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CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 A HISTORY 1916-1919 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOB 
 
 THE DESTRUCTION OF DAYLIGHT. A Study of 
 the Smoke Problem. (George Allen. 2s. 6d.) 
 
 {Out oj print.) 
 
 EVOLUTION AND EMPIRE. A Theory of Selection 
 and Imperialism. (George Allen & Unwin. is.) 
 
 {Edition at 3s. 6d. out of print.) 
 
 WILLIAM PENN, FOUNDER OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 The Modern Life of Penn, with Special Study of his 
 Works. (George Allen & Unwin. ios. 6d.) 
 
 WAR FROM THE QUAKER POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 {Out of print.) 
 
 THE FAITH OF A QUAKER. A Modern Apologia, 
 with a Study of the Foundations of Religion. 
 (Cambridge University Press. 21s.) 
 
 THE HARVEST OF RUSKIN. An Estimate of the 
 Present Value of Ruskin's Teaching in Religion, 
 Education and Economics. (George Allen & 
 Unwin. 7s. 6d.) 
 
CONSCRIPTIONltNP 
 CONSCIENCE 
 
 A HISTORY 1916—1919 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN W. GRAHAM, M.A. 
 
 Princi^a/ of Dalton Hall, University of Manchester, Author of 
 ''The Faith of a Quaker'' 
 
 LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN, LTD. 
 RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. i 
 
a. 
 
 First published in jg22 
 
 {All rights reserved) 
 
" I shall only consider the best means of making the path of that class 
 
 very hard one.'- 
 
 Mr. D. Lloyd George, 
 
 House of Commons, July 26, 19 16. 
 
 ** I ask no man to scrap his principles." 
 
 Mr. D. Lloyd George, 
 Manchester, September 13, 191 8. 
 
 520253 
 
DEDICATED 
 WITH AFFECTIONATE REVERENCE 
 TO THE 
 YOUNG MEN 
 
 WHO IN THE DARK DAYS OF THE WAR KEPT THE FAITH 
 
 AND STOOD BY THEIR COUNTRY AND MANKIND 
 
 WITH A COURAGE THAT DID NOT FAIL 
 
Composed by the Chartist Leader, Ernest Jones, when confined in a 
 solitary cell, on bread and water, without books or writing 
 materials, May 1849. 
 
 Troublesome fancies beset me 
 
 Sometimes as I sit in my cell. 
 That comrades and friends may forget me. 
 
 And foes may remember too well. 
 
 That plans which I thought well digested 
 
 May prove to be bubbles of air ; 
 And hopes, when they come to be tested. 
 
 May turn to the seed of despair. 
 
 But tho' I may doubt all beside me. 
 
 And anchor and cable may part. 
 Whatever — whatever betide me. 
 
 Forbid me to doubt my own heart ! 
 
 For sickness may wreck a brave spirit. 
 And time wear the brain to a shade ; 
 
 And dastardly age disinherit 
 
 Creations that manhood has made. 
 
 But God ! let me ne'er cease to cherish 
 
 The truths I so fondly have held. 
 Far sooner, at once let me perish. 
 
 Ere firmness and courage are quelled. 
 
 Tho' my head in the dust may be lying. 
 
 And bad men exult o'er my fall, 
 I shall smile at them — smile at them, dying ,* 
 
 The Right is the Right after all. 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 To write with complete accuracy recent history concerning 
 matters personally known to hundreds of accessible people, 
 and sometimes even matters within my own cognizance, 
 has been found more difficult than might be thought. Two 
 eyewitnesses' account of the same event do not always 
 agree. It must be much easier to make a narrative of 
 events long gone by, concermng which there are few^ or 
 no first-hand authorities. I cannot hope to have made no 
 mistakes, in spite of every effort to be correct, and in 
 spite of very great help given to me by many friends. The 
 whole book has been carefully read by Clifford Allen, A. 
 Fenner Brockway, Hubert W. Peet, Miss Edith M. Ellis, 
 and Miss Joan M. Fry ; and various chapters have been 
 read by Miss Catherine Marshall, Howard C. Marten, and 
 A. Barratt Brown. To their assistance the book owes — 
 besides many minor corrections — some general advice of 
 high value. Ernest E. Hunter in particular has contri- 
 buted definite portions of that part of the narrative which 
 concerns the inner working of the N.C.F. organization. To 
 all these helpers I am deeply grateful. 
 
