“ALIEN’S” LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3488, 18 January 1921, Page 49

“ALIEN’S” LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

(Specially Written for the Ladies’ Page.? REMEMBRANCE. November 16. Last Thursday it seemed that all lingland was in London for the honouring of the unknown warrior, but all the kingdom appears to have gone clown Whitehall during the days since then. It has been an ever-moving stream—an amazing army of mourners to the cenotaph and the open grave of the unknown soldier in the Abbey. Britain, the Empire, has not forgotten. It seems that everyone of the names in the long “honours” lists that we read from day to day through weary years has someone still to mourn his memory, and pay the tribute of honour to our glorious dead at the cenotaph. Ten thousand pounds’ worth of flowers have been laid there, chiefly chrysanthemums, flowers of autumn ; but there are roses and violets and jonquils from summer climes. They are nearly all simple bunches now. We could not grasp the nations’s full mourning till we "saw that

endless stream of women carrying flowers J of remembrance. They have come from j all the provinces, many making sacrifice j for the journey. Thousands of the middle classes begged a seat in a better-off friend’s motor car, and it so happened that thousands were going up to the motor show itself; but, whatever the pleasure or business or compulsion that took the people up to London last week, the journey took them to the “street of silence” (as Whitehall has been called) and ended at the Abbey. The British people do not parade their emotions, and it has been a most wonderful thing to see this display of feeling. It is on rare occasions that the British crowd emerge from the reserve of their characteristic self-control; only some universal strong feeling of anger or love, admiration or hope will do it. I have never seen a British crowd under panic of fear ; not even in the terror of air raids were the British crowds other than grave and dignified. But when they are not ashamed to show emotion is when feeling is allied to honour, and there is as much of pride as sorrow in this remembrance. The city clerks and workgirls have come early before they went to their offices or shops, unobtrusively laying their offerings down and making room for others. An examination of the inscriptions tel! touching stories: “To My Boy, from his girl” ; “To Mv Sons” (and two, three, four, and five names will follow) ; “To Dad, from Mumsie” ; “To My Only Son, from Mother” ; “To My Brothers” (and a list of names,) “from their Sister.” Little children lay posies down “for Daddy,” whom they have never seen. There comes a woman veiled, in mourning, who kneels and crosses herself, and leaves a wreath of violets : “In Remembrance.” An old countryman and his wife come slowly up. arid wipe their eyes as they leave their offering : “For the boys, from their garden, with father and mother’s love.” A lonely woman, with white hair under a black bonnet, in shabby attire, came up with weary step and face, stooped down and with her work-stained hand laid down a lily : “To my only son.” Immaculately-dressed men and women drove up in taxis or motor cars and left wreaths of gorgeous roses, write and red. All day long from early morning till late at night, all day Friday and Saturday, they came to honour the Empire’s fallen sons. The new rich and the aristocratic poor; writers, preachers, musicians, actors, artists of the brush and limelight; soldiers on crutches, officers, ex-service men in shoes down at the heel; women with the paint washed from their pale faces; profiteers, politicians, padres. With every hour the character of the bereaved changed. The leisured came in the hours when the workers worked ; the workers before their offices, workrooms, shops, and factories opened; and one watcher tells of those in evening dress and opera hat who came when the theatres closed, and whose motor cars and taxi cabs were left in Trafalgar square, for no vehicular traffic was allowed to pass through the silent street. Only these ceaseless footsteps broke the silence. And still at midnight on Saturday the footsteps passed. Everyone who came brought flowers. Among the last was a tired flower-seller, who had saved her last bunch for “her boy.” In the Abbey women had come from the remotest parts of Britain, and outnumbered men by five to one. The rain fell all the day on .Saturday—drip, drip, drip. —and outside London was under a pall. Yet it did not deter the pilgrimage to the cenotaph (in Greek its meaning is the empty tomb or grave). In the Abbey no sunlight, as two days before, touched lovingly the ancient monuments, but high up the lamps hung like glowing stars under the forest-like arches amid the gloom, and cast gleams of light along the aisles grev in the twilight of the autumn day. With whispered voices in many accents, in the brooding silence of the great Abbey, women came to pray at the foot of their cross —the grave of a son : perchance their son, or maybe yours. The scene was beautiful, poetical, and spiritual for it is true that sorrow binds us with an invisible cord to one another and to God. What we have lost is His—is ours in Him ; we reach for it. And in that burial of an unknown soldier all mothers of buried unknown sons clasp hands in sympathy and hope—he might be hers or theirs. Where Britain’s famous dead lies buried lies also any mother’s missing son. Reverent and silent, the endless procession files past the nameless grave, honouring the lonely graves of ocean, of Gallipoli, of “No Man’s Land,” of the

