James Owen - The Times Great Letters - A century of notable correspondence

When once a clear principle is laid down, be it abolition or curtailment, the question resolves itself into one of fact, and suspicion will die for lack of food. There can be no objection to the fullest representation of working-class opinion on the committee which is to carry out the principle into action. The present situation of half-hearted promises and forced concessions is both humiliating and demoralizing, and to the average man it seems frankly intolerable that a Government in which we all have good reasons to believe should be unable to give expression to an elementary principle of political morality and should allow us to drift, as we are drifting, into a great and needless danger.

I am, &c.,

C. A. ALINGTON

Headmaster of Shrewsbury School

Cyril Alington subsequently became Head Master of Eton and later Dean of Durham.

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The Voice of a Schoolboy

Rallies the Ranks

14 December 1915

Sir, May I say one word in reply to the letter of a “Public School Master,” which appears in The Times of to-day (11 December). As an old headmaster, I am not likely to underestimate the value of school discipline. But long experience has convinced me that we keep our boys at school too long. And, as to the commissions to boys, Clive sailed to India at the age of 17; Wolfe, “a lanky stripling of 15”, carried the colours of the 12th Regiment of Foot; Wellington was ensign in the 73rd Regiment at the age of 17; Colin Campbell gained his commission in the 9th Regiment of Foot at the age of 16. We keep our boys in leading strings too long.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

JOSEPH WOOD

The writer had been headmaster of Tonbridge and Harrow schools.

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Body Armour or shields

28 July 1916

Sir, it is a year now since you were good enough to allow me to express some views about body armour in your columns. Since then, so far as I know, nothing has been done, but now we have got so far that the Minister of War admits that something of the kind may some day come along. To me it seems the most important question of any, and I earnestly hope that you will use your influence to keep it before the notice of the authorities.

Upon July 1 several of our divisions were stopped by machine-gun fire. Their losses were exceedingly heavy, but hardly any of them from high explosives. The distance to traverse was only about 250 yards. The problem, therefore, is to render a body of men reasonably immune to bullets fired at that range. The German first-line trenches were thinly held, so that once across the open our infantry would have had no difficulty whatsoever.

Now, Sir, I venture to say that if three intelligent metal-workers were put together in consultation they would in a few days produce a shield which would take the greater part of those men safely across. We have definite facts to go upon. A shield of steel of 7/16 of an inch will stop a point-blank bullet. Far more will it stop one which strikes it obliquely. Suppose such a shield fashioned like that of a Roman soldier, 2ft. broad and 3ft. deep. Admittedly it is heavy—well over 30lb. in weight. What then? The man has not far to go, and he has the whole day before him. A mile in a day is good progress as modern battles go. What does it matter, then, if he carries a heavy shield to cover him?

Suppose that the first line of stormers carried such shields. Their only other armament, besides their helmets, should be a bag of bombs. With these they clear up the machine-guns. The second wave of attack with rifles, and possibly without shields, then comes along, occupies and cleans up the trench, while the heavily armed infantry, after a rest advance upon the next one. Men would, of course, be hit about the legs and arms, and high explosives would claim their victims, but I venture to say that we should not again see British divisions held up by machine-guns and shrapnel. Why can it not be tried at once? Nothing elaborate is needed. Only so many sheets of steel cut to size and furnished with a double thong for arm-grip. Shields are evidently better than body armour, since they can be turned in any direction, or form a screen for a sniper or for a wounded man.

The present private contrivances seem inadequate, and I can well understand that those who could afford to buy them would shrink from using a protection which their comrades did not possess. Yet I have seen letters in which men have declared that they owed their lives to these primitive shields. Let the experiment be made of arming a whole battalion with proper ones—and, above all, let it be done at once. Then at last the attack will be on a level with the defence.

Yours faithfully,

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

The first tanks had been demonstrated to the Army command in great secrecy five months earlier and made their first appearance on the battlefield in September 1916.

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Russell in chains

5 September 1916

Sir, Mr. Bertrand Russell’s view of pre-war diplomacy is not mine, and it is very far from yours; nevertheless, I hope The Times will allow me to protest against the military edict which forbids him to reside in any part of Scotland, in Manchester or Liverpool, or on the greater part of the English coast. Such an edict is obviously aimed at a man who may justly be suspected of communicating with the enemy, or of assisting his cause. Mr. Russell is not only the most distinguished bearer of one of the greatest names in English political history, but he is a man so upright in thought and deed that such action is, in the view of every one who knows him, repugnant to his character. It is a gross libel, and an advertisement to the world that the administration of the Defence of the Realm Regulations is in the hands of men who do not understand their business. Incidentally, their action deprives Mr. Russell, already debarred from entering the United States, of the power of earning his livelihood by arranged lectures on subjects unconnected with the war. The Times is the most active supporter of that war; but its support is intelligent, and it speaks as the mouthpiece of the country’s intelligence as well as of its force. May I therefore appeal to it to use its great influence to discourage the persecution of an Englishman of whose accomplishments and character the nation may well be proud, even in the hour when his conscientious conclusions are not accepted by it?

Yours, &c.,

H. W. MASSINGHAM

The philosopher, a grandson of the Victorian prime minister Earl Russell, was a pacifist. He had been fined £100 in June 1916 and compelled to resign his Cambridge fellowship because of his anti-war speeches.

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popular Representation

30 March 1917

Sir, there seems to be a very general failure to grasp the importance of what is called—so unhappily—Proportional Representation in the recommendations of the Speaker’s Conference. It is the only rational, honest, and efficient electoral method. It is, however, in danger of being thrust on one side as a mere fad of the intellectuals. It is regarded by many ill-informed people as something difficult, “high-browed,” troublesome, and of no practical value, much as science and mathematics were so regarded by the “practical” rule-of-thumb industrialists of the past. There are all too many mean interests in machine politics threatened by this reform, which are eager to seize upon this ignorant mistrust and use to delay or burke 1the political cleaning-up that Proportional Representation would involve. Will you permit me to state, as compactly and clearly as I can, the real case for this urgently-needed reform—a reform which alone can make Parliamentary government anything better than a caricature of the national thought and a mockery of the national will?

The essential point to grasp is that Proportional Representation is not a novel scheme, but a carefully worked-out remedy for universally recognized ills. An election is not the simple matter it appears to be at the first blush. Methods of voting can be manipulated in various ways, and nearly every method has its own liability to falsification. Take the commonest, simplest case—the case that is the perplexity of every clear-thinking voter under British or American conditions: the case of a constituency in which every elector has one vote, and which returns one representative to Parliament. The naive theory on which we go is that all the possible candidates are put up, that each voter votes for the one he likes best, and that the best man wins. The bitter experience is that hardly ever are there more than two candidates, and still more rarely is either of these the best man possible.