 It will be seen that the Preface does not concern the 
 history, but is a statement of future policy should con- 
 scription ever be imposed again. Writing here as a mere 
 narrator, I have not felt it necessary to concern myself — 
 or to make up my mind — with regard to a situation which 
 we hope, by the united efforts of us all, to make so remote 
 that I shall no longer be an actor in it. 
 
 J. W. G. 
 
 Dalton Hall, 
 Manchester, 
 
 December 1921. 
 
 U 
 
PREFACE 
 
 BY 
 
 CLIFFORD ALLEN 
 
 Chairman of the No-Conscription Fellowship 
 
 This book was undertaken by Principal Graham at the 
 request of the committees which represented conscientious 
 objectors to conscription in Great Britain during the 
 recent war. Mr. Graham is well qualified to deal with 
 the history of that struggle. The part he played is known 
 to all who worked for peace in those stormy days. As 
 Chairman of the Friends' Peace Committee and of com- 
 mittees in the North which organized relief for the 
 resisters, and as an untiring lecturer and speaker in favour 
 of peace, he bore his full share of opprobrium : as a Quaker 
 chaplain his name will live in the memory of many prisoners 
 who looked for his coming and his inspiration week by week 
 in their prison cells. The writing of such a book has been 
 no easy task, since few movements have included members 
 holding such varying opinions or advocating such a multitude 
 of policies. It cannot therefore be expected that any history 
 of the incidents here described will meet with universal 
 approval, but there can be no doubt that the author has 
 compiled a book of the greatest value and of strict im- 
 partiality, and has earned the gratitude of all who were 
 concerned with the events under review. 
 
 Quite rightly, Mr. Graham has devoted much attention 
 to describing the opinions of those whose resistance was 
 due to rehgious conviction ; the Preface therefore deals with 
 the social and political significance of the struggle. It 
 is chiefly by the expression of religiojgis impulses through 
 poHtical effort that we may hope to change men's hearts 
 
 13 
 
14 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 and practice. This seemed to me to demand the writing of 
 a Preface which was more concerned with the problems 
 of the future than with past achievements, and thus 
 I have sought to maintain the tradition of the No- 
 Conscription Fellowship, which always attempted to give 
 immediate, effective and practical form to the spiritual ideas 
 which motived the resistance. Moreover, it is of greater 
 value — and indeed more seemly — that those of us who 
 took a direct part in the struggle should devote our 
 thoughts to foreseeing and preparing for future needs rather 
 than to dwelling on the work we have accomplished. For 
 these reasons the Preface is what it is. 
 
 The need for a permanent record of this story is two- 
 fold. It is desirable that the experience of the last six 
 years should be available for reference in the event of a 
 similar resistance becoming necessary in the future, and it 
 is important that material should be provided for historians 
 to decide the place of these events in the history of the growth 
 of social liberty or the struggle for international peace. 
 
 Many people take it for granted that the end of the war 
 implies the end of compulsory military service. They do 
 not seem aware of the danger that an age, which believes 
 itself to favour democratic systems of government, may 
 falsely apply the argument of equality in service to its 
 military organization. Nor must it be assumed that this 
 danger will be dispelled by the advent of Labour to power. 
 During my visit to Bolshevik Russia, I observed compulsion 
 being applied not only in military but also in industrial 
 affairs, and it is probable that a Labour Government in 
 Britain, far from rejecting conscription as a matter of 
 course, may insist that some form of compulsory military 
 service is the only fair and democratic method of carrying 
 out the defence of a Socialist Commonwealth. Already, 
 even while the Labour Party is in opposition, some of its 
 advisers are recommending this system in the beUef that 
 a professional army is a capitalist weapon, too easily 
 exploited against Labour, more especially in these days of 
 modern engines of warfare. Notwithstanding the manipula- 
 tion of conscript armies in France, British Labour may be 
 too readily persuaded to favour universal service for reasons 
 
PREFACE 15 
 
 of temporary strategy in its struggle with Capitalism, and 
 to overlook or deny the far more important moral and social 
 issues involved in the application of compulsion for military 
 purposes. 
 