mud of Flanders. Women came from the ends of Britain to pray for the soul of a son—perchance at his grave. The fear of death has gone. If the world has gained nothing else by the war, is not that gain? All along the dim aisles of the Abbey are ancient tombs, monuments, and eftigis, telling of the fear of death, propitiating the Great Terror. The tombs of kings and warriors are guarded by angels. Supplecation is the note of prayer. But when we come to the modern tombs, Handel points to a scroll on which his faith is writen in music—“l know that my Redeemer liveth,”—and the statesmen and poets of our century stand erect and smile, their script in their hand, as those who say, “As a man thinketli so is he.” The

spiritual history of England is written in the tombs of Westminster Abbey for those who can read the story in stone. From the dread fear of death, the soul of man has grown in the consciousness of “Our Father.” All day on Sunday, as on Saturday, in the rain, the wonderful stream of people passed the cenotaph. It. is estimated that 550,000 men, women, and children have visited the shrine in Whitehall and the grave in Westminster Abbey A 5 o’clock on Sunday morning, while it was yet dark, people had formed up in a queue outside Westminster Abbey, and before the doors were open 60.000 people

stretched far away through Westminster side streets waiting patiently for their turn to visit the sacred spot. At 10.15, when Holy Communion was celebrated in the Abbey, there was a vast congrega-

tion, and not a vacant seat. The congregation was deeply impressed, and many communicated. The sacrament had a new

meaning to many there—an act of sacred remembrance for sacrifice Divine. The beautiful service became a remembrance

of the dead. Round the grave at the four comers of the enclosure stood sentinels with bowed heads and reversed arms, and four tall candles burned in high candlesticks, their light falling softly on the King’s wreath and the flowers which pilgrims leave beside the grave. At the head, on the Union Jack, lay three medals with their ribbons—the Victory Medal, the 1914 Star, and the British War Medal. They had been left by an officer whose name was inscribed on the back of them — the tokens of his honour for the soldiers who lie unknown, and who have come home now in spirit. And that is why the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims come from all parts of the kingdom to leave their flower—tokens of love and remembrance—at the cenotaph. It is an empty tomb—but the spirit grave of all those who died in the war. The great pile of flowers at the base of the cenotaph is like a hillside of snow, with the drifts still forming. An Indian has made the following suggestion in the Daily Mail:—“The heaps of flowers sacrificed to the memory of the dead, as illustrated in photographs in the Daily Mail, suggest to me that these sacrificed flowers should be sent to the market so that the public could have them as sacred things from the cenotaph, just as in our country (India) we have the sacred flowers (‘ puishpaprasad ’ in Hindustani) from a holy temple. The money paid for these sacred flowers could be given to some charitable institutions, such as the hospitals for wounded soldiers. I hope you will approve this idea and suggest to the authorities that these beautiful and sacred flowers shall not be allowed to be wasted and thrown in the dust.—L. B. S. (a Gurkha).” In some of the country churches, instead of sermons, the vicars read descriptions of the home-coming of the unknown warrior, to bring those unable to be present into touch with the spirit of the ceremony. We have gained something from the war. We have. Despite the loss and pain, despite the greed and brutality and disappointment, there is a spiritual perception and sensitiveness as never before, which, given the right call and direction, could rise to unity and enthusiasm and become a mighty force in the world, and pain end in understanding and achievement instead of bitterness. The week, with the exception of the sacred ceremonial of Armistice Day, had no public demonstrations connected with peace, and comparatively few private rejoicings. The mad frolic of two years ago was nowhere repeated. The greatest motor show ever held in London occupied several days at the Olympia, and here, as elsewhere, during the "“Great Silence” all operations were suspended and the crowd stood still. One feature of the motor show particularly interesting to women was the new small two-seater car, priced £IOO, which can easily be driven by women. This car is expected to very "greatly take the place of the motor cycle with side seat. It is quite a Darby and Joan affair, and the price puts it within the reach of many whose means will not stretch to the running of one of the luxurious large cars. It is an ideal little car for the weekender and his wife, or for a runabout after business hours, and many couples who had thought themselves ideally provided for by the sidecar, are coveting this small new motor car. They are among motor cars what the governess’s cart is among carriages, aud make their possessors perfectly independent on the road, without the imputation of having become “newly rich” unduly. You have probably read of the desperate plight of the London hospitals, among other centuries-old public charitable institutions. The trouble is that the majority of those who now possess the money have not inherited, as did the former rich, the tradition of charitv as a duty attached to wealth ; also that the stated yearly contributions of old subscribers to the funds do not mean half their former value—scarcely more than a third, for the expenses of upkeep have doubled and trebled since the war. And this winter is going to be the most difficult within remembrance, with hundreds of thousands of men and women out of employment. Steps are to be taken by the Food Controller to standardise the price of bread, which varies in different places. In some places the price of a quarten loaf is Is sd, in others Is 4d, and in others Is 2d, causing great discontent. Referring to the decline in wheat prices in the" United States and Canada and the demand for cheaper bread, Mr Herbert Syrett, secretary of the Consumers’ Council, stated: “There, is no justification for the present high price of bread. Our trouble all along has been the difficulty of getting the Wheat Commission, to supply us with reliable information. This Obey will not do. Their latest reply is to ' the effect that, if wheat prices continue to fall, the British consumer will feel the benefit of cheaper bread next year.” Next year many of the now hungry will be dead. Iho utmost pressure should be put upon, the Government to release their wheat stock at once. It is reported that many important footstuffs are being reduced wholesale, but at present the retail purchasers do not appear to benefit. Tinned fruits, rice, corn flour, beans, and syrup are among the reduced articles, and a hope is held out that white granulated sugar, which is now Is 2d per lb, will in the New Year be reduced to Bd. That is, when the Christmas demand is over! The wholesale prices of beef and mutton have been reduced—the imported meat—from per lb to 3d, and tame rabbits 2d and 3d per lb. Last week they were Is 8d per lb—weighing their fur, which brought a rabbit up to 7s 6d tT> 10s. Danish bacon has advanced in price to 3s 8d and more per lb, and British Bacon is still 3s 6d. The price is being kept up to force the people to buy the wretched American bacon with which the market is overstocked, and rank and bitter with “curing” ; people won’t eat it, and prefer to go without. Trade is at a standstill, says the wholesale merchants. The cheap clothing reported from various cities is, of course, of the “slop-

