"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3336, 20 February 1918, Page 51

"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

(Specially Written for the Ladies' Page.)

THE FOES OF OUR HOUSEHOLD. December 3. We enter this last month of the yea* . -with anxious hearts. The month that gives" us the Christian festival of peace and goodwill officially, in reality finds Christendom more divided against itself than history can record. ! The joy-bells of last week were of short ringing, and it takes the '.stout of heart to face determinedly all that may befall befoie this time nest year. We as an Empire have pledged ourselves in unison to fight for freedom—the freedom of the future and not for a patched-u-D peace that will but shift the burden upon our children and grandchildren, and instead of putting an end to war, giving the Germans breathing space in which to rally their forces before challenging the world again to more deadly conflict. ' Lord Lansdowne's white flagwaving is the most unpopular act of the moment. Much as we want peace, even long for peace, we do not want a peace at any price that will make the sacrifice of the past three years of no avail. It would leave the women of the nation bitter-hearted to have given sons and husbands, sweethearts and brothers, in vain, to be in ineffectual graves. Better never to have gone to war at all than to call a truce while the Huns are in power, to * let them return from their murder and pillage and vileness unpunished, shouting a victory unearned and undeserved, while we are mocked —mocked, we women, in contempt for our tenderest giving and most difficult doing. No Briton grudges life for Britain's victory, but we have not fought and sacrificed to leave the triumph with the Kaiser. Then, indeed, would our leaders have led us into a ditch— a blundering that would lose them their leadershit) and the obedience of the people. The Empire is out to punish Germany for breaking the world's peace and the dastardly crimes committed under the cloak of war. This has been on 3 of the most painful weeks of the war—nerve-straining and faith-testing. We have watched with anxiety for the news of Russia and from Cambrai; we are past the days of breezy optimism when some promised victory in three months. All England realises at last that we are in close grips with the enemy, too powerful at any time to be regarded lightly.- But Lord Lansdowne's foolish letter proves how little he ia in touch

with the temper of the people when he suggests an inconclusive peace as the way out of England's troubles. The troubles are here in earnest since winter set in, and they will increase with the sinking of every ship; but the discontent of the people is not with the continued fighting but with the inequality of conditions and the contrasts that the war emphasises here at home. There is no city in the world that shows greater war contrasts # than London to-day; no country greater inconsistencies. On the one hand we are urged to forgo everything, to sacrifice all for the sake of victory, and in the newspaper column next to that which urge> sacrifice is the advertisement of luxuries ,and many things not essential to the ' comfort of any. Outside one shop is a long queue of women, pale-faced and weary, waiting for their chance of a little tea and margarine; the next shop windows are piled with expensive foods and flowers, or gay and fairy-like with wearing apparel, expensive hats and gowns and jewels. We are .implored to renounce every Christmas festivity and gaiety. Hundreds of thousands will be compelled to do so because of the famine prices of "good cheer." Hundreds of thousands of others will do bo from reasons of patriotic economy —■ and this class includes the patriotic aristocrats, —but the alien and vulgar, unpatriotic and greedy rich will make no sacrifice even for decency's sake, and "eat the fat and dmik the wine " even though the-wine cost aguineaab»ttle. And the pet dog lives luxuriously,' even though children starve. While some men and women have given up all pleasure voluntarily and taken to

themselves unaccustomed burdens till the end of &he war, others dance and play bridge and dine as before. The benefits of the war will be for the future of the whole nation, the whole Empire, and the toils and privations should be shared equally. The women in khaki and Red Cross and countless other uniforms are everywhere; but so are the women m expensive furs and jewels; and it is not the women in expensive clothes who wait in the cold of the queues. And till -all share alike in the difficulties and privations resultant of the war, there will be discontent. While one can outbid the other for foods the most will go to those of full purse. Rationing would stop this. The millionaires would have no more right than the charwoman, and because of this a suspicion is growing about the reluctance of the Food Controller to compulsory rationing of the whole country. Food lecturers are out all over the country petitioning the people to economy, but many refuse to listen till rationing for' all is enforced. Scarcity ha 3 already rationed mote than half the people. Bacon at 2s 6d a lb, tea at 4s, butter at 2s 6d and 3s, eggs at means rigorous rationing for many and doing without for many. The Empire need fear no foe in the world as those of her own household. The unfaithful and faint-hearted, the selfish, the pro-German, and pacifists and Bolos are the drag on the wheel that retard our victory. There are many of our great households who betray us for gain—tainted money for all time that has been heaped to the cry of the hungry and the cold for food and warmth. If the veil could be withdrawn from the reason for all this scarcity we should find many things besides the sinking of ships and difficulties of transit. Much of it has been " arranged" by those who have grown rich on the needs of others. The foes of our own Tace, the parasites who feed on the nation's blood, the betrayers who jeopardise the Empire's heritage and sell the nation's birthright for a mess of pottage, these are our bitterest and most shameful foes. It is good to turn from the thought of them to the remembrance of all the loyalty, the labour, and generosity the

