NOT UNDERSTOOD

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3021, 7 March 1917, Page 5

NOT UNDERSTOOD

THE BRITISH PUBLIC AND THE SOMME BATTLEFIELD

A.SUBALTERN IN LONDON

The following article (in the "Daily Mail") was written by a married subaltern just before returning to the Somme:— "Surely," I said to myself, "cho people can not understand or they would not do all these things." I had not been in. London since the early days of last spring. Tho intervening Juonths had been spent on tho front ''somewhere in France" —a large part of the timo on the line-of the Somme. 1 arrived in England in the middle of last week, and spent the next day in replenishing my kit. Everything; was amazing. It is difficult to record my impressions. I was, and am, "too amazed.

Tho great sliops of the West End of . London are unchanged. Expensive fnrs, expensive clothes, dazzling jewellery, furniture appalling in ite price, seem almost more abundant iu tho great ! shops of tho West Endl than they were pin the days of peaco and prosperity. I psaw littlo frocks running into many figuincas for children of very tender Ijyears. I .saw brooches no moro than tan' inch across priced at thirty guineas, there were many rings with ono .'.'single diamond, for each of whioh a Onindred pounds was asked. Good •,3-feavons! and wo are. borrowing at 6 J)er cent.

The restaurants wero filled with people : expensivoly attirod. There soemfd no lack of tho old dishes, the old nrines. Luxurious motor-cars woro all ever the place. I stood in tho West End and watched it all. I was amazed. "The pooplo cannot .understand," I said.

"I make no excuse for mysolf. I [valkcd into a. great and popujar musicpall and wateh&l a'rovuo. Tho house !was filled, aud not with soldiers only. 1 could not accuse the leading men bf being expensively attired. They had ■fehabby parts. As a rule comedians do. There is nothing humorous in luxury. L had no idea what the women's dresses cost. The producer, no doubt, would bo proud, to say tho production cost •goodness knows how.many thousands. B'o me the dresses were amazing, not in their scautiuoss, for I do not protend to be a' moralist, hut in their obvious oxpensiveness. The programmo told me, each time the actresses changed, by whom theso clothes wero made jand designed. They were not chea-p aianies. Tho people m the theatre wero attired l —they wero more than dressed '—as if. money ,woro no object and as if jf ho Empire instead of borrowing wero actually giving-money away. When the irevue was over and tho numerous motorpars and taxicabs had driven off I walked tap to a tea shop—it would no doubt he angry to be called by its -name. H exuded prosperity.- As I walked in 1 ,iyas flanked on'both sides by expensive boxes of chocolates. As I had tea, bn all sides of me -were expensivelyHressed -women, and I was surrounded >vith cakes for whoso adornment enough "Jnigar must have been used to have kept many families in sugar for many fe>. day.

There did not seem any shortage of bny single thing. London, jt seemed to me, was einrply -wallowing in luxury. [Where, I wondered, was the war economy I had read of -while wandering bn the banks of tho Sommc? Adhere ■was the need of food tickets or of a limitation of prices, and ivhore, above pll, was the war? Perhaps after all, 1 thought in'my 'amazement,- there was Jio war. It was all a dream of mine. J looked at myself. I certainly was in khaki:.

1 bought an evening paper. Yes, "there; was "a'war on. The Serbians, I read, were beginning to win back their country. Rumania, was beginning to Jose hers. The Russian guns were active. France had a success. Italy, from the news, seemed to be in it. Germany and Austria were not doing too well. Well, perhaps, after all, we Hvere not in this war, and it had all .affected my brain. I turned to"another "column, t was not dreaming. Wo were jn it.; A. 48,000-ton hospital ship bolonging to us bad been sunk. "The brutes," said f.n' over-dressed •woman, and stepped into her thousandguinea limousine. I was amazed. "Tfrf> people," I said, "cannot un-ider-stand. It will all be different when I get to my- home country." It was different in my own home, find in tho homes- of those of my friends who had given, tip their businesses to go out. Most of tho servants bad gone. Still, none of us would have been out of it. Elsewhere there wero 310 signs of poverty. I met a farmer with whom I spoke. "Times hard?" I said. . ' "They would bo all right," he said, "if the weather would be better and thev wouldn't take away all our men." There seemed no shortage of money, t saw no economy. The shops in the Hit tie'town were all well stocked. There were plenty of motor-cars everywhere. "They also," I thought, "do not undestand." If anyone reads this I know full well what he will say: "We do all this be<:auso when the boys come over from .France they would not like to find 'everything dull and shut up." That is an entirely foolish statement that needs no answer. What soldier in the lino in France wants to seo his children dressed in teu-giunca frocks or to eat cakes plastered with sugar, wr to watch over-dressed women float ji bout in expensive motor-cars, to know that • some "h"-less. divinity at the back of the stage is dressed in cloth of gold designed by So-and-So and made by Mme. Some-one-Elso?

There is only one thing the man in (France' wants, and that is to end the war.- There is not a man of military age on all the great arable farms of Northern France, where only 10 per cent, of the land in grass. ' Turn the women of England on to the land or 1-o some other work. They could not do it, you say. You said the "knut" and city clerk would not make soldiers. They did, didn't they? Tf it was not to see my wife and family I would not come hack on leave again. Yes, and thousands of others share my view of it all. The people do not unrlorslnnd, some just because they do not and some because they will not. A week on the Somme would do them jio harm. T wonder'whether the people or their former "leaders" are to blame most? T blame the people." for benu' she»p—if .flier do not understand—and those leaders for thinking the people will always he sheep.