and piling up the profits to be paid the German proprietor after the war is over. Many of these Ger­man firms even secured large con­tracts from the Government at the expense of the British firms.

The entry of Lloyd George into the field promised more than it ef­fected. He found himself faced by a people more intent on the noise of protest than an effective action to satisfy that protest. They saw and resented the freedom of the enemy in the country and to some extent backed the steps necessary to curtail it; but the ways of the country intervened, and had it not been for papers like the Northcliffe press there would have been little more done than to intern a few powerless merchants who had thus far escaped. Then, too, the Court of Appeal came to the protec­tion of the German. Taking advan­tage of the laws of the land—laws he would have laughed at in his own country—many a German secured his liberty. The Court of Appeal declared that a German at large in England is not an enemy alien, and debts were collected on the strength of it. Lloyd George did, without delay, place in internment several of the best known Germans whose im­munity hitherto had been a matter of marvel and whose brazenness threat­ened a popular uprising. But always there was evident a desire more to ap­pease the public than to effect a pub­lic benefit. From the beginning the coercion of German subjects and naturalized Germans has been with a view to exercising official control as little as possible.

The Home Office, driven by a group of influential Britons whose sympa­thies from the first have been with Germany, has undertaken the care of the German resident, and Lloyd George’s administration has altered this attitude little. Official appeals were sent all over the country for firms to engage interned aliens. There was, no doubt, the excuse that it would save the expense of intern­ment, but there was far more the danger that these men, who had been considered dangerous enough to look away from the public, would be able to resume most of their former ac­tivities and opportunities for evil; and there was the subtle folly of se­curing good jobs for a foe whose re­lentless style of warfare placed them beyond more than mere human con­sideration. The move was discounted from the first by the indignant re­fusal of employers to throw open their shops to the enemy.

A committee had been formed early in the war for the benefit of the alien enemy, its funds provided by some of the best known naturalized Germans, German admirers and paci­fists. In the list were included such significant names as Haldane, Beit, a prominent Government Official, and the Cadbury Brothers. The influence of the latter was great. As the pro­prietors of two London daily papers, they had been insistently declaring from the first rumours of war that it was impossible, that Britain misun­derstood Germany; and ever since, as Quakers, they have been edging towards peace at every stage where such a word dare be mentioned. Public disgust expressed itself most effectively when a county Prisoners of War Committee returned Mr. B. Cadbury (these are the Cadburys of cocoa fame) the five pounds he had contributed, on the ground that they could not accept it in the face of a personal contribution of £750 and a firm contribution of £1,500 to the funds for interned and uninterned aliens. This pro-enemy committee was constantly at work endeavouring to ease the lot of the enemy alien, soliciting work for him, purchasing luxuries denied our prisoners in Germany, and generally presenting his case to the authorities and the public.

The matter of German businesses walked the same uncertain course under the new Premier. Here and there a German business that had been much in the public eye was closed, but until the press took up a case nothing was done to it. The English manager of Bradstreet’s, German born, continued to sign the firm’s letters, although theoretically supplanted, until the folly of it was exposed in the press. Of the German banks which had been closing for al­most three years one was finally wound up. But in this act, too, was evidenced the unduly favourable treat­ment accorded the enemy. In strict British fairness, debts owing the Ger­man firms were set against their own debts; yet it developed that, while the British debtor was forced to pay 20s. on the pound, the British credi­tor received only 13s. 4d. The Ger­man debts, incurred when the mark stood at 20.40 per £, were paid at an existing rate of 30.45, although at the moment there might be sufficient assets to pay at the full rate; and no one seemed to be able to state how the rate was established.

Failing to find places for the in­terned Germans in British firms, many were allowed freedom to reopen or manage their former businesses. Others were freed for no apparent reason but that they might resume their former methods of life, living on their incomes. Here and there Germans who had been interned re­appeared in their old haunts without public explanation. For some of these someone had gone bail, others were allowed out for a sort of holiday, and still others were released on the word of influential friends or for unknown reasons. The lot of those left in internment continued to be com­fortable. At the time when the country was rationing itself, the Germans in Donnington Hall and Alexandra Palace were allowed much larger food supplies, and only when protest was made in the House was a change in­troduced. To-day, when thousands of homes are unable to secure coal through transportation difficulties Alexandra Palace is amply stocked. An example of superlative kindness to the German is that in Donnington Hall there are 115 servants to wait on 389 German officers.

