“ALIEN’S” LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3205, 18 August 1915, Page 69

“ALIEN’S” LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

(Specially Written for the Ladies’ Page.)

WAR AND ROMANCE.

June 22. j Among all the strange upheavals of Me caused b-v the war, Cupid has refused to be displaced. The War God and the God of Love have been in keen rivalry since last August, and this spring, although a young man’s fancy has not ‘lightly turned to thoughts of love,” his thoughts have turned to love in real earnest. Marriages have gone up 50 per cent, in number, and most of the bridegrooms are ua khaki. In London the number of licenses issued since the outbreak of war and De ceraber was four times the ordinary number and the numbers have - greatly increased since then. Many of the bude- . grooms have been under orders to leave j for the front when they have applied for licenses at the registry office. Many j others have married while home on a tew j days’ leave, and among the many are , officers whose weddings in normal times | would have been among the big social functions of the season. Before the war it seemed that every | romantic situation of the age had been ; used up by the novelists j but as many of them who survive the war, or are ( evolved from the war, will have atrao- i sphere and setting in touch with the new | time, and novelists will pass on- those whose work is great enough to live the -work —pictorial history of the social reality , of these times, which are too near to-day ; to focus in proper proportion. We are living too desperately for calm reflection, ; analysis, and selection of artistic situations. We are too much a part of the whole to concentrate upon particular tragedy and drama. Life _is itself from day to day an ever-changing story, one page of incidents changing to the next page, and a climax to every chapter, none knowdnq- the end. Those who were rich j this time last year are without riches! to-day; those who were workless are n j demand with a strong right arm. The talents and industries of artistic life that were indispensable make room for the j men and women who can make gunpowder | and guns, shells, aircraft, and seacraft for war. The men and women who are the most skilled in the arts and sciences and activities of war are those who grow rich or most honoured to-day—those who can equip the army, clothe, and feed it. And the women of all women most needed are those who can heat broken bodies and , minds, or minister by labour or charity. We hear as little of women’s beauty to-, day as we do of- her superfluity, and the poets -who won fame by enthusing on soft sentimentalities are out of a job. But sentiment abounds. The sickly sweet, highflown sentiment of feeling gone to waste is a drug in the market. Neither song nor prayer nor profession that is outside the great hour of deeds is wanted any more, is not tolerated with patience. The strong, primitive passions aroused by this gigantic battleground cannot be lulled by soft sentiment. The demand is f unreality, and in reality is the real romance , of life. Facts are the most stupendous things. No story of the air or of the earth or of the waters under the earth have ever touched in imagination the deeds of to-day. A week or so ago the young airman. Lieutenant Warneford, was unknown to the world. Within 10 days he had won the Y.C. for the most won derfnl single feat of airmanship of the war, and his mother, who was called the happiest and proudest woman in England, has been raised to heights from which within a week she has been most bitterly cast down. For the Zeppelin destroyer, the fearless hero who counted life cheaply for his country’s sake, lies to-day in the chapel of Brompton Cemetery under wreaths and flags awaiting England’s burial. But 10,000 deeds as brave as this, had it been possible to tell them, would have won as instant recognition. The V.C.’s that have been won are but a few of the thousands deserved for acts and .heroisms unnoted in the awful clamour and confusion of the battlefield. The young man fresh from his office and his home, enduring the heat.and the cold, the burden and the self-denying, the break from those to whom he counts more than his number, and who count to him more than everything in the world save England’s honour and freedom ; the man who had renounced his study, left the societv of professors and the seclusion of the universities for the companionship of the miner and the artisan, for the rough faring of the camps and the trenches; the idler of society, keen- and zestful in this war game as in the sports of young man- , hood; the pale-faced city clerk leaping from his stool and the monotony of tho ; 500 days of recurring monotonous figures, I adding the gains and losses of anyone j but his own; the main of gentle spirit and worldless thoughts finding himself inspired to heroism; men of ordinary humdrum j lives discovering to themselves and others an unsuspected genius surpassing their own ; ideas, and men of base deeds ennobled and purified by sacrifice. Romance! The world teems with it at this dark and vital i hour, for humanity is stirred from j lethargy, and humanity knows no bounds, and character prevails over custom. A library would not bold the romance of the facts of these hurried marriages of the war. A love half realised has come to full comprehension through the dread of separation or separation in the face of death, and human hands cling when the parting may bo forever. Out there in the teeth of fire-hailing destruction it is courage for a man to know that the woman who waits him has the right both to wait or mourn ; and for the woman, come weal or woe, it is her pride and recompense that she bears the name of the man for whose sake she is lonely. St. George’s and the other fashionable churches of London have seen many gorgeous wedding' pageants, but never prouder brides than those who are led this year from the altar hy khaki-clad |

