The truth is that the whole system of separation allowances, framed to meet the necessity of recruits of the ordinary standard, is inelastic and unsuitable to a campaign which calls, or should call, the entire nation to arms. It is throwing a great strain on a man's loyalty to ask him to condemn his wife and family to what, in their circumstances, amounts to semi-starvation, in order that he may serve his country, particularly when he sees around him thousands of the young and healthy at theatres and picture palaces, free from any domestic ties, who persistently shut their eyes to their country's need, and whom nothing short of some measure of compulsion would bring into the ranks. I am not going to suggest that every man who joins the Army should be paid the salary he could earn in civil life, but I think we are not doing nearly enough for thousands of well-bred and gently nurtured women who have given up husbands and brothers in the sacred cause of freedom.
And now I come to perhaps the saddest feature of the war—the case of the men who will return to England maimed and disabled in their country's cause. That, for them, is supreme glory, though many of them would have infinitely preferred giving their lives for their country. They will come back to us in thousands, the maimed, the halt, and the blind: pitiful wrecks of glorious manhood, with no hope before them but to drag out the rest of their years in comparative or absolute helplessness. Their health and their strength will have gone; there will be no places for them in the world where men in full health and strength fight the battle of life in the fields of commerce and industry. Are we doing enough—have we, indeed, begun to do anything—for these poor victims of war's fury, much more to be pitied than the gallant men who sleep for ever where they fell on the battle-fields of France and Belgium?
Too often in the past it has been the shame and the reproach of Britain that she cast aside, like worn-out garments, the men who have spent their health and strength in her cause. Have we not heard of Crimean veterans dying in our workhouses? With all my heart I hope that, after the war, we shall never again be open to that reproach and shame. We must see that never again shall a great and wealthy Empire disgrace itself by condemning its crippled heroes to the undying bitterness of the workhouse during life, and the ignominy of a pauper's grave after death. Cost what it may, the future of the unhappy men "broke in our wars" must be the nation's peculiar care. I do not suggest—they themselves would not desire it—that all our wounded should become State pensioners en masse and live out their lives in idleness. The men who helped to fling back the Kaiser's barbaric hordes in the terrible struggle at Ypres are not the men who will seek for mere charity, even when it takes the form of a deserved reward for their heroic deeds.
Speaking broadly, the State will have the responsibility of caring for two classes of wounded men—those who are condemned to utter and lifelong disablement and those who, less seriously crippled, are yet unable to obtain employment in ordinary commercial or industrial life. As to the former class, the duty of the State is clear: they must be suitably maintained for the rest of their lives at the State's charges. With regard to the second class, I do most sincerely hope that they will not be thrown into the world with a small wounds pension and left to sink or swim as fortune and their scattered abilities may dictate. It is for us to remember that these men have given their health and strength that we might live in safety and peace, and we shall be covering ourselves with infamy if we fail to make proper provision for them.
As I have already said, they do not want charity. They want work, and I venture to here make an earnest appeal to the public to take up the cause of these men with all its generous heart. First and foremost, such of them as are capable should be given absolute preference in Government and municipal offices, where there are thousands of posts that can be filled even by men who are partially disabled. Every employer of labour should make it his special duty to find positions for as many of these men as possible: there are many places in business houses that can be quite adequately filled by men of less than ordinary physical efficiency. Most of all, however, I hope the Government will, without delay, take up the great task of finding a way of setting these men to useful work of some kind. In the past much has been done in this direction by the various private agencies which interest themselves in the care of discharged soldiers. A war of such magnitude as the present, however, must bring in its wake a demand for work and organisation on a scale far beyond private effort; and if the disabled soldier is to be adequately cared for, only the resources of the State can be equal to the need.
Are we doing enough, I ask again, for the gallant men who have served us so well? There are those who fear that, comparatively speaking, the war has only just begun. However this may be, the tale of casualties and disablement rises day by day at a terrible pace, and there is a growing need to set on foot an organisation which, when the time comes, shall be ready to grapple at once with what will perhaps be the most terrible legacy the war can leave us.