A VAST UNDERTAKING. Y.M.C.A. WAR WORK.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7917, 11 August 1917, Page 4

A VAST UNDERTAKING. Y.M.C.A. WAR WORK.

HOW A GREAT CALL HAS BEEN MET. When the time comes to look back dispassionately on the Great War it may be said with certainty that the Young Men’s Christian Association will rank high among the organisations that rose to the height of the occasion and splendidly met the demands created by this vast upheaval. Early in the first week of the war a young New Zealander seeking accommodation at the world’s headquarters of the Association at Tottenham Court road, London, was surprised to be stopped at the doors by an armed military guard. They were informing all-comers that no admission was possible, as the building had been handed over to the military authorities for use as a barracks. That policy of serving the army thus entered upon at the very earliest moment has been steadily pursued, in face of the enormously expanding task involved, from that day to this. In those early days there were some who questioned the wisdom of a religious association entering so whole-heartedly upon war work, but that criticism is long since dead. The plain facts of the case have killed it.

Three years ago there was no Y.M.C.A. war work. To-day the Association is busy in over 1600 centres of military activity in all parts of the Empire. It has a staff of some 26,000 workers, 23,000 of whom are women. The great majority of them are employed in a voluntary capacity, and as many as 300 have actually found their way over to the huts in France. Wherever soldiers or sailors or munition workers of any description are, there the Y.M.C.A. has its own special sphere of usefulness and there its well-equipped agencies will be found. England is now an armed camp, and the Association has a thousand centres to enable it to keep in touch with all the men on service. The New Zealanders at Home get their full share of the assistance that the Y.M.C.A. has to offer. At the Sling Infantry training camp, at the Convalescent Homes at Codford and Hornchurch, at the Walton-on-Thames and Brockenhurst hospitals, they all have their own New Zealand Y.M.C.A. service. In the composite camps like Christchurch where the engineers are trained, Grantham where the machinegunners are, and among the signallers at Hitchen and the artillerymen at Chadderton, the New Zealanders are, looked after along with the rest by the British Y.M.C.A.

It will please New Zealanders to know that Mr Varney, the Association’s supervising secretary who has just returned from an extended visit to England and France, speaks of the hut for our men at Sling as probably the finest and largest and best of all the seventy Association huts on Salisbury Plain. It is large enough to serve effectively the whole of the 5000 New Zealanders in camp there. Its concert hall will seat over 1000. In addition there are officers’ rooms, a quiet room, reading and writing room, chaplain’s room, games room with billiard and ping-pong tables, and a canteen. In the writing room 13,000 sheets of paper and 5000 envelopes are used every week; and in one night as much as £l3 worth of stamps have been sold. It is practically under the control of Mrs Mylrea, whose devotion to the cause of the New Zealanders is unique. She is the widow of the late Colonel Mylrea, who gave his life for the Empire at Ypres.

In London the Association has at least 25 centres at which 5000 men can be accommodated each night. In six months 287,000 soldiers availed themselves of this provision. The Y.M.C.A. London motor car patrols in the month of February last picked up 10,849 men from stations and on the streets and conveyed them to one or other of the “ huts. ” Two hundred and sixty-seven motor cars.are used in this service, and during the night hours over 10,000 more or less stranded men have been picked up in one month and taken to decent shelter and lodging. Street patrols on foot, on the look-out to help men in any sort of difficulties, radiate from a small Association kiosk erected in Trafalgar Square right under the Nelson Monument. What the Association does for the soldiers it is equally anxious to do for the sailors. At every naval base it has its Institute adapted to the special needs of the men. The largest and best known of these is at H.M.S. Crystal Palace, which is now a huge naval training camp for boys. During the month of July there last year, the Y.M.C.A. canteen took over .the counter 468,000 coppers, weighing four tons seven cwt. There are-2000 depositors in the Association’s savings bank. The boys post 4000 letters a day through its office, and the amount of drinks, fruit and cakes consumed is eloquent of the lads’ appreciation. Similar institutes on a smaller scale are at work at every naval base. Admiral Beatty is most interested in the Association, and Lady Beatty is one of its best friends and helpers.