bridegrooms, and whose honeymoon is but of hours. The duty of protecting England hour oy hour from a terrible enemy has intensified all other duties, and the common loss and common sorrow broken down barriers of class and creed. It is a strange thing on Sunday mornins to hear the commingled ringimr of the church bells, and the clash and clang of hammers in the factories, and the drill sergeants shouting commands. There will be no Sabbath rest again for England till the far-oif, longed-for days of peace. The output of shells is the first great duty. If we have no shells soon v.e shall have no country. The new understanding of this has brought forth a new and noble spirit. The workers have responded faithfully to the great demands made upon them by the stirring appeals of the press and Mr Lloyd George. The right to strike has been all but abandoned by the unions. Lock-outs are to become illegal, and the profits of employers regulated. To see the women and girls making shells in the North and other parts of England is described as a lesson to all slackers. A well-known Lancashire writer (James Sherliker) says : By the courtesy of the management I was permitted to see the women and girls of Leeds making the war material for the men at the front. They work day and night in turns, and they work on Sundays as well. There is a keen conrpetition in the matter of output. The winners hold a challenge shield, which is decorated with the flags ot the Allies and Imng in a prominent position over the machines at which sit the successful girls. If a girl is taken ill or feels faint she is at once helped to a cosy rest room, where a charming matron and a trained nurse wait upon her. Up and down the big yard tramp armed sentries in khaki, and a Boy Scout conducts the visitor to the official whom he wishes to see. All sorts and conditions of women come here. It is difficult to-day in Leeds and the surrounding districts to get a servant, because domestic servants are giving up their work to go and make bullets. Girls of good middle-class families are here. Soldiers’ wives are here, and soldiers’ mothers; and it is fine to see tb© smiles of satisfaction when they increase the output. Ladies in all parts of the country write asking to be allowed to help in the work. A clergyman's wife has offered to come along and bring her daughters, and applications come from places as far distant as the Channel Islands. ... If you can find. a man under 80 out of work round' about here you will have, done more than I can do. The war was not very old when the workhouses were appealed to, and now hundreds of men who were paupers are helping to serve the guns. Hundreds of men who left their work years ago have returned to it. Turners and fitters who believed that their working days were gone seem to have found a new lease of life and energy. The habitual loafer, the street-corner man, the cab tout, the opener of taxicab doors —they are all missing from their customary haunts. You will find them where they ought to be. They are too old to join th© colours, but they are young enough to make things that matter most to-day. Ncr is the working, not even the rough working, all confined to what is under stood as the working classes. Lord Noi‘ bury, too old to serve in the army, is working from 6 in the morning till half past 7 in the evening in an aircraft factory for 7d an hour. If one could live for another 50 or 100 years it would be interesting to read the English literature of that period, and the part the air-raids tock in it. For the -Londoner nothing is more surprising than that, with London’s perfect police and fire services, he should not be comparatively safe under his own roof. But the Chief Commissioner of Police has reiterated his warnings in expectation of the threatened great air-raid of London. The first thing we have been asked to remember is that in all probability it will take place wdien most people are in bed, and the only intimation the people are likely to get will be the reports of anti-aircraft or the noise of falling bombs. If the hum of an air craft is heard people are asked to get up and fully dress, but not to go into the street, where they might be struck with falling missiles. Moreover, the street will be required for the passage of fire-engines, ambulances, etc. It is suggested that the baths should be filled at night with water, with buckets of water and sand kept ready on the upper floors in case of an outbreak of fire ; all the windows and doors should be shut to exclude noxious gases. No one should go to bed without, we are told, knowing exactly where their respirators are and the solution with which to damp them, and candles and matches ready. It is advised to give the children respirator drill so as to accustom them to their use. The mothers sleep uneasily these summer nights. It has been threatened by the Germans to punish London for the bomb raid on Karlsruhe, which Germany thinks “a senseless proceeding.” Just as senseless as the murder of innocent children by bombs on the English coasts and towns. Germany’s idea of a sensible prosecution of this war would be to obliterate the opposing countries and go scot free. There is a calm returning of holidaytakers to Southend and other raided coasts, for the doctors have urged Londoners and other dwellers of large cities not to defer their rest-cure by the sea or in the open, for the strain of this year has been even greater than other years, and those who are pent up in offices and business houses all the year need more than food—ozone and fresh air. And it is particularly desirable that the public health should hold good in view of the trying time to come. In many of the houses on the coasts the sleeping rooms and sitting rooms have been reversed, the sitting rooms high up and the bedrooms on the ground floor, for greater security, as most of the bombs dropped have damaged and set fire to the upper portion of the houses. So far asphyxiating gases have not been given off

