“ALIEN’S” LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3584, 21 November 1922, Page 55

“ALIEN’S” LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

(Specially Written for the Ladies’ Pago.) WOMEN’S WAR 1- KARS. September 26. If every woman in the Empire refused could there ever be a British war again? The last war was won as much by the women as by ■ the men, and if they had had as much to do with the peace it would have been established long ago. As women have so much at stake in war, it is time that they had a voice in its making, or, rather, -against its making, and refused their husbands, their brothers, their lovers, and their sons. In the Great War—for which women are still mourning—the woman took a mightier part than is remembered, not only by the service rendered in taking men’s places where they left them vacant, by '‘manning” the munition factories, by taking the drivers’ seats right no to the firing limy, by a million offices apart from nursing and the ministrations in her aeknowleged sphere; and not only did she keep tile Empire home fires burning, but they kept the fires of enthusiasm and patriotism and faith burning in the heart of the nation's manhood, for they believed in the justice of the cause for which their men were fighting, and despised the coward who would not go. They taught their sons to honour their soldier father who had sacrificed for the honour of the Empire, and the solace of their own suffering was their faith that the battle was the battle of Right against Wrong, inevitable, inexorable, terrible; hut just—-a. mighty conflict that was to destroy evil and bring upon the earth a reign of peace. V\ it ;i sucli high motives was the nation s heart uplifted, and the “long, long way to Tinperay' ! was lightened with song, and the footsore, limping, vet went on. sure of conciucst. because they had already triumphed at heart. But )k for,- the nation can repeat this heroism it must be assured (hat its cause is not only just-, but that war is inevitable, that every other way lias been tried and rejected, even sacrifice,

] save ’the sacrifice of national honour. But not only the Government but many • other people (among them women) regard i too lightly the menace of war; but tliese are chiefly they whose experiences of the i last war were at a distance from the j trenches or a war orison, whose children i slept in safety from the murderers of the i air, and to whom the sea had no deadlier i peril than Nature’s storms. There are • a number of men, too young to join i the rank,, before the signing of the armis- | lice, who were fed from theiTinflammable j boyhood for eight years on the wav spirit, | who would now leap after the lead to any ! adventure. Another section, embittered ! and disappointed by the falsities of the | peace, its tragedy and hardships and tinj sel trappings, would t grasp at a wav out, | oven by "honourable death.” But a | nobler few, undaunted by the past suffer- | ing, arc- ready and willing to endure i again, if so be there is need, again to j “do and die" for country's sake. But are j these misled? Is war again inevitable? | Is it not rather, says Mr Lovet- Eraser, I that "the effort to ' fake' a new war j can have no other meaning than that it is : a reckless attempt to cover. up and dis--1 guise the disastrous failure of toe. Govcrn- ! merit's policy of inciting the Greeks to j make war in Asia Minor ? I Net only the war profiteers welcome ! the terrible possibility of another war —- j Judases who sell their Ideal for gold I I but shallow girls and women, to whom

j excitement and lack of self-restraint | means life, who dance on the graves that ; others dig and others fill. While still out- ex-soldiers are begging on the kerb j and crowds of workers (men and women) ! fill our prisons and hospitals and streets, ; tlie Government asks tha voting and hale j and hopeful manhood of our Empire !to make the c-ase of the (.recks i our own, and plunge by that inI defensible 'partisanship a patient, loyal Empire into fresh horror and need j and grief. Uur Debt is at present more i than £8,000,000,000. our orphanages and asylums are crowded to the doors : himj deeds of thousands of men and women and children exist by the nation s charity ! alone.. What honourable right have we , to enter another war? We are pledged to i peace : taxed to breaking pt-int, disilhtj siotied, too weary with our burden to find i fresh enthusiasm for war. Our honour is j not at stake—only out- polities. But, once enter this alien brawl, who knows, who can prophesy, when and where arm hoc. it will end?

