"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3331, 16 January 1918, Page 50

"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

(Specially Written for the Ladies' Page.)

BLOWS FOR AND AGAINST US. October 29

Tlie country heard with much relief the Government's explanation in Parliament of the silent reception in England of the Zeppelins which were afterwards brought down in France. It proves that above the moonlight was a dense mist, and higher up still was a strong wind. The Zeppelins passed over the coast in the mist, making them invisible to our antiaircraft and the gunners. But in the mist they lost their way. They were obliged to keep 18,000 ft to 2O,oOoft~up to keep out of range of our guns, and only one—the Zeppelin that dropped the bombs—located London. The other 10 wandered aimlessly in the obscuring mist. A hundred casualties, almost, was the result of the chance bombs let fall. What might not have happened if it had been as bright in the upper air as it was. below! The doomed ships of the air that set out bent on an awful tour of destruction were themselves crippled or destroyed. Getting into the gale above the mist, of which we had no indication in the silver stillness on the earth, they were blown helplessly? out to sea and to France and over the Swiss Alps, to fall into the sea or in fiery flames or into the hands of enemies. What a voyage of fate! One imagines the arrogant pilots setting forth in their Dreadnoughts of the air, with plans for measureless destruction, defiant of threatened' punishment, derisive of the morality that makes the deed of killing just,, bent only upon getting their blow in while yet they have time. They reach the city they have determined to destroy, and a curtain of mist covers it from sight. To descend beneath that curtain means almost the horrible certainty of death by fire from the British aircraft guns. They lost their bearings, lose one another—wander about blindly in the upper world till, caught in the fury of that high storm, they drift helplessly through a long night of cold so intense that apparatus is frozen, and in the dawn find themselves still over hostile country and the French gunners beneath them and a• swarm of aeroplanes about them. Wounded and crippled, one after the other of the proud airships drop to enemy earth qr fall and are engulfed in the sea. Instead of fiendish gloating and " honour " for fiendish deeds triumphant, the horror of death and the humiliation of thwarted aim!

The air-raid shelter question is being answered. The King-in-Council has taken steps to provide the public with additional shelters by a new Defence of the Realm Regulation, which decrees that the occupier of any premises suitable for shelters must allow them to be used by the public on the occasion of hostile attack by air, if the police so require, and the police are authorised to inspect any premises available as such shelter with a view to ascertaining whether they are suitable. The municipal authorities at Hampstead have issued a list of buildings in the borough, which, in the opinion of the police, are raid-proof; and many other boroughs are to follow. We sometimes laugh, but the fact remains that, unless the pleasant weather of rain and gales secure us, our moonlight nights are insecure. And already the gales are with us, and ,l£ft of snow lies on some parts of the country. It is only six months since last year's snow

left us. A violent gale, which was as destructive as an air raid, damaging much property, uprooting many trees and killing a number of people, swept over the United Kingdom from the south-west on Wednesday night. All over London the wind with a velocity of 70 miles' an hour, blew down chimneys and fences and hoardings, breaking huge branches off some trees and uprooting others. In the famous chestnut avenue at Bushy Park a chestnut tree and a famous elm were blown down. At Preston the wife of a soldier at the front, asleep with her baby, was buried under the debris of a chimney stack that fell through the roof, and at Scarborough a chimney wrecked the top rooms of a house. Four small houses in Manchester were buried under the ruins of a wail, and several of the inmates of the cottages were killed; and so comes news of disaster from Lancashire, Bristol, Lincolnshire, Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow, and other places in Scotland. " There'll be no raid to-night," said one to another; and the cellars were tenantless.