Empire over since that fatal August, 1914. In times of stress the greatest tonic is to recount our blessings. And has anything been more wonderful than the doing of the nation? The doing to the one end? True, there has been a lot of talking—some inspiring and somo mischievous, — but what magnificent doing! First and foremost was the voluntary coming forward of the brave hearts of England and the whole Empire—pale-faced men from the city desks and counters, who knew the intricacies of the ledger and the manners of the show room, but nothing of a gun or the brutalities of a battlefield. Who scoffs at a "quill-driver" or "counterjumper" now? The London regiments have won a deathless fame. The men from the Dominions have for ever turned to honourable significance the terms " from tie Antipodes," " from the backwoods." The Hun has tried' in vain to beat them back, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, divided by sea from one another, and England, by individual needs and climatic conditions, of separate government and policy, ran like brothers from different homes and vocations to learn the same great business of common service. How gloriously they have fought, how nobly died, for Empire! For Empire'—not for recantation. They have borne the burden and the heat of day at Gallipoli and Egypt and India; they have won through at Ypres and Messines and Courcelette and Lens and Passchendaele not for nothing. An enraged enemy, who could not force them to their knees, -hits them behind

their back by sowing sedition in their home. The splendid boys have fought valiantly overseas for -what the traitors in their own country would rob them of in their absence. But neither Canada nor Australia nor New Zealand will lie down tamely to be robbed of the honour of their sacrifice—th£ honour of being in at the death of the Joe. To hoist the white flag is not the British way, and Canada will undoubtedly be true. So we believe. That we are in for hard and bitter times in England is true also. Gradually and slowly difficulties have closed round us, and by slow, and very slow, degrees has a certain portion of the community realised that we are face to face with grim want. Money has been able to keep the .stark fact of hunger at a distanse so far, but week by week as the ships go down or food is criminally wasted the menace come 3 a step nearer. The " No Tea," " No Butter," " No Sugar" notices brought the fact closer to°the public consciousness than all the preceding exhortations of the Food Controller. If the moneyed people would confine themselves to the luxury foods and leave the simple, necessary foods for the worker and the poor, their unrationed supplies would not matter so much, for at present the luxury foods appear to be in abundance. But afternoon teas continue in the homes and and hotels that follow with a six-course dinner of luxury-snacks. In the average work-ing-class home the meal designated "tea" is the. last meal of the day, and the beverage takes the place of any other stimulant. Two ounces of tea (if there is to be any difference of apportioning) should not be the portion of those who cannot afford or do not drink wines. From South Wales comes the same complaint of hundreds of peoplo coming in to the markets in search of food, and most of them returning empty handed, and asking why it is that the rich do not have to stand in the queues with the poor taking their chance. There are such tremendous problems involved in every radical change of policy that Governments are slow to make them. We women, who have no vote, can, however, be a law to ourselves, and follow the self-denial

course that will ultimately became & necessity. In the war's darkest hour the women of the Empire will not fail the Empire—even the foolish and the frivolous, once face to face with hardship and peril, will recognise it, and do and give their best as the best women have done and given long since. You at the outposts of the Empire have given generously and worked well. Above all, you have given your men, and suffered the anguish of parting and loss—suffered it well. Much that we women here have been called uponK to bear has not readied your happier land, and your voice means a voice that will help to prolong the miseries of this most miserable yet glorious war—miserable in its sorrows and glorious in its object of freeing the world of despotism. But the voice that is raised for an unripe peace is not the voice that will shorten the period of misery. The country of the Allies - that lays down its arms 'at the Kaiser's feet while he is treading the helpless into the mire of his making is a Judas who betrays for personal gain.

How grateful and how happy we women of England would be for a peace that meant the overthrow of the beast of EuTope ! Lifo has become bitter hard for millions of wives and mothers and women not wive 3. Work and loneliness, sorrow and care are bringing grey hairs to heads that should be held high with youth and happiness. But "yield? Never! It would be so much easier to yield. There would be no more nights of horror, no frightened child's hands trembling in our own through

hours of terror, in part for ourselves and three parts for them. Our homes would be restored to their happy peace-time routine. We of the coasts should see the sea smile again - and the ships ladert with their rich cargoes and living freight pass day and night, and hear no more the awful explosions, which means " torpedoed." Out on the Piccadilly of the sea, where this rough'night the grim warships lie and the huddled ships toss that may not pass in the night, there would be a long chain of lights from the fishing fleet, and the boats would come in in the morning laden with herring and cod and sprats," and the folk would have food for a breakfast for. a penny, for the fishermen would be back from their minesweeping, the job that, like Tishing, is no sooner done than is begun all over again. If there were peace the streets would be ununiformed; the blue-clad hospital boys, bandaged and limping, would bring the tears to our eyes no more; no more would the bugles and bagpipes waken us from short sleep, and the tramping of soldiers' feet shake the village streets, nor the rumble of ammunition waggons disturb the night. In the fields where the camps are the boys would play football. The girls would discard their nurses', veils and uniforms and pretty frocks. We could light up 01. streets and houses at night once more, and the "stately homes of "England " would draw up their blinds. They would be hospitals no more, but homes. And our men would be back sitting bv the cottage fires, working in the gardens and the fields, in the offices and banks, some maimed—but home. And little children would know the meaning of "father" if there were peace. But if we snatch that jjeace before it is won we place upon our children's lives and the .lives of their children the burden and the sorrow that is ours. Yet the whole nation prays honourablv, "Give peace in our time, O Lord." But it is a peace that must be fought for. Canada in London is facing the crisis determinedly. The first votes in the Canadian general elections were taken in the hospitals on Saturday, and it is believed that every man was for Borden and the war. The soldiers all over the country are most enthusiastic and confident that

their countrymen will not desert them and make the dying of their comrades in vain. The result will be known long before this reaches you, but at the moment of writing it is one of the absorbing topics of the day, and not here only, but in Germany also. The first cold: snan of the winter is here with icy north-east gales, and in soma parts of the country hail and snow. We hope sincerely that this winter will spare us the severity of last, for all our energies and hopes are needed for the one great' issuo on which the happiness of our future depends. We have one compensation for the icy gales—there is respite from air raids.