 Attention ought therefore to be devoted to the ex- 
 perience recorded in these pages ; but at the same time 
 I think we should not exaggerate the value of resistance 
 to conscription, judged as a method of spreading Pacifist 
 or Socialist opinions. Those of us who advocate inter- 
 national peace and disarmament, or desire social and economic 
 changes, would not in the ordinary course of events choose 
 resistance to the law as the best means of promoting 
 those objects. But on this occasion the method was not 
 of our choosing. We could not help ourselves. By reason 
 of sex and age we chanced to find ourselves confronted by 
 certain demands on the part of the State, and were com- 
 pelled to consider our reply with a degree of anxiety and 
 care that may seem unnecessary to those who have 
 not actually been potential conscripts. Since we could not 
 avoid it, we were bound to make the best use we could of 
 the situation that was forced upon us, and to give thought 
 and time to problems of machinery and strategy. None 
 the less it may be doubted whether those are the best servants 
 of the Pacifist or Socialist Movements who are too zealous 
 in considering resistance to conscription — with its attendant 
 unhappy persecution — as the most successful way of drawing 
 attention to their opinions. On the contrary, it is only in 
 so far as persecution is not sought for, and yet unflinchingly 
 endured, that respect will be paid to the persecuted cause. 
 I should regret if it were supposed that the attention and 
 care we devoted to this problem were due to a distorted 
 view of the excellence of law-breaking as a method of 
 propaganda. It would be equally regrettable, however, if 
 we had esteemed it as of so little importance as to have 
 accepted the first opportunity for compromise. Whether 
 it was good or bad as propaganda was not really relevant ; 
 we acted as we did because we had to do so. 
 
 The probabihty of future resistance will naturally lead 
 us to examine the history of our experience with a view to 
 discovering what developments or modification of past 
 
( 
 
 16 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 policies may be expedient. We have therefore to enquire 
 as to what is the most notable characteristic of the struggle 
 here recorded. The answer seems unmistakable. Every 
 page reveals that, whereas in its early stages the resistance 
 was prompted by an individual sense of the rightness or 
 wrongness of particular services imposed by the Military 
 Service Acts, ultimately the main struggle centred round 
 those men who declined to have anything whatever to do 
 with any obligation or condition originating in conscription. 
 It had hitherto been supposed that resistance to compulsory 
 military service arose from religious opinions about bearing 
 arms, but, as the workings of a Conscription Act revealed 
 themselves, the group of resisters holding such opinions 
 came to realize that the overthrow of conscription as a 
 system, rather than the refusal of a particular service it 
 imposed, must be their contribution to the wider struggle 
 against warfare. They then worked whole-heartedly in 
 co-operation with other resisters who opposed conscription 
 not so much for pacifist reasons as because it was an 
 illegitimate exercise of State power. This last opinion was 
 due to a belief that the State would never give proper regard 
 to the worth and happiness of its citizens in time of peace, 
 so long as it thought itself entitled to force them to die 
 and kill against their will in time of war. 
 
 Thus many objectors — though by no means agreed on 
 the arguments that originally led them to resist — ultimately 
 united in declining to examine the nature of the services 
 and concessions offered to them, and instead centred their 
 attention upon the overthrow of conscription itself. Con- 
 sequently the protest can be rightly claimed as a great 
 effort of citizenship, the object of which was service to the 
 community through the defeat of an evil system. In other 
 words, the struggle ranked itself with many of the great 
 rebel movements in history. Technically unconstitutional 
 perhaps, but far less so than tlibse which secured Magna 
 Charta or frustrated the claips of the Stuarts or drove 
 James II from the throne. Henceforth the outlaw con- 
 scientious objector, rejecting every compromise which 
 might have lessened his personal suffering, claimed that 
 his rebelHon was an act of citizenship. 
 