And still there were at the middle of 1917 about 22,000 Germans and Austrians at large, less than half of them women; and at the last returns given in the House several thousands were living in areas that are called prohibited, where the most valuable information is obtainable. One prom­inent German purchased recently through his son an estate within a mile of a hill commanding a wide view over the sea, and in the House it was stated that he had been already fined for trading with the enemy and his son for showing a bright light at night. An uninterned German was arrested with important secret military documents and an officer’s kit bag in his possession, with German calling-up papers in his pocket. A celebrated Austrian painter has only now been taken into custody (his case was fought out before the advisor committee), although he became naturalized only after war was declared and at the time a letter of his in friends in Austria told of his reluctance to seem thus to repudiate the land of his birth, as well of his enmity to “the predatory Serbian nation”. A German was shot by an officer for in­trigues with the latter’s wife, after the police had known for months of his origin and his association with a woman executed as a spy. Two foun­dations of German monks were until recently allowed complete freedom in England. On the very day the papers announced a fine of £100 against a British engineer for attempting to purchase without a permit a pistol for experimenting, the English Con­sul-General for Montenegro arrived at a summer resort in England with an Austrian valet who had been ex­empted from internment by the Home Office. Several German women have been found doing service in the homes of British officers. The British wife of an interned German was recently lightly fined for attempting to pur­chase an aeroplane seating four and capable of flying to Germany. As there are many German escaped of­ficers still at large the affair assumed a serious aspect.

Even the Government itself seemed disposed to do its best in its own de­partments for the Germans. In the central telegraph office were, at one time since the middle of 1917, eight men, in addition to Belgians, not Bri­tish-born. A young man who claimed exemption from military service on the ground that his parents were Ger­man was found employed in a Gov­ernment telegraph office, through which the most important secrets pass­ed, although substitutes offered them­selves. The assistant constructor at an important dockyard was the son of a German father and had visited Germany shortly before the war. A naturalized German was permitted to live close to a large aerodrome. The Minister of Blockades appealed for the exemption of a young German on its staff—and the tribunal granted it. A man of German descent was appoint­ed British Commercial Attaché at The Hague, although his brother had already been convicted of disloyalty, and only the persistent outcry of the press obtained his dismissal after the Government had once refused to yield to public indignation.

Indeed, from the first it has been a constant struggle between the public and the Government or certain pow­erful interests in the Government. The latter have steadily refused to take the steps necessary to overcome the spy evil until they were forced to it by the people; and even the English people have endured what few other countries would permit. Now and then some public body with sufficient Power to make itself heard has acted. School trustees have dismissed their pro-German teachers, and won their cases when the law was appealed to. At least one university rid itself of two or three German professors after the German names attracted public attention. The guardians of a spe­cially fitted hospital refused to ac­cept more German wounded when they found that their entire main building was filled with 1,700 Ger­mans, while in the annex were a thou­sand British. As the apparatus pro­vided was unexcelled in England, the guardians claimed that its benefits should be more largely open to Bri­tish wounded.

In all this favouritism to the Germans were bound up the energies of the pacifists and conscientious objec­tors. In public meetings before their friends, in their own press, in the House of Commons, the most was made by these men of fair treatment to the enemy, their idea of fairness being favouritism. Every month or two a question was asked concerning complaints about the food at the internment camps, although the ra­tions were superior to that which was allowed the British soldier. No com­plaints seem to have been made at the camps themselves, but there were al­ways friends in the House anxious to forestall rationing. The same influ­ence that rendered the British bloc­kade so ineffective until the United States acted was at work from the beginning of the war to protect the enemy alien in England. While Great Britain was allowing to percolate through its blockade net the very es­sentials of life in the enemy countries, is was also handing out to German prisoners and to the interned treat­ment not accorded our own soldiers at home and not expected or asked for our interned in Germany. But the question of the blockade included other issues that hound Great Bri­tain’s hands, releasing them only when the United States stood behind it at the source of supplies. What tem­pers one’s sympathy with the difficult position Britain finds herself in in supplying neutral countries is the fact that food was even being shipped to South America.

Yet it is not for Canada to criticize. England’s pacifists have never been al­lowed the freedom of expression enjoy­ed by a few traitorous spirits in Can­ada; nor has such political use been made of pro-Germans in England as has characterized political operations in Western Canada. The handling of enemy aliens is theoretically simple of plan and action, but in the every­day life of a nation, even at war, there are interests and influences that seem willing to sacrifice the country to the worst of foes.

The next article of this series will be “The Human Side”, describing the mar­vellous work for the welfare of the distressed in England.

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”.