made” stock size variety, and the boots of the roughest; but tiie reductions will benefit “the working classes.” There are thousands of the middle classes who positively do not buy clothes; pre-war garments are being worn threadbare, and instead of fancy work, it is the family stockings that occupy busy hands, many varieties of “darning” having been used upon some of them.

The latest economy is laundering by weight. The Fulham Borough Council has given a shock to the higli-priced laun derers by announcing that the corporation washhouse will wash bags of clothes weighing 281 b for Is 9d. The bags lor the wash can be supplied at the washhouse for 2s. The bags are filled with clothes and “rough-dried” washed —that is, they go through a process of washing, boiling, rinsing, and drying (by machinery) without being taken out of the bags. They are then ironed at home. This

will relieve many persons of the worst part of the drudgery; quite a number of sheets, towels, table-cloths, pillow-cases, etc:., go to the bag. Laundry bills have been a fearful item to those who for various reasons cannot do the wash at home—as many women now do who never had washed in their lives before these hard times set in. If the Is 9d bags of laundering became general all over the country they would boom.

The problem of unemployment is one of the gravest questions of the hour. Not only does it mean less spending power for the whole country, but its non-solu-tion is fraught with great danger and great suffering. The degradation, priva tion, and bitterness of a man deprived of his means of livelihood is not conducive to goodwill and good-fellowship. Instead of the better times that were expected with the Armistice the war disorganisation of trade is only now beginning to be felt. The false security of the trade boom lias passed; the everincreasing cost of living and the flagrant profiteering is leading to revolt, not revolution.

The strikes, the high cost of material, the high wages, the restrictions of the unions, the curtailed working hours, the taxes, have checked industry. The em ployers in many instances are too hampered to carry on, and are closing down before inevitable ruin overtakes them. Business has lost the zest that the emulation of competition gave. The present hour is dark. Lord Rothermere, the founder of “The Sunday Pictorial,” asking how we stand after two years of peace, says that one result of the war has been to make smoother the rough path of social and economic adjustments. Most people do not think so now, but the future historian may perceive that the terrific experiences through which we have passed are making it easier to effect change without violence.

We have seen that the nation is too sagacious to enter upon a period of suicidal destruction. . . . The war is thought to have stimulated violent measures, but I am inclined to think t lias really engendered caution. The prostrate nations around us have been a very visible warning. The men whose valour won the war are not going to see then country wrecked. They died in order that a war like this should never happen again. The women gave them that i o should never happen again. And as they turned lonely from the Cenotaph and the grave of the unknown soldier you saw It in their faces that when they have the power war will never happen again. Thei suffering will not remain fruitless. Under that patient suffering is a revolt of womanhood and revolt of motherhood against the man power that can rob them of their sons. The women will not forget.