Part 16
It is time this matter was handled boldly, with “gloves off,” as Queen Elizabeth would have handled it. She would have sent all Germans out of the country at the very declaration of war, and so would have saved an infinite number of treasons against the State. Late in the day as it is, why not send them now? Send them all, in comfort and luxury if you will, with “rations” of first-class food, on British ships flying the British flag, and let them take their chance of the kindness and humanity of their own countrymen. They will be useful additions to the “national service” of their Vaterland--we do not want them here. Our own men and women will suffice us for our own labor, and work will be done more readily, while money will flow in more plentifully, when we are sure that our own land is purged of the Hun, and that we are not, like fools, paying to keep and feed plotters against the peace of the realm.
FOOD PRODUCTION
A PLEA FOR COMMON SENSE
(_Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”_)
Talk of “National Service!” Where is the man, woman, or child that refuses to do any really necessary or useful work for the country? Such cannot be found! There is an eager and splendid willingness in every one to give his or her best; but without proper organisation the fine forces of this fine, patient, and enduring people are scattered and disunited. From all that the bewildered mind can gather through the roaring megaphone of an apparently semi-crazed and ruinously expensive system of advertisement, the National Service most demanded is “food production.” So says Mr. Prothero. Very well. Then why not set about it in an orderly practical manner, without screaming our shortcomings aloud for the amusement of the Germans? There is no difficulty whatever in sufficient food production if some sort of method be brought into the present chaos. Take this for an example:--
With the help of an old soldier with a wooden leg and an old man of seventy, a pig farmer and market gardener was able to put on the market in six months £1487 worth of pork and £174 of garden produce.
In the next three months he anticipates an addition to his stock of about 240 pigs from his twenty-five breeding sows.
Already he has 211 pigs on the place, apart from the breeding animals.
What can be done in one place can be done in another, and if every rural town and village were encouraged to work its own allotments, if every cottager were persuaded to grow his or her own garden produce, and keep pigs and poultry, half the food problem would be solved. Why not organise such a plan and concentrate scattered forces? It would be a mistake to confide the management of such a scheme to “local” magnates, whether mayors or members of corporations, for those who have any experience of such “bodies” know well enough what hindrances they are in the way of active progress, having always their own axes to grind. But an impartial, unprejudiced, friendly director of each agricultural centre, a man or woman of helpful, sympathetic and practical knowledge, who would encourage the workers and spare them any of that “superior” tone of insolence so hurtfully employed by some of the temporary jacks-in-office on our military tribunals, could very easily energise the whole business. Suppose, too, that instead of a daily patter about potatoes and “shortage,” the Government were to offer prizes from ten to a hundred pounds for the cottagers and holders of allotments who, in six months, should produce most food for their own families and neighbours, would it not cost less money than the printing of millions of “food tickets”? Certainly, it would hearten, not dishearten, the workers, and give them an extra zest for “production.”
Moreover, it is high time our rulers and Ministers left off talking about “shortage of food” altogether, if the following is true:--
A statement made in the House of Commons recently emphasises the fact that German agents are still active in this country. In refusing to supply a member with certain information about the supply of aeroplanes, he said: “Any answer we give in this House is at once sent to Germany.”
Printed or written information can always be stopped by the censor. The question remains: How is the information conveyed?
How, indeed? Why should we give the Huns the satisfaction of supposing we need food? Or allowing them to think their U-boats are “blockading” us into famine? Let the public keep its “weather eye” open, and consider recent events in Russia! There, part of the German scheme was “to create an artificial scarcity of food, so as to precipitate food riots and compel a separate peace.”
Beware of the dog! How about Great Britain? Who can swear that the same “influence” is not at work here, “to create an artificial scarcity of food”? And if it should be so, why do our politicians fall sheer into the trap and spread the mischief which the foe may have started? Food was poured into Petrograd as soon as the German “unseen hand” was cut off. It is a significant fact worth remembering!
* * * * *
Again, let it be emphasised that there is no difficulty about food production in these islands if the work be properly organised. Food is not grown on emotional impulse, such as that displayed by a charming lady I lately met, who told me with sweet resignation: “I will not have flowers in my window boxes this summer. I shall plant potatoes in them instead!” Dear soul! She evidently thought it worth while! Just as some folks think it worth while to dig up and disfigure the parks of London with potato growing when there is any amount of waste land around which needs cultivation! One deplores “the falsehood of extremes.”