PBEFACE 17 
 
 The conclusion to be drawn from this experience is clear. 
 Any resistance that may be called for in the future should 
 be conducted from the outset as a direct struggle with 
 the whole system of conscription, and must be organized 
 upon the widest possible basis. Those who resist, as before, 
 because their religion bids them stand always for peace and 
 reject war, will realize that they should not rigidly confine 
 their co-operation to those whose opposition to conscription 
 arises from extreme pacifist opinions. Provided they endorse 
 the methods employed, they should co-operate with all 
 resisters whose sincerity is proved by wilhngness to suffer 
 for their opinions. Such objectors may be non-pacifist 
 Irishmen, believing in freedom of choice for their subject 
 nation, or Trade Unionists, foreseeing the development of 
 military into industrial conscription, or soldiers willing to 
 fight for Belgium but unwilling to fight in a capitaHst war 
 against Russia, or in bygone days they might have been 
 Americans in the Southern States unwilling to fight to 
 enforce slavery. Whatever be their views on these matters, 
 they will prefer to suffer penalties rather than be compelled 
 to do what they consider wrong. If we must retain the 
 term a " conscientious objector," it should mean that a 
 man proves himself to be such rather by his act of resistance 
 than by holding any particular creed about war. If he is 
 willing to suffer for his belief, he is a conscientious objector. 
 
 However great may be the difiiculties that must confront 
 those responsible for the conduct of so wide a movement, 
 I am confident that at any rate the experiment is the natural 
 outcome of past experience, and should be undertaken with 
 faith, tolerance and skill. Warnings as to its impractica- 
 bility have a curious resemblance to those uttered to us 
 six years ago, when the first limited resistance was decided 
 upon. 
 
 Opposition conducted on these lines will make it impossible 
 for any Government to solve the problem as heretofore 
 by administrative schemes. You can only work a Tribunal 
 system if the Tribunals have to deal with applicants who 
 can be examined and sorted, rejected and exempted, 
 according to their opinions on Pacifism and warfare. 
 They are unworkable, if they are faced by a mere bald 
 
 2 
 
18 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 assertion that the applicant entirely denies the right of 
 the State even to introduce conscription, and by a 
 refusal to acquiesce in any of its provisions. Nor can you 
 then settle the problem of the resister by offering him 
 various civil alternatives to military service, for he will meet 
 this offer each time by a complete denial of the right of 
 the State to impose military service or any of its alter- 
 natives under conscription. 
 
 Under such circumstances either you must exempt him 
 on the simple ground that he asserts that he objects to 
 conscription — in which case you seem to imperil the very 
 structure of your system by opening the door of exemption 
 too widely — or you must persecute him more vigorously 
 than ever and break his resistance. This latter is a question- 
 able method, because the resister has already proved himself 
 unmoved by persecution, and because it is likely that a 
 more intense persecution of a very much larger number 
 of opponents may arouse such hostility as to endanger the 
 \^ system it is meant to preserve. 
 
 It may seem that I have so far devoted too much atten- 
 tion to questions of strategy. I claim that such a careful 
 examination is due solely to an intense desire that we should 
 not betray the things of the spirit through carelessness 
 about the practical form of their expression. But not one 
 amongst us can look back upon those years of effort and 
 suffering without realizing how vainly we should have laid 
 our ingenious plans, and how short-lived would have been 
 our endurance, had we not been sustained by the larger hope 
 that the world would gain if we remained faithful. We dared 
 to call our service citizenship, and were glad when men failed 
 to distinguish between our religious and political beliefs. 
 
 The attempt to overthrow conscription by so direct a 
 challenge will almost certainly find support in the first 
 instance amongst British-speaking peoples, but I have little 
 doubt that, if it be conducted on the lines I am here advo- 
 cating, it will quickly repeat itself in other countries. I 
 beheve this, because a challenge of such a kind originates 
 in that attitude to the State and in those ideas of social 
 change which are hkely to prompt all progressive movements 
 during the next hundred years 
 
PREFACE 19 
 
 Indeed, it cannot be questioned that the adoption of 
 such a thoroughgoing negative pohcy of resistance, with the 
 various consequences that may follow, must depend for its 
 success and its chance of influencing public opinion upon 
 the extent to which it is founded upon a constructive social 
 philosophy. It is therefore important not only that we 
 should examine probable new methods of resistance, but 
 equally that we should measure the value of the ideas 
 that prompt such resistance. To do this effectively in the 
 space of a preface is difficult : a short summary must 
 therefore suffice, and for the moment I must be forgiven if 
 I seem to deal with arguments quite irrelevant to the 
 subject under discussion. To demonstrate the importance 
 of these opinions I must make a short digression, the 
 purpose of which will be quickly apparent. 
 
