Читать книгу The Times Great War Letters: Correspondence during the First World War - James Owen - Страница 49

THE RECRUITING CIRCULAR TO HOUSEHOLDERS

21 April 1915

SIR,—WILL YOU GIVE ME the opportunity to ask a question, which I think you will agree is important? When the Circular to Householders was issued, many heads of families gave in their names on the assumption that they would be called up only in the last resort, and under circumstances in which no patriotic man could refuse his help. Married men with large families are now being called up apparently without the slightest regard to their home circumstances. Many of the best of them are surprised and uneasy at leaving their families, but feel bound in honour to keep their word, some even thinking they have no choice. The separation allowances for these families will be an immense burden on the State, and, if the breadwinner falls, a permanent burden. Is the need for men still so serious and urgent as to justify this? If it is, then I for one, who have up to now hoped that the war might be put through without compulsion, feel that the time has come to “fetch” the unmarried shirkers, and I believe there is a widespread and growing feeling to that effect.

I am, Sir, &c.,

CHARLES G. E. WELBY

A NEW SOCIAL QUESTION

24 April 1915

SIR,—IT IS TIME that a little common sense was brought to bear upon what is getting to be known as the war baby question. I speak from the standpoint of a middle-aged married woman who has all her life been interested and often a helper in social work among young girls. The town in which I have lived for the last 20 years has 30,000 inhabitants, including about 5,000 female factory workers, and since the war began we have had many thousands of soldiers, chiefly Territorials, billeted among us. The town took kindly to its astonishingly new state of things and has treated the men very well indeed. No sooner, however, had the first excitement died down, and the fear of invasion passed, than rumours began to be heard about the bad behaviour of our girls with the men. Nothing was done, as our only large girls’ club building had been taken for a billet. However, eventually it was suggested that we should follow the example of other towns and appoint women patrols to look after the streets. I was told on all sides that the state of things was terrible, that the number of “expectants” ran into hundreds, some even specified 900. This, coupled with a moving address from a lady from another town to a meeting of ladies in our town, was a little too much for some of us to believe. (I may here say that the stranger lady averred in her speech that a “level-headed” friend of her own had told her that in her particular village there was not one girl of suitable age who was not an expectant.) We therefore undertook to make inquires of every one having the knowledge and authority to answer that we could think or hear of, and two ladies went a systematic round of the doctor, Poor Law authorities, inspectors, insurance, and police, among other sources of information. I am thankful to say that the report was most satisfactory in every way. The doctor, who knows the most about the illegitimate births, said there were very few expected, under half a dozen, not more than generally occur, unhappily, in the town in the time, and nothing to do with the military.

Now I believe that if people would look these scandals in the face, and insist upon authentication before they believed and passed them on, sometimes in the form of letters to the Press, that a great injustice would be removed from our soldier friends and our working girls.

I have no doubt whatever that other towns would be found the same if things were looked into, as, no doubt, they have been in many places. It is nothing short of wicked even to believe without strict authentication the bad stories that are circulated. At the meeting I have referred to it seemed to me that exactly the right note was struck by a factory worker who quietly said, “I am willing to do anything I can to help girls, but I will not be a patrol because I am a factory worker myself, and it is not for me to sit in judgment upon my fellow workers”; and she added, “There are several hundred in the factory where I work, but there are no cases among them such as have been mentioned.”

I could multiply instances that prove things are not so bad as many seem willing to believe, but I have already taken up too much space.

I remain, Sir, &c.

E. M. Y.