* * * * *
If we are to accept Mr. Prothero’s statement, the most important line of “national service” is this food production. Then, let him take action and not listen to hearsay or report. Let him see for himself the thousands of acres in this country waiting to be cultivated and to produce richly and royally all that is needed for the population. Let there be common sense organisation in each district--not “compulsion”; the people are too cheerfully brave and willing to be “compelled.” But no one cares to work in the dark without a plan, and without any encouragement. They are told to “produce food,” but are denied labour to produce it. The capable field-worker is taken, and inefficient substitutes sent instead--men who do not know how to plant a root or sow a seed, with the obvious result that plants and seeds represent so much money thrown away. But, once more to emphasise the need of common sense, let us hold fast the fact that no lack of food is possible to this country if things are properly organised. And as we see by report that, despite U-boats, ships laden with useful cargoes are constantly arriving in our ports, let us not forget the possibility of “the creation of that artificial scarcity” which stirred the blood and roused the devil in Russia!
OUR FORTUNATE “RESTRICTIONS”
(_Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”_)
The Germans are reported to be in ecstasy over what they call the “despairing appeal” of the Prime Minister’s great “restrictions” speech. But, however great their “ecstasy” may be, it can hardly equal ours! For we have sufficient sense to see what hope and strength for our Empire springs, like a bright rainbow, from what the Boche obtusely imagines is a cloud. Our “lead” is towards increasing prosperity and happiness for all. We are invited to look forward to a self-supporting country; we are given fresh chances of barring the ungrateful Teuton from our trades by showing him that we can do all our own work ourselves. We are promised another “Merrie England” of the spacious days of yore, when foreign supplies were rare and costly, and when all the fields were thick with golden grain and all the orchards glowed with many-coloured fruits and the agricultural population were given the chance to reap what they had sown.
* * * * *
Now, in our lovely rural villages we may perhaps hope to see the last of many frowsy, idle sluts who for years have preferred to gossip away their time rather than do any useful work; and in their stead we may look for healthy, active girls and women who are proud of their dairies and poultry farms, and glad to show interested customers the great bowls of milk, the churning of butter, the making of cheese, and all the endless charms of “country” work well done. If the submarine menace teaches us to produce all the food that can be produced in these islands, it will be a blessing in disguise, a helper and saviour of the grit, stability, and fine reasonableness of the British race. Talk of potatoes! There are many hundred of acres of waste land in South Cornwall alone, notably wide, treeless fields running into sand dunes by the sea, where the potato would flourish as well as it does in similar Dutch soil, and all this precious land is empty and untilled. To urge the digging up of parks and public recreation grounds, where it is doubtful whether potatoes would grow at all, when there is all this acreage available, is sheer nonsense. I would that I had even a hundred acres of that Cornish sandy soil by the sea just now. With a few skilled labourers (for one must know _how_ to plant potatoes) it should yield gold! At Newquay, by the way, there is a golfing ground reserved for the amusement of a dozen or so of privileged selfish persons; it would grow tons of potatoes and other good edibles with very little trouble.
* * * * *
Nothing has ever been a greater source of wonder to me than the improvidence of such British folk as prefer to buy their vegetables and fruit food rather than grow it. Nowhere are allotments so untidily kept or so altogether neglected as in certain parts of England; nowhere is so little grown in them. Surely it stands to sense that if each cottager grew his own vegetable and fruit food there would be less need for foreign supplies. And if every waste field were made to produce _something_ in the way of foods a submarine blockade must needs prove futile in any attempt to starve the population. We may, if we will, foresee the vision of a happier, grander Britain than ever, when the people of these fruitful islands are given _their own_, and no longer have need to sever their lives from the homes of their kindred because there is no work for them here owing to the intrusion of German influence and German labour. We might also consider with belated sorrow the depopulation of the Scottish Highlands, and the preservation of vast tracts of moor and forest for mere “sport,” which has for years been a scandal and a disgrace to the nation. Let us have the people back on the land, and let the deer and the grouse take their own wild chances of existence. The submarine menace has come to teach us what we ought to have learned long ago--namely, that what we want on our own land are our own men, as skilled farmers and workers in every useful and profitable department, and that it ought never to be possible to see, as I once saw posted up on a large factory in London itself: “No English Need Apply.”
* * * * *
Look at the thing squarely. With each householder, in rural districts at least, growing his own vegetable and fruit supply, and the farmers growing for the community in general, what lack should there be of the necessities of life? The Prime Minister has restricted nothing that we cannot well do without. Somebody has grumbled about apples. Where will you beat homegrown apples? Plant orchards of them without stint; they will repay the trouble. Somebody else grumbles--yes, we know somebody always grumbles! This time it is about “Paris hats.” They are “forbidden.” O wise judge! O learned judge! No more (for a time, at least) shall we be pestered by receiving elaborate circulars printed in gold stating that Monsieur Satanique “presents” his latest “creations,” as if the good Satanique were a sort of deity. Nor will he, with all his persuasive charm, be able to entice the foolish among women to pay him six or eight guineas for a bit of wire, a scrap of lace, a feather, and a ribbon. O bold “restriction”! No more “Paris hats”--but, let us hope, a great deal more common sense!
