THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS AND THE WAR.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."] EIR,—The letter from a young Quaker officer at the front in your issue of August 24th probably expresses the views of a large minority—if it be a minority—of English Quakerism, though the relative proportions of militarist, quasi-militarist, pacificist, and absolutist Quakerism are unobtainable. For reasons. During the first three years of the war our central organization took no steps to determine how many Friends bad taken arms, and how many ethers sympathized with their action. But in May, 1917, our Yearly Meeting ordered an inquest and report upon the occupa- tions of Friends of military age since August, 1914. After fifteen months this investigation is still incomplete and seems to have come to a standstill. The reasons assigned for what in any other community but Friends would suggest supprossion of unpalatable evidence are unconvincing. " Want of time " is pleaded, but the recording clerk of the Society has stated that he can obtain no reports from several centres, nor elicit replies to his letters. It is generally known that the reports sent in are of a surprising, not to say disappointing, nature, and give no warrant whatever for the spokesmen of our Society to assume that they have a homogeneous body of pacificists behind them.
As authentic figures are unobtainable, some of us have collected the statistics of the old Scholars' Associations of six of our Quaker schools. These show over sixty per cent. of " Old Boys" in arms, or fallen; about thirty-five per cent. who have accepted various forms of alternative (non-combatant) employment, while less than three per cent. are in gaol for declining both military and civil service to the country. The above figures take no account of a negligible fraction rejected by doctors and in exempted occupations. It will be urged that just about half the pupils in our Quaker schools are not Friends (though all are under Quaker influences for their most impressionable years). But after making this deduction, there remains the extraordinary disparity between thirty-one per cent. in arms and two and three- quarters per cent, in gaol! These Friends-in-arms are no run- away schoolboys, but adult scions of some of our oldest Quaker stocks, in many cases the outcome of Public School and University. Hundreds of them have earned commissions; some have been decorated for valour. We have cantains, majors and lieutenant- colonels in full membership. But there are other criteria by which the opinion of English Quakerism on the war may be tested. In the judgment of two of our best Quaker actuaries the Society has subscribed not less than two millions sterling to the War Loan. As to our attitude toward the war taxes, I was assured by the late recording clerk of our body that he had heard of no Friend refusing his quotum. Even those had paid who a few years back had refused to pay their education rates from conscientious scruples. May I venture to suggest that poSsibly a little more caution is advisable on the part of those of us who issue pacificist appeals in the name of the Society of Friends?—I
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