 It will be generally agreed that men employ to-day 
 a new criterion for deciding the value of the many schemes 
 of social change suggested by political parties or religious 
 bodies. We do not examine these proposals solely with a 
 view to their effect upon hours and wages, though these 
 considerations are undoubtedly important. We begin to 
 see that efforts of such a limited character would not effect 
 any very fundamental change in the structure of society. 
 Socialists, at any rate, are increasingly anxious to discover 
 programmes which may alleviate present distress, but also 
 lead directly to a complete change in the status of the worker. 
 The kind of questions to which answers are now sought 
 are. How can we discover a way of conducting society and 
 industry which will change the spiritual relationship of 
 men to each other ? Must there always be " masters and 
 men '* : must industry always be conducted by means of 
 employers who think only of private gain, and employed 
 who can only look upon their daily work as a method 
 of procuring wages, since they are denied all part in the 
 development of their trade or craft ? Must obedience always 
 be rendered to those who are self-appointed to control 
 industrial life, and who retain their position by virtue of 
 wealth, class or less reputable means ? Could there not 
 be industrial democracy as well as political democracy ? 
 Is it not desirable that all men and women should be 
 
20 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 conscious that they bear some responsibility in their daily 
 work ? Cannot free play be given to initiative ? Is not 
 human personality more important than conditions have 
 hitherto permitted, and, if so, ought we to tolerate either 
 the slavery of poverty or the slavery of the wage-earner 
 whose interest in his work is limited to the wage he extracts 
 from it ? 
 
 We are becoming aware of a conception of society in 
 which industries might be organized and developed by all 
 those engaged in them as a form of service to the community. 
 It is indisputable that men increasingly wish to order their 
 lives in such a way that the dignity and worth of the 
 individual worker shall not be utterly disregarded or his 
 personality ignored. We now wish to abolish poverty, not 
 so much because it causes suffering as because it is a 
 denial of human dignity, and hinders the growth of man's 
 free spirit. Incidentally we are also beginning to see that 
 it is only by such changes that we shall discover a new 
 road to commercial efficiency and prosperity out of the 
 strife and loss of the present social war. 
 
 Labour is now as anxious that men should be responsible 
 free citizens as that they should be granted minimum con- 
 ditions of life and comfort. 
 
 It is at this point that the conscientious objector takes 
 up the thread of the argument. He realizes that it is 
 one and the same social philosophy which has built the 
 wretched structure of poverty and wage-slavery in time of 
 peace, and demands the conscription of men's lives in 
 time of war. It is one and the same philosophy which 
 denies to the individual the right to be asked his opinion 
 in industrial affairs or the right to be consulted upon the 
 terrible responsibility of killing his neighbour or giving 
 his own life. Make him work, make him kill, make him die, 
 but don't make him important. Is it likely that we shall 
 easily secure minimum conditions of liveHhood if we cannot 
 secure the minimum of Hfe itself ? *' We hold these truths 
 to be self-evident . . . that all men are endowed by their 
 Creator with certain unalienable rights ; that among these 
 are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to 
 secure these rights, governments are instituted among 
 
PREFACE 21 
 
 men. ..." So ran the quaint old American Declaration 
 of Independence. It is the new vision of what men's status 
 and dignity should be in the daily life of peace that leads 
 the conscientious objector, for whom I am now speaking, 
 to stake everything on his demand that Governments shall 
 recognize the sanctity of human personality by " securing 
 the right of life *' at all times, even in war, and even if the 
 life of the State itself is in jeopardy. 
 
 This last assertion involves a complete reversal of the 
 view of the State that is generally adopted. But fortunately 
 this challenge to the place and function of the State 
 is not confined to the objector. The conception of the 
 all-powerful State is everywhere in question. Hitherto it 
 has been the most fundamental and elementary right of 
 the State to call upon all citizens to give their lives in its 
 defence : the individual life was not acknowledged as 
 a right to be " secured " : on the contrary, it was worth- 
 less compared with that of the State. It is easy to 
 see how such a view fitted in with a similar estimate 
 of the worthlessness of life, when capitalist mastery and 
 capitalist poverty needed to be sustained. All this is now 
 challenged. The issue of life and death must be deemed 
 ultra vires when we determine the power of the State, for 
 rather is it the business of the State to " secure " the " un- 
 alienable right " of life. And we insist upon this right, 
 because the recognition of men's worth in time of peace 
 depends upon it. As ''IE'* has written: "... if men think 
 lightly of death, they will think lightly of life." 
 