“HIS PAINFUL DUTY”
THE SORROWS OF THE HOME SECRETARY
(_Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”_)
We grieve for Sir George Cave. He suffers as a martyr suffers in the cause of his country. Martyrs are not so common as heroes nowadays, but Sir George puts in no claim to heroism. He leaves that to “Tommy.” “Tommy” makes short work of the Huns wherever and however he meets them, but Sir George is almost on the verge of tears because he is unable to make their stay on in this country as agreeable and profitable as he would wish.
* * * * *
In the House of Commons he said: “Only the other day it was his _painful duty_ to order the internment of sixteen members of one alien club alone!” Alas, alas! “Sixteen” out of twenty thousand wandering spies! “One club alone,” out of hundreds of enemy information centres! Poor Sir George! How his heart must have been torn! how it must, even now, be lacerated and sore! “Had this club been in existence during the whole war?” asked Sir Henry Dalziel pointedly. And surely Sir George must have fetched a sigh from the bottom of his soul as he was compelled to answer “Yes!” Mr. Herbert Samuel, the late Home Secretary, was also apparently in sad plight, for he “seemed very anxious about the thousands of friendly aliens” in the East End of London and other large towns. He may well be “very anxious.” For these “thousands of friendly aliens” are _not_ “friendly,” and in nine cases out of ten “show,” as Mr. Samuel gravely observed, “that their hearts are not with this country.”
* * * * *
Is Mr. Samuel really so ingenuous, so simple, so altogether infantile in experience as to suppose their hearts _could_ be “with this country”? Are the hearts of Britishers interned in Germany “_with_” Germany? The Germans have turned English and Americans out of Berlin; why is not the same course pursued by us with Germans in London? Every German in the British Isles hopes for their “invasion” by his countrymen, and with invasion the signal to mobilise. With 30,000 interned and 20,000 at liberty, 50,000 foes are in our midst, ready to turn upon us at short notice. Why should this matter be dealt with in such a spineless, semi-paralytic way? What are the British public to think of the Ministers who put them on “rations” of four pounds of bread a week, while the German prisoner is allowed ten? Two and a half pounds of meat to the German’s three and a half? And everything on the same scale, so that, summing up the total, the honest British worker gets seven pounds four ounces of food to his enemy prisoners’ _fourteen pounds fourteen ounces_! Can any Controller of any department be so blind as to think the British people will stand such injustice? Many of us know all about Donnington Hall, though an honest attempt to clear up that scandal was nipped in the bud by some “Unseen Hand.” But what of the life of ease led by the German prisoners interned in the Isle of Man? There, in the great internment camp, officers are “at home,” and are permitted to buy whatever quantity of food they like to pay for--food which the native population cannot get! Just as the enemy officers at Donnington Hall can order all they like “without restriction,” while British prisoners in Germany are given hardly enough to keep them from starving!
* * * * *
Sir George Cave, in his extreme solicitude for “enemy aliens,” has committed himself to one utterance which he may live to regret. It is this: “Enemy aliens freed from internment ought certainly to be employed on _useful work of national importance_.”
Ought they, indeed! The employment of enemy aliens on “work of national importance” would be little short of a criminal act. For human nature is the same as it ever was, and no “enemy alien” is likely to do “work of national importance” for his jailer or conqueror without at least _trying_ to do it in such a manner that it shall never be done, or else done so badly that it shall not serve its purpose. What sane Englishman imagines that an “enemy” born of a ruthless race, which has proved itself murderous and treacherous, will serve _him_ in “work of national importance” without a good effort to blow him and his “work” to the four winds of heaven? The guileless simplicity of Sir George Cave reminds one of the nursery’s “little lamb”:--
“Whichever way the German went, The Lamb was sure to go!”
Down in the country, where we are commanded, with a sort of megaphone shouting through the Press, to “Grow food,” when we have no skilled labour to grow it, we are told that we can employ “enemy prisoners” on the land. A friend, anxious to get waste land under cultivation, asked what would be the rate of pay. The reply was: “One guinea a week; fifteen shillings if you feed him.” Compare this with the pay given to our British prisoners who work in Germany--“one penny a day,” _i.e._, sixpence a week! My friend decided to put guineas in the War Loan rather than spend them on a German prisoner who, if he worked on the land, would be sure to work “against the grain.” And one asks again: Why so much indulgence and care for the men of a dishonourable race who have plunged Europe into blood and tears, and who have murdered innocent women and children, and who, far from repenting their crimes, add to them the awful blasphemy of calling God to witness their “humanity”? Surely it is time this weak and nerveless inaction on the part of the authorities concerned should cease, and that they should, in the words of Shakespeare,--
“Take our cause Out of the gripes of cruel men.”
