The Times Great War Letters: Correspondence during the First World War. James Owen

this we fire out shrapnel and hurl our infantry.

      Now these inadequacies are not incurable failures. But they are likely to go on until we create some supplementary directive force, some council in which the creative factors in our national life, and particularly our scientific men and our younger scientific soldiers and sailors, have a fuller representation and a stronger influence than they have in our present Government. It is not the sort of work for which a great legal and political career fits a man. That training and experience, valuable as it is in the management of man and peoples, does indeed very largely unfit men for this incessantly inventive work. A great politician has no more special aptitude for making modern war than he has for diagnosing diseases or planning an electric railway system. It is a technical business. We want an acting sub-Government of scientific and technically competent men for this highly specialized task.

      Such a sub-Government does in effect exist in Germany. It is more and more manifest that we are fighting no longer against that rhetorical system of ancient pretensions of which the Kaiser is the figure-head. In Flanders we are now up against the real strength of Germany; we are up against Westphalia and Frau Krupp’s young men. Britain and France have to get their own brilliant young engineers and chemists to work against that splendid organization. Unless our politicians can add to the many debts we owe them, the crowning service of organizing science in war more thoroughly than they ever troubled to do it in peace, I do not see any very great hope of a really glorious and satisfactory triumph for us in this monstrous struggle.

      Very sincerely yours,

      H. G. WELLS

      THE NEXT GENERATION

      22 June 1915

      SIR,—AS A SLUM WORKER and member of an L.C.C. Care Committee may I crave space for a few burning words? No one who has at heart the moral and physical welfare of the next generation can witness without dismay the appalling increase of “drinking” amongst the women of the poorest class. Let anyone who doubts this look at the unprecedented number of cases of women had up for drunkenness in our London Police Courts. The money which the Government is pouring out so lavishly upon soldiers’ and sailors’ dependents is in many instances being shockingly and shamefully wasted. There are many families who go dinnerless on Mondays, when the women draw their pay and often remain in the publichouse from 11 a.m. till late in the afternoon. A young soldier’s wife who was explaining the black eye she had got the day before told me that it was not that she cared for the drink, but the “company” and the “treating.” She had recently been troubled by a visit from the S.P.C.C. Another, who before her husband went away was considered a respectable woman, is now doing two months’ hard labour, and I have had to help toward the support of her six little children. Scores of working men who are themselves moderate drinkers have said to me, “Why don’t they close the pubs?” If the sale of drink can be limited to help on the output of munitions why not also for the moral and physical welfare of the mothers and the coming generation?

      I am yours faithfully,

      A SLUM PARSON

      PICTURE PALACES

      5 July 1915

      SIR,—IF THE WAR LOAN is to have any chance with the “working class,” at least in the Midlands, the compulsory closing of picture palaces will become an absolute necessity. These are probably a more serious menace to the nation now than even drink. With the opening of the National Register there need be no hardship to those employed at the picture shows. But there will be a bad shortage on 5s. vouchers so long as the money is spent every week in these places.

      Believe me yours, &c.,

      “BLACK COUNTRY” VICAR

      7 July 1915

      SIR,—IN ANSWER TO YOUR anonymous correspondent a “‘Black Country’ Vicar” I beg to forward you a few facts concerning the cinema and the war. We have received the personal thanks of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales for the assistance we have rendered the National Relief Fund. We have proved a rich ground for recruiting, and with our “war topicals” have stimulated many a dull imagination; the Belgian Red Cross Society use a film entitled “War is Hell” to assist in the appeals they make in cinemas. One firm (Messrs. Walturdaw, Limited) have prepared a film at a cost of several hundred pounds to stimulate recruiting, and this they are lending free and also supplying 1,000 sheets of pictorial printing to advertise it, the only condition being that a recruiting sergeant is permitted to address the audience. The Ministry of Munitions has now approached the Exhibitors’ Association and asked its help to advertise the call for workers to enrol for the production of munitions of war. In conclusion, Sir, I would suggest that money might be saved by abolishing the collection box.

      Faithfully yours,

      H. W. LEDGER, Royal Picture House, Egremont, Cheshire

      THE WOUNDED FROM THE DARDANELLES

      9 July 1915

      SIR,—I NOTICE THAT questions have been asked in the House as to the adequacy of the medical arrangements in connexion with the British Forces at the Dardanelles. I have recently visited—in company with the respective officers in charge and with the concurrence of the general officers commanding and directors of medical services—the military hospitals at Malta, Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said, and Mudros. I have been given the opportunity of seeing, in the freest possible manner, all the arrangements made in the Mediterranean area for the reception of the sick and wounded from the Dardanelles.