Nothing connected with our American Allies, not all their tremendous giving and mighty efforts for the war, has so touched the British heart as the fact that American soldiejs have struck their first blow in France, and have fallen side by side with the British and the French. Her entry into the drama of -blood and sacrij fice is the' bond of suffering that unites us as nothing else could. Isaac F.. Marcosson, the distinguished journalist, as well known in England as in France, who has just returned to London from Italy, Spain, and France, from where he has written many illuminating articles, writing of "A .New Glory for 'Old, Glory,'" says: . . . I've stood almost shoulder to shoulder with Haig's incomparable host "all the way from Ypres to the Somme. There came an afternoon not so very long ago when a new and memorable link was added to the chain of my war experiences. I had left the seething Italian battlefields far behind; run, too, the gauntlet of German-ridden Spain, and was once more in Northern France '. .". in the zone of death, in the empire of the fighting man. The train stopped, and I got out at the little station that will loom big in American history. . . . The platform was alive with something that hummed like home. All about me were long,' lithe, rangy figures—men who were smooth of face and keen of eye—the x American Regular. I heard familiar sounds —the mingling of the harsh, staccato talk of the New England Yankee and the soft drawl of the Southerner. I shut my eyes for a moment and fancied I was back at an American manoeuvre. But this time it was no mimic war. The men were geared up to the real thing. Uncle Sam was on the job at last! . . . Across the fast-darkening fields I caught the glimpse of a flag, the gleam of its red and blue sharp and distinct against the dull background of the vanishing hills. Something I had not before felt in all the thrill and tumult of my war-wanderings stirred and moved me. For there were the Stars and Stripes planted on the soil of the Great Redemption. .('. . I.have seen >many unforgettable things in tln:a war. They Tange from the dramatic unfolding of the British Grand Fleet out of mist-enshrouded reaches of the North—Sea to the charge of Cadorna's gallant troops up the hell-swept slopes of Monte San Gabriele. But nothing seemed so vivid, so searching, or so haunting as this spectacle of that starry flag whipped in the winds of France. . . . Nearly 300 years after the Pilgrims fled from the Old World to plant the symbol of freedom on the shores of the New, • the descendants of those hardy pioneers have crossed the seas to the land of their forefathers to play their part In another fight for freedom. Thanks to them, there is a spot in a foreign land that in the sense of baptism of blood will be for ever American. 'ln that rich soil will be a richer dust coneealed' . . . and the Anglo-Saxon,

now, happily, a part of the larger Englishspeaking brotherhood that knows neither ' border, nor breed, nor birth,' will find new cause for exultation in the common kinship of the race. . . . There comes to my mind something that Fieldmarshal Sir Douglas Haig said to me one day last winter when we sat in front of the fire at his Headquarters and talked of the world, the war, and of many things. I spoke of what the war had done for the overseas peoples: for those gallant cubs of Empire who rallied to the call of the mother lioness when she sent forth her challenge to* the world. His face lighted up with pride as he replied: ' War, harsh as it is, is the great maker of men. Take the Australian. Everyone knows that he is proud as he is undisciplined. Yet -war has made him a trained and disciplined soldier, and, more than that, a world citizen. The same is true of the Canadian, the New Zealarider, and the South African. They will go home better equipped and better organised

