Читать книгу The Times Great War Letters: Correspondence during the First World War - James Owen - Страница 57

And these munitions of war have to be made, not by the men at the front who are doing the fighting, but here in the British Isles. The men at the front know this; they know that the making of munitions of war, the making of clothes and equipment, the provision of food and of the thousand and one other things necessary to an army in the field—all these are just as much an integral part of the business as theirs is. And then they ask (I have heard them myself—wounded men in hospitals and whole men on the field), “Why should I, who enlisted under a voluntary system, because my part of the job is to loose of the ammunition my next-door neighbour at home has made, be compelled to do so under the extreme penalty of death for disobedience to orders or desertion from my job, while my neighbour at home is allowed to chuck his job with impunity whenever he wants to? Why should I be punished for refusing to go into the trenches because my pay is not raised a penny an hour, and the other fellow be allowed to strike and then be cajoled into going back to work by the special visit of a Cabinet Minister and the promise of extra pay? Why should I have to stick it out, night after night and day after day, in water and mud up to my knees, when the other fellow (who is only doing another part of the same job) can make his own conditions as to hours of work?”

Why, indeed? Why should any one of us who claims citizenship in the Empire, when the Empire is fighting for its very existence, be free to do what we like at such a time? That is the question I asked myself as I came away one evening from visiting a private soldier who had fought through the first three or four months of the war and had then deserted (his excuse was drink) and was to be shot, and was shot, and rightly too, at 5.30 the next morning. Why, indeed? That is what the men at the front are asking.

The news which they will have read these last few days will have put fresh heart into them all. For nine solid months they have been wondering why on earth the nation has not done what it has at last been decided to do—viz., to form a National Government. And now what? Is this National Government going to be the real thing or not? Is it going to be merely a combination of representatives of existing political parties on some sort of basis of numbers in the House of Commons? Is the cloven hoof of party politics still going to be found in it, or is it going to be a Government composed of the very best men whom the nation can produce, irrespective altogether of politics and parties? Is it still going to keep half an eye on votes, or is it going to get on with the one and only thing which matters now—the smashing of the enemy in the shortest time possible, for that is the object of war? Is this new Government going to tackle this business on the same ridiculous principles of voluntary service as heretofore, or in the only way in which it can be tackled with any certain hope of ultimate success? Is it going to tell the nation at once that we can’t win this war, and shall uselessly sacrifice thousands of lives, unless the Government has the power given to it to call upon the services of every single man, woman, and child, if need be, for whatever each individual is most capable of doing directly or indirectly for the accomplishment of the one object before us—the smashing of the enemy? The men at the front are waiting for the answer, and so are thousands of men and women here at home.