To help the munition workers the Association has considered that the best work it can do is in organising canteens and providing abundance of cheap hot meals. At Woolwich Arsenal, for instance, the Association’s activities are in charge of Lady Henry. Grosvenor, who has a staff of no less than 6000 voluntary lady workers assisting her. One of the canteens accommodates 2500 girls. The canteens are open day and night and provide 20,000 meals daily to the different shifts. In the arsenal grounds the Asociation has hostels with sleeping accommodation for about 1000 girls, and a boys’ hostel with accommodation for 200. These buildings are put up by the Government Welfare Commissioners, and handed over to the Y.M.C.A. to control. The Association’s work in France is admirably organised under Mr Oliver McCowen, who has associated with him in one of the army areas Mr Harry Holmes, late of Wellington. Four hundred and twenty-eight Y.M.C.A. branches have been established in France and Flanders for work with the troops. Some of the agencies are housed in cellars and ruined houses, and some of the(m, even nearer to the firing line are in dug-outs actually under shell fire. One is only 50 yards from the German lines. On the lines of communication the Association has practically 200

centres, extending from Marseilles to Dunkirk, started by 800 workers, of whom 300 are women. At a moderate estimate these huts in France have one million visits paid to them by the men every day. As many as 27,000 penny tickets have been sold in one hut in a day. There are five permanent concert parties and three touring parties arranged by Miss Lena Ashwell, and the Association finances both these and a'series of University Extension Lectures by distinguished university men. The Association has also between 30 and 40 cinemas constantly going for the amusement and entertainment of the men.

One of the most interesting and valuable branches of the Association 'a activities in France is the bringing over from England of the relatives of dangerously wounded men. It has some 250 of these relatives as its guests every week, people who are ■ permitted by the War Office to come when it is considered that a visit will help to rally the injured men. There are Association hostels for these visitors at Boulogne, Camieres, Le Touquet, Abbeville, Tresport, Rouen and Havre, and at Calais, Dieppe and Paris the Association accommodates them at hotels. About £IO,OOO per annum is spent on this work. The “Snapshots from Home” League which is elaborately organised to enable men to obtain up-to-date photos of their loved ones has sent 650,000 photographs from the Old Country to France. In all countries where prisoners of war are to be found there the Y.M.C.A. has its establishments for their welfare. American Associations have taken a large part in this particular work, in Switzerland, for instance, where permanently unfit men from German prison camps are recuperating. In southern Italy where the British fleet has bases, on the islands of the Eastern Mediterranean, at Salonika,, in Palestine, in Egypt right down to Khartoum, in Mesopotamia, India and British East Africa —in short in every part of the world where soldiers are gathered the Association is to be found seeking to meet the needs of the men and to alleviate, f it may be, the hardships of their lot.

Testimony to the Catholicity of the spirit of the work might be quoted from scores of different quarters. Here is a tribute paid by the Rev. Father Bampton in a recent address at Farm street Roman Catholic Church, London:—‘ * The work of the Y.M.C.A. is a noble work. We should be bigoted and narrow-minded indeed did we hesitate to acknowledge it. All honor to those who are carrying it on. The war has revealed the Y.M.C.A. as a great social force, and none of us, however much we may differ from its religious creed, need be ashamed to learn from its spirit of Christian charity and from its social methods” One item of Y.M.C.A. expenditure indicates the extent to which its service is used by “our boys.” Stationery supplied free to the boys at the front costs £IOSO a week, and since the war commenced over four million sheets of notepaper and envelopes have been used. Recent figures of the British National Council's finances — which, of course, represent only a part of the Association's world-wide work —since the beginning of the war, make astonishing reading, and in themselves an eloquent story. The British Council’s receipts total no less a sum than £3,648,630, of which over £2,631,000 has come in through the sale of refreshments. Over a million gifts of money account for £932,000 of the total, to which Government grants contribute £20,000. The one thing more astonishing than the way the money comes in, says the Y.M.C.A. authorities, is the readiness with which it goes out. -Their total expenditure for the same period amounts to £3,644,431, giving a credit balance of some £4OOO on a turnover of over three and a-lialf millions, so that the Association cannot at least be charged with hoarding its funds. Refreshments for sale cost £2,100,000, the erection of hutments £700,000, salaries, board and allowances £304,000, and carriages and transport £57,000. On printing and publicity the Association spent £1,350,000, and its motor cars, vans and lorries, with running expenses, cost £54,000. An interesting item is the £15,000 spent in providing highclass concerts and lectures for the men. Figures are generally accused of being dry, but could anything else give such a clear idea of the vastness of the service that the Young Men’s Christian Association is successfully rendering to our fighting men?

Over two years ago King George and Queen Mary banished alcoholic liquors from their table. Now, there are five potatoless days and one meatless day at Windsor Castle, where their Majesties are now. in residence. All members of the Royal Family, of the Royal household, and the Royal servants have the same rule in force. Not even their Majesties’ guests are supplied with alcohol. War or standard bread is eaten, and to prevent waste no toast is placed on the Royal table. Much porridge is eaten, and bloaters are included in the Royal household dishes. Princess Mary has Windsor gardens, which she herself is digging and preparing for potatoes.