for peace.' What the war has done for the An2;ac it will do for the American. . . . He will he bigger of spiritual build and broader of vision when he goes back home, and so will be his posterity." The Americans in London received the news of America's first shot with great "enthusiasm and elation. They have been anxious to see their men fighting shoulder to shoulder -with the brave fellows who have been fighting since the war began. They are prepared to devote every re-eom-ce, and confident that the united efforts of the Allied nations will bring the war to a successful issue. The American slang definition of their determination to smash Hohenzollernism, Sir Edward Morris, the veteran Prime Minister, tays, is " Kanning the Kiser." The enthusiastic entry of the Americans into the fighting has come hopefully into a week harassed by the reverses in Italy, the successes of the enemy in Russia, and the trouble in Ireland. America knows that nothing short of success on the battle front can, in President Wilson's words, " make the world safe for democracy." American mothers are sending their sons to the war in. the same fine spirit that they sent them of old to break the yoke of oppression.. The American " hustle" will quicken our deliberate pace. The American reputation of "money-grubbers " bids fair to be replaced in history as " money-spenders." The nation was "slow to enter the war, but, having been convinced that their blow will be on the side of the liberty of the world, they mean to hit hard. Our food problem is daily growing more acute. The defiance of ' the Food Controller and the malpractices of the retailer still continue in spite of very heavy fines that have been levied here and there as an example. Danish butter (where it could be got) at the week-end was fetching a good profit over the 4s per lb that was paid for it wholesale. The Copenhagen merchants are making as much profit as possible from the fact that Danish butter and other produce is not under control, the policy in this country being to keep it at all costs from going to Germany. And future consignments are to fetch even more. Butter at this price, even if it were plentiful enough to go round, is an unheard-of luxury for the ordinary housewife's purse, and to obtain other sorts and even margarine long queues of peoplo waited outside the stores, taking their turn. At many of the shops " No Tea " and " No Butter " boards were exhibited at an early hour, for there are still many shops who have neither controlled the sale of tea nor other necessaries. It has been stated that when, at the end of this month, the present scheme of tea trade becomes a statutory order under the administration of Lord Rhondda, infringements will be offences against the Defence of the Realm Regulation. What people do not seem to grasp Is that there is a world-shortage of food, etc.—that if not another U boat menaced the waters and the war ended to-morrow we should still be short -of food. Millions of men once engaged in production have for the years of the war ceased to produce, and have only consumed. B&con was easier to obtain this week-end; but it was released by the Government because it would not keep indefinitely, and it left much to be desired. One of the dearest items of the week-end food was' new-laid eggs, which were to each. Herrings are reported in London to have been plentiful and cheap, and selling for Id each, but here, fresh from the sea, they were 2d and each. There is a growing belief that the country will have to be rationed. The tea, margarine, butter, and sugar queues, and the rush for supplies wherever they are reported to be obtainable, and the long waiting for quarters of pounds, the disappointments, and the loss of time are Trying the people, and in several towns resolutions have been passed in favour of Government rationing, because, if the Government put the people on compulsory rationing, all will share alike, and the Food Controller will be responsible for the distribution of food. The people in country places are going to have their food supply made still more difficult by the Government curtailment of the van distributing service for saving of petrol and labour. The great stores in London and other cities have an enormous trade in the outlying districts miles away from the centres. The Christmas pudding will fail to appear in many places this "Christmas, unless the Government completes its negotiations with Greece for currants. And Christmas in England' without the pudding will fall flat indeed. As yet one hears only stray mention of Christmas, but by the time this reaches you, if reach you it *->es, the season of good-will and good

cheer will be with you under the summer sun, and I take this opportunity of wishing the old wishes to you all for a time of happiness and a glad New Year. Nothing can make us really glad as individuals or as a nation, except a lasting and honourable peace, and for that the Empire strives and suffers together. In many homes this year—in most—will be one vacant chair pon which we shall gaze with tear-filled eyes and soul-filled pride. But what Eric Wilkinson (who was killed in action in October, said in "Soldier Poets" of one brave soul, we hear our own lost say : Mourn not for me too eadly; I have been, For months of an exalted life, a King; Peer for these months of those whose graves

grow green Where'er the borders of ooir Empire fling Their mighty arms. And if the crown is death, Death while I'm fighting for my home and King, Thank God the son who drew from you his breath To death could bring A not entirely worthless sacrifice, Because of those brief months when life meant more Than selfish pleasures. Grudge not then the

price, But say, "Our country in the storm of war Has found him fit to fight and. die for her," Anu. lift your heads in pride for evermore. But when the leaves the evening breezes stir Close not the door. For if there's any consciousness to follow The cteep, deep slumber that we know as Death, If Death and Life are not all vain and hollow, If Life is more than so much indrawn breath, Then in the hush of twilight I shall come — One with immortal Dife, that knows not Death, But ever changes form—l shall com© home; Although, beneath A wooden cross the clay that once was I Has ta'en its ancient earthy form: anew. But listen to the wind that hurries by, To all the Song of Life for tones you knew, For in the voice of birds, the scent of flowers, * The evening silence and the falling dew, Through every throbbing piilse of Nature's powers f I'll speak to you.