by the bombs, but in trie expected raid three types will probably be dropped —in cendiary, explosive, and poisonous. A rumour has got about that the night of Wales Birthday (to-morrow night) is to be distinguished by the Zeppelins. However, we shall see. In some districts where the high block of mansion-flats are the men have constituted themselves into guardians, and take turns to watch throughout the short darkness of the summer nights (from about 10 o’clock till 3) while the others sleep in peace. So passes our summer. No river-girls, no debuntantes, but every day we are becoming more familiar with the uniformed women officials and the motor girls, who drive the vans and cars with perfect.skill and confidence, or dash through the streets on motor-bike duty. Whatever would the Amelias of the Victorian era do in the days that are? In the old days the woman’s part in the war, unless in exceptional instances, like Florence Nightingale and others of her courage to set the conventions aside and strike for freedom and the reality of life, was to weep or cheer. This is the first war in which women have taken an equal share of the burdens, and without loss of dignity and that much-treasured womanliness found herself ready as well as willing to take upon herself the tasks of men. Years of suffrage education have proved her efficiency as well as her willingness for the untried, withheld avocations. As yet all men are not educated with her, and in some quarters grudge her, even in this time of stress and shortage of man’s labour, those posts hitherto occupied by men. The other day at Birmingham the drivers of the motor busses refused to drive if the girl conductors who had been trained and uniformed were taken on. But such smallness is rare, and among only that class of men who boast of “ keeping a woman in her place,” and who put their own interests before that of their country. But women ore not frightened any more of the old ghosts of the perils outside their own doors and the hardships’ in the working world beyond their kitchens. They know that a good woman can preserve her womanliness equally in the office or workshop in comradeship with his work as in companionship wdth his pleasures. The women who have worked the most with men respect men most, for they see the best and strongest side of a man—his talent and energy, his industry and courage—in the face of difficulties. She, understands and appreciates her mental companions more fully perhaps than the nartner of only their domestic life or social life, and the men w'ho have worked mostly side by side with women have an admiration and knowledge of her attainments and possibilities. What many long years of fighting for the franchise has not done this war has done for the women of- England. Every day it is testing her ability, her staying powers, her patriotism, and the depth of her generosity and affection. Things are not moving as ouicklv as some of the most ardent and selfsacrificing of the disciples of the woman’s cause may wish. There is muddle; but things are moving. Eight thousand volunteer war-workers responded to the anpeal of the Board of Trade, and only 2000 have been got into their proper places. But this does not - represent by many thousands the women who are war-working. Anyhow, for good or for failure, if this gigantic slaughter of men goes on, for this generation the woman worker will be needed most. Onr daughters must face the future with the man’s task added to her own. When all is done that the war can do of bereavement and loss and o-ri-ef, the hardest part will fall upon the women.