“DON’T TRAVEL”
A HARD HIT (Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”)
We are all called upon to make sacrifices, both public and personal. No one can assert that we do not make them willingly, and for the most part uncomplainingly. But our Dictators appear blind to the fact that in many cases their orders and “restrictions” are ruining British trades, while affording the greatest possible relief and satisfaction to the Boches. The well-fed Huns heard with malicious glee the admission of Mr. Bonar Law that we were at one time short of fighting men by a hundred thousand—an undiplomatic avowal which for sheer bad tact ranks alongside of Lord Devonport’s “grave” warnings of “food shortage,” and Captain Bathurst’s advertised appetite for “pickled herrings.” If “shortage” of any kind exists, why “give it away” to the enemy? It is of a nature to be dealt with “in secret Session,” not in the open House, where prominent members themselves admit that whatever is said is at once taken to Germany. Is it surprising, then, that with the crazy exaggerations and falsehoods of the German Press, our foes assert that “England is starving!” and that “there are not enough men left to us to fight with!” How much wiser and more dignified it would be to let them clearly understand that, honestly, we are not suffering at all from any real food hardships, and that we shall have more than a hundred thousand extra men ready to fight them should occasion arise. Mr. Bonar Law may be a Scottish “man of iron,” but he is also very guileless if he does not realise the derision and delight of the Boche over the statements he made in the House—statements repeated throughout Germany, just as Mr. Lloyd George’s unfortunate phrase, “the horrible danger of the submarine,” was caught up by Bethmann-Hollweg, and repeated with devilish laughter at every street corner in Berlin. When we are at grips with a foe it is not advisable to show him the loose joints in our armour. To us British there should be never a thought or a word of “horrible danger,” especially as we know we can grow our own necessary food if we make up our minds to do it; nor should we ever publicly admit any “shortage” of any kind, whether in men or supplies. To admit weakness is to court attack.
Now we are told “not to travel”; not to take the much longed-for Easter rest, with Easter hope of the slowly coming spring, and there is no doubt that those of us who have comfortable homes are willing enough to stay in them. But for the brave, patient men and women who have given up their homes to toil day and night at munition work, and who naturally crave for a breath of country or sea air, whose bodies and souls are weary, and who need, if only a few hours, change of scene and movement for their very health’s sake, the restrictions of train and motor service are surely rather an exercise of tyranny? Not only does the ban affect the travelling public (we presume the Cabinet Ministers will not deny themselves their Easter recess?), but it spells ruin to thousands of hard-working folk who depend for their living at this season on letting lodgings in the country or at the seaside; to say nothing of the disaster undeservedly inflicted on all our lovely watering-places and rural resorts, which exist, in a great measure, on the influx of visitors, whose patronage keeps them going. Surely it may be asked, Why destroy the prosperity of our own people? Why lay a paralysing hand on our own trades and industries? Is it to give the Boche a better chance when the war is over? Before the outbreak of the Hohenzollern madness, hotels and lodging-houses in all our pleasure resorts were numerous and prosperous, and the greater part of them were carried on by—Germans! One could not go anywhere without meeting German managers and German waiters. Now, when there might be the faint ghost of a chance for the British hotel-keeper, the British caterer, the British tradesman, the public are warned off with “Don’t travel!” What joy for the Germans! Our Dictators simply “fall” into their hands like drugged moths into a net, and the way they go to work suggests an attempt to “Prussianise” England, and make ample preparation for a German “boom” after the war, when our own people, half ruined by “restrictions,” have not even the time to recoup their losses or start afresh on any new line of possible prosperity. If the enormous expenditure of the war is to be met by the people, every chance must be given them to earn the money wherewith to meet it. None of the workers would trouble the railway service if motor-cars and conveyances were allowed to carry them out for an Easter breath of Easter air, but though military “swaggerers” at home are allowed to dash about everywhere in cars with apparent freedom, the “restriction” on petrol holds up all the rest of the public. Yet, as a matter of common hearsay, it is asserted that “there is no real scarcity of petrol!”
What are we to believe? One thing is pretty certain, and that is that the British public, though so patient “a hass,” may kick at last and refuse to take “rations” of thistles, while the German Hog is fed on carrots and corn. To quote from a well-reasoned article in a morning contemporary: “The blind and fatal shears of promiscuous prohibition cut off the just and the unjust together. They are, moreover, a most disturbing element in trade, and are reducing our merchants to despair.” True! And if the “disturbing element” is not promptly checked, we may look out for storms!
“TE DEUM LAUDAMUS”
THE GREAT THANKSGIVING (Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”)
It is time we gave thanks—indeed, it is more than time! Perhaps, had we seen more clearly into the future we might have given thanks long before this—thanks for our kinship with America—for the ties of blood, of language, of tradition, memory, and association which have made us, as some say, “cousins,” but as we prefer to believe, brothers—brothers in heart and soul, as we are to-day brothers-in-arms. Let it be admitted that we have not always quite understood each other. Small rancours, petty jealousies, trifling differences have arisen casually from time to time between the people of a great Empire and the people of a great Republic, which seem now but the merest gossamer cobwebs spun by the ever-working spiders of rumour and mischief, easily brushed away at a touch. The trumpet blast of a noble Cause has brought to our side our youngest comrade, alive with energy, passion, and enthusiasm, expressing in every attitude Tennyson’s eloquent lines:—