THE POTATO “SCREAM”
A PROTEST AGAINST A STUPID PANIC
(_Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”_)
No potatoes! Dear, dear; whatever shall we do? Some of the clever boys who write the “purple patches” for the sensational Press say that the present shortage is “nothing compared to the grim possibilities of the near future.” “Grim possibilities” is good--a phrase that will delight the Huns! But, quite dispassionately, may it not be asked how Britain got on without potatoes in her historic past? Henry VIII. was a goodly King; he ate greedily, drank heavily, and married profusely, but never a potato adorned his groaning banquet board. He “fared sumptuously every day,” and his subjects were not starved. Strong armies, victorious navies, existed without potatoes. Crècy, poitiers, Agincourt were fought on other food. People lived in those days even more hazardously than they live now, and did not worry about “grim possibilities.” They grew their own food produce, and had no chance of Overseas supplies. And they never knew the potato!
* * * * *
The history of the potato is quite modern, proving that it is by no means a necessity of life. According to some historians, it is a native of Chili and Peru, and was introduced from Santa Fé, in America, by Sir John Hawkins in 1563--one year before the birth of Shakespeare. So, as it was a new product and uncommon, it is possible that the Poet of the World struggled up to manhood without so much as one potato scream! The soliloquy in _Hamlet_ owes nothing to the potato--the famous adjuration in _Henry V._:--
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the walls up with our English dead”--
has nothing of the “mealy”-mouthed about it! Other authorities say it was brought over by Sir Francis Drake in 1586, but not generally introduced till 1592, and that Sir Walter Raleigh cultivated it first in Ireland on his estates in the county of Cork. It apparently was not known in Flanders (according to its biographers) till 1620. Well, then, how on earth did we get on without it? And if we _did_ get on without it, why cannot we get on without it again? I imagine that it is very much the fault of our gifted melodramatic actors on the stage of the Press that we are startled and “shivered” by the thrilling exits and entrances of the potato at stated intervals. One Bathurst is responsible for an actual “potato boom,” he having made it appear that this particular edible is a main prop of existence, when it is nothing of the kind. He has frightened a number of unreasoning women into “long queues” that “besiege” the potato dealers. If these women would only stay at home and decide to do without potatoes at all, the “shortage” and the dealers would soon display an altered aspect! One does not like to be rude about any portion of the human anatomy, but surely people who know Ireland have heard of the “potato _abdomen_” (the actual word is too Scriptural for polite usage). There _is_ such a thing; and it is not at all a desirable ornament. Women who wish to keep graceful, _svelte_ figures never eat potatoes. In all dietetic rules for the fat, “grave” warnings are uttered against potatoes, and “grim possibilities” are in store for any obstinately large man or woman who continues to eat them!
* * * * *
Why should the restless Bathurst seek to create a sort of South Sea Bubble in potatoes? The frenzy need not spread, if reasonable folk will collect their wits (some of which have gone a wool gathering) and realise that the potato, though an excellent vegetable when properly cooked (which it seldom is) is not a necessity of life. If it were, the brilliant history of Britain from the beginning up to Tudor times would be a mere record of famines. Pessimist Bathurst “gravely” states that “there will be no potatoes for any one in about six weeks.” Well, all who have vegetable gardens know that there is always a scarcity of potatoes every year, when the old ones are practically finished and we are waiting for the new; and owing to the general “sensationalism” the scarcity this year is likely to be more pronounced. But it need not disturb any one’s equanimity. Potatoes are no more necessary to life and health than the “hot roll,” of which the following amazing report appears in the Press: “The passing of the hot roll is the chief sacrifice.” (Think of these noble words! “The chief sacrifice!” One would imagine it was the life of a hero!) “Tens of thousands of people will lament the loss of a breakfast luxury!” “Lament the loss?” Oh, oh! Tens of thousands of people lamenting a hot breakfast roll! Ye Gods! “A roll,” continued the Press-interviewed baker, “alters its character when stale.” True, deplorably true! But if those tens of thousands of lamenting people do not alter _their_ character and “lament” to better purpose than for the daily indigestion provided for them in “hot roll” at breakfast, it is time they felt the pinch, not only of “no potatoes,” but “no food” at all for a wholesome period of fasting, with shame and penitence!
“HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF”
A STUDY IN WAR BREAD
(_Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”_)