 I venture to emphasize this last statement, because 
 though I realize that this argument has a more direct 
 application to capitalist society, it is not without its rele- 
 vance to a Socialist Commonwealth. Poverty perhaps will be 
 absent, but will men necessarily be free ? From what I have 
 seen in Russia, with its military and industrial conscription, 
 I am led to doubt whether they will be so, unless the 
 validity of this claim on behalf of the individual as against 
 the State is first conceded. Therefore it is that I dread lest 
 these fundamental ideas should be overlooked when British 
 Labour is advised to adopt conscription for reasons of 
 temporary strategy against Capitalism. 
 
22 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 Do we, then, propose to attempt a final or absolute defi- 
 nition of the rights of the State ? On the contrary : the 
 only sane course is a constant revision of its power by the 
 gradual denial to it of some rights and the granting of others. 
 Of course it is to be expected that on each occasion when it 
 is challenged, the State, which derives its power from the 
 will of the majority, will make precisely the same claim to 
 divine right as did the State, which took the form of 
 monarchy under the Stuarts. And each time it will seek to 
 sustain itself by parading the bogey of anarchy if that 
 divine right be questioned. ^ But the resister will not flinch 
 from challenging that claim, if he is confident that his 
 challenge originates, not merely in a passionate love of 
 liberty, but equally in a constructive social philosophy of 
 the kind I have tried to describe. He will act the more 
 confidently because he will know that he denies this right 
 to the State for no vain reason. He will hope that by this 
 means he may help in creating a new statecraft, which will 
 bend its effort towards rebuilding a society whose citizens 
 will be no longer regarded as materials for the enrichment 
 of the prosperous few or the exalting of the State. He 
 would only attribute greatness to that nation whose citizens 
 can rightly claim creative service from each other in return 
 for the freedom they have been accorded. 
 
 It is in this redefining of the function of the State, with 
 the social reorganization involved, that the Socialist objector 
 finds unity with the religious pacifist. Amongst the multi- 
 tude of causes that lead to war there always figures this 
 exaltation of the State as an entity, distinct from its citizens, 
 and claiming the right to extend its grandeur at the expense 
 of its individual members. Conscription is the system which 
 crystallizes that philosophy. Men forget that the State 
 is only the ** political machinery of government," repre- 
 senting the power of whichever class is dominant in the 
 community. The philosophy of the conscriptionist has 
 helped to delude them into believing that history must 
 always record the eternal rise and fall of powerful States, 
 contesting with each other for safety, power and glory, 
 at the cost of the life-blood of their members. It is not 
 
 » See Harold J. Laski, *' Authority in the Modern State." 
 
PREFACE 23 
 
 for citizens such as these to concern themselves with the 
 causes or the policies that lead to war : sufficient that 
 they should rejoice in the privilege of dying for their 
 respective States. 
 
 The resister desires a new internationalism, by which 
 States are conceived of less as embodiments of power and 
 more as instruments of social administration. It should 
 be the business of States to co-ordinate the free service 
 of their citizens, and to compete in rivalry as to which can 
 make the finest contribution to the stock of the world's 
 happiness. In such a contest between the nations, each 
 would draw upon the special genius and wealth peculiar 
 to its race and nationality. 
 