The sympathies of the women of this country have been artfully, en.isted, or, rather," an attempt to enlist them has been made, by a parading of the atrocities of the Turks, while toe atrocities of-the Greeks were kept in the background until authentic accounts came to hand, w tiic.t prove that the Greeks have been equally barbarcus. Rut in spite of the dust thrown into the nation's eves, it is not blind enough to follow without question its blind leaders into the diten. to what would mean the destruction of this country. Our''business at this hour is not “to teach the Turk a lesson, hut to teach the country that only economy and thrift and steady work can pull it into industrial prosperity, and that its faith is only held in its Government bv the truth and integrity of its leaders. Ihe country could find ample scope for its genius in the production of the ‘new heaven and new earth, ' which was promised as a reward for the last war. or bv the distribution of the “rare and refreshing” fruit which was dangled before a thirsty nation, without teaching anything else to any other- country, or incurring fresh responsibilities and creating new problems. - The departure of the Grenadier Guards for the Near East occasioned another of those pathetic scenes of farewell . " ith which we women became so tragical v familiar -during the Great, War Men of the R.M.A. and R.M.L.I. lc-ft Sou-h------anipton on the Kingans . astle on baturalgo for the Near East, wives and mothers and sweethearts watching the departure of the troopship disconsolately From the quay. We have had enough of that sort of heroism to last one lifetime : too much for some ever ti kmm the .ibg- f k ! ; SlSIw watches ever to patiently bear turn again. But for the ideal that strengthened our hands and lit our hearts -e shouldl hate filtered in darkness then. this tune we are angrv. Let us have no part or lot with an "unnecessary war. But fm the , cation Of the major,tv the world would again be drenched m blood. - Mr Lloyd George hastened kick to town at the week-end and callet ■> ’ n <<■ in..- of journalists at Downing Any and addressed them m i' sst \ h^ atl °' . '.. t |j u . Government's yvarhke l ,^ 1 1 ' ca< . < e was the same tune insisted that r Government’s purpose, despite the ha, he has gone to secure «. In lus statement By the press the hr,me Mimstor &nd taken during the last few da vs had nothing to do with tne merits or demerits of, the dispute between the Greeks and the lurks. Our action was dictated by two supreme considerations. The first was our anxittv us to the freedom of the seas between the Mediterranean and the Black Eta. The second object in making the present preparations was to prevent war spread in«- into Europe. '“X am not going to apportion blame between the Greeks and Turks. The tune has not come for that. simp!-- deal with the fact that one of the greatest commercial cities in tne world has been practically destroyed, and that there have been massacres which in their horror are almost without i xample in that area. "If an army, which could not he restrained by its chiefs from perpetrating those outrages, were permitted to cross into Europe to occupy 4 nstantiuople, where you have got a population of hundreds of thousands of Armenians and Greeks and many thousands of European nations, we have every reason to fear that

there might be a repetition of those terrible incidents. “If it spread into Thrace, where there is so much inflammable material, where you have the rivalries of the Turk and Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian, there is no knowing what might not happen “We ha\ e therefore taken steps to strengthen our position in the Dardanelles and in the Bosphorus with a view to achieving the two objects which 1 have indicated. “I hear it suggested that we are provoking a conflict by staying at Chanak. It is essential in the opinion of our military advisers to hold Chanak in order to secure the freedom of the Straits for unarmed vessels. “Armoured ships could pass and repass whatever happened to Chanak, but peaceable merchantmen could not pass. “We do not wish to hold Gallipoli or Chanak in the interests of Britain alone. We do not claim that Britain alone should have the sole responsibility. “On the contrary, we believe that these important shores should he under the auspices of the League oL Nations in the interests of all nations aHfce. “The fight we are putting lip at the present moment is a fight to insure that whatever happens at tire I’eace Conference we shall not abandon the policy of secur ing the frwdom of the Straits. “Tlie security must be of a very reliable and effective character. “Peace is our purpose. We regard war as a calamity, and it is because we re-

gard it as a calamity that we are taking the most effective means of averting it.” The war scare dropped like a bomb into London Society, and visitors from overseas—except those from the fighting centres—emulated the swallows. The White Star liner Majestic arrived on Thursday last and is now lying in Southampton Docks due to sail again for New York this coming Wednesday. To tit her for the voyage again in so short a time as five days means a rush, and to make the refitting possible wireless messages were dispatched by the ship’s commander giving the exact time of her arrival, and after leaving Cherbourg trunks were brought out .of the luggage, loom and stacked in piles ready for prompt landing. Six tugs were waiting at the dock entrance, and in half an hour from arrival the great ship was fast at the 0 uav, and almost immediately the bag'age began to slide down the chute. The mails and cargos were quickly landed : the stewards despatched something between 1000 and 2COO pieces of linen to the White Star Laundry, which within a few days will be returned to the ship cleaned and le-provisioned, and midday on Wednesday off she goes again. And within a few flays the Olympic ami Homeric will go through the same routine For at the close of the London season Americans want to “get back home,’’ and although the war scare may not have hurried their departure, it is certainly not conducive to delay.

In other directions shipping activities are war preparations. Reinforcements for the British troops holding Chanak are leaving almost daily. One hundred officers and men of the Marines, including the 11th Battalion of the R.M.A. —the corps which mans the biggest guns—followed the Grenadier Guards, who left Glasgow on the Canadian Pacific liner Empress of India for Constantinople, and the Coldstream Guards are under orders at Aldersnot to depart this week ; also a company of Royal Engineers embark to-day. In the event of hostilities Malta will, as from 1915 to 1918 again become the hospital base, and the preparations of hospitals is proceeding, the St. John Ambulance Association working in conjunction with the military medical service. The ghastly suggestion of it all! with the frontiers once more echoing the tramp of marching feet.