[34] “The Transvaal Burgher Camps,” by Lieut.-Col. S. J. Thomson.
[35] The marshy site of Merebank is compared by Miss Emily Hobhouse to that of the German camp at Wittenberg.
[36] “‘Forage’ needs explanation,” writes Miss Hobhouse. “We requisitioned for forage, because, as there was no milk for the children, we were planning to buy some cows, if we could secure forage. However, we failed.”
IV
REPRISALS OF GOOD.
For the information contained in this chapter I am greatly indebted to the Friends’ Emergency Committee. Most of it has already appeared in their leaflets and reports, and in articles in The Friend. The following is a reprint of a letter sent by the Bishop of Winchester to the Times. It appeared in the issue of September 29, 1916:
German Work for Prisoners.
Sir,—The following facts, if you can find space for them, will, I think, be of interest and encouragement amidst all the sorrow and misery of war.
The word “reprisals” is often heard in diplomacy and in war; reprisals are attempted or suggested; or reprisals of cruelty are condemned, we rejoice to know, by the instinct and conscience of the nation. These are all reprisals of what is bad. Rarer, at least on the surface, are reprisals of good. But here is such a case.
At the outbreak of the war members of the Society of Friends and others came together for the purpose of bringing help to those men and women of enemy nationality in this country upon whom the war had brought suffering. Their lot was often a pitiable one. The pull of contrary affections, the unkindness of former friends, the sudden loss of means of livelihood, the internment of the men, with its enforced idleness, were some of the troubles which would have produced despair in many cases had not the members of this “Emergency Committee” (169, St. Stephen’s House, Westminster)[37] come to the rescue. They have given material help to thousands of families, and, above all, brought the healing touch of human sympathy to the men in the camps and their wives and children (mostly British-born) left to struggle on alone outside.
It was early in the war also that a group of Germans came together in Berlin and determined to start a similar work. The news of what was being done by the British Committee soon reached them and made them increase their efforts. Since then the two bodies have been in close communication, and each has endeavoured to see that what is done for “alien enemies” in one country is promptly repeated in the other.