LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
NATIONAL CONCENTRATION.
[To Tax Norm or m °S.raerracm."1
SIN,—I was reading your article on "National Concentration" as I motored to Rosen from General Headquarters after holding for eight days services for our troops along the battle line. I have held some forty services in all, each service often being attended by as many as four thousand men, and have bad the opportunity of seeing at close quarters the men as they came oat of the trenches. Thirty came to be confirmed with the mud of the trenches still caking their puttees. I have also conversed with nearly every General in the field, from the Commander-in-Chief, whose guest I was, to the Brigadier- Generals, whose headquarters were naturally very much nearer the firing line. I mention this to give force to what I am going to say, and that is that we shall never bring this war to an end without a more complete national concentration upon it.
Every day, when there is practically nothing going on, two hundred are killed and wounded. I stood at one of the clearing hospitals receiving the daily toll one afternoon. In all outpost warfare there mast be some daily casualties, but it is the opinion of every General at the front that this daily waste of life is calmed by want of concentration on the part of the nation. If the batteries had unstinted supply of ammunition, they could keep down the enemies' fire and save the lives of hundreds of our men. Moreover, no advance is possible through the network of trenches, barbed wire, and machine guns until all this has been blown away by artillery fire before the infantry advance. Any one who could look at the battle line as photographed from an aeroplane would see this in a moment. The whole mind of the nation must be concentrated on this one problem now. If drink is in the way, it must be swept aside without the least hesitation, and the amount saved to the nation would be enough to satisfy any just claim for compensation. With the lives of the flower of our youth hanging in the balance— to say nothing of the existence of the nation—the Govern- ment should take over all factories capable of helping in the manufacture of ammunition, as the French have done, arrange also wages, and treat as traitors either employers or employed
who binder the work. One experienced General asked me when the nation was going to "begin to make war," and another said that the whole nation must be " mobilized " unless this war was to drag on for ever. The language of another on " racing " was lurid.
I will take as an instance a certain battalion of eight hundred men—Territorials—with whom I spent two months of the summer. Owing to their high efficiency, they were Bent out in November. They have held a portion of the line for five months; there has been no attack, they have never been in a battle, hut forty-six have been killed, about seventy wounded, and over two hundred more have been invalided home foe frost-bite and other causes. Only about half of the original number are left, although the number is, of course, kept up by drafts from the home battalion. They make no complaint— they have died or suffered for their country; but the sickening thing is that the nation, whose sons they are, seems to realize so little what is going on that it does not concentrate its whole energies on the task of bringing the war to a speedy and victorious conclusion. It is because you, Sir, point the way to some really drastic action that I venture to send this letter to back up from my recent experience what you say.—I am,
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