 The pages that follow depict a struggle for these objects. 
 It was carried on by the resisters far too often in a spirit 
 of half-arrogant pride, not far removed from that militarism 
 they sought to overthrow. Of our friends, I would only 
 ask that they would let their imagination help them to 
 understand the strained and anxious psychology of young 
 men — potential conscripts — aggressively on their defence in 
 a world of enemies. Of our fellow-countrymen who once 
 hated us, I would only beg that they will believe us when 
 we say we acted as we did because we loved our country. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAOS 
 
 author's note II 
 
 PREFACE BY CLIFFORD ALLEN. . 13 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 INTRODUCTORY 29 
 
 I. The Atmosphere of War. 2. Conscience and PubUc Opinion 
 in 1916. 3, The Testimony against War. 4. A Divided 
 Ix)yalty. 5. Varieties in Testimony. 6. Common Basis of 
 Faith. 7. Social Implication of Testimony. 8. How Fear 
 Acted. 9. The Courage of the Conscientious Objector. 10, The 
 Nature of Conscience. 11. Arguments current in 1916. 
 Addendum : The Religion of a CO, : Dr. Salter. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE MILITARY SERVICE ACTS, I916 5 1 
 
 I. Conscription in Modern War. 2. Preparatory Steps. 3. The 
 Bill for the Unmarried and the Conscience Clause. 4. The 
 Debates upon it. 5. T. Edmund Harvey's Speech and others. 
 6. Mr. Herbert Samuel's Speech and others. 7. The Division. 
 8. The Third Reading. 9. In the House of Lords. 10. Indus- 
 trial Reaction of Conscription. 11. Was Compulsion worth 
 while ? The Manchester Guardian. 12. General Childs. 13. Pro- 
 tests by Labour. 14. Character of the Tribunals. 15. Mr. 
 Long's Circular of February 3, 1916. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK . . . . , ^ . . 68 
 
 I. The Task and the Men Employed. 2. Their lack of Uni- 
 formity. 3. Their coarseness and ignorance. 4. Their defiance 
 of the Law. 5. Published Protests by Mr. Snowden and others. 
 6. The Government gives way to popular opinion. 7. Arguments 
 before Tribunals. 8. Parliament on the Tribunals. 9. A 
 Circular from the Central Tribunal. 10. Circular by Mr. Long 
 on March 23, 1916. 11. Absolute Exemption generally barred. 
 12. Misguidance by the Central Tribunal. 13. Mr. Snowden 
 on Appeal Tribunals. 14. Absolutists' Statements. 15. Some 
 Personal Records. 16. Work of National Importance. 17. The 
 Pelham Committee. 18. Summary. Addendum : The Tribunal : 
 Miss Eva Gore-Booth. 
 
 25 
 
26 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 PAGB 
 
 THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 1 10 
 
 I. Introduction. 2. The Englishmen deported to France. 
 3. Howard C. Marten's MS. 4. The Deported New Zealanders. 
 
 5. A MiUtary Prison in France. 6. The Deported Canadians. 
 7. Other Deportations. 8. Brutalities at Home. 9. Cases of 
 Gray and Brightmore. 10. Case of C. H. Norman at Wands- 
 worth. II. The Government Intervene in England. 12. Bar- 
 barities in Egypt. 13. Treatment of Non-Combatant-Corps men. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE I55 
 
 I. The Society of Friends. — i. The Society's Testimony and 
 Activities. 2. The Friends* Ambulance Unit. 3. War Victims' 
 Relief and the Emergency Committee. 4. The Yearly Meeting 
 of 1915 and the Friends' Service Committee. 5. Registration. 
 
 6. The Special Conscription Yearly Meeting. 7. The Service 
 Committee prosecuted. 8. The Chaplains' Committee. 9. The 
 Peace Committee. 
 
 II. The N o-Conscripiion Fellowship. — 10. Its Foundation and 
 Scope. II. Its Organization. 12. The First Conference Chair- 
 man's address. 13. Alliance with Friends. 14. Its Activities. 
 15. The First Convention. 16. Prosecution of the N.C.F. 
 17. Clifford Allen in Prison. 18. Trial of Bertrand Russell. 
 19. Activities of D.O.R.A. 20. The Attempt to Suppress the 
 Tribunal. 21. Leaders from 191 7. 
 
 III. Other Organizations. — 22. The Fellowship of Reconciliation. 
 23. The National Council against Conscription. 24. The Alter- 
 native Service Guild. 25. The Relief Fund. 
 
 IV. In Parliament. — 26. Question Time in the House of Commons. 
 27. The I.L.P. 28. Summary. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 VARIETIES OF TESTIMONY 212 
 
 I. "Consistency." 2. Absolutists and Alternativists. 3. The 
 Absolutist Case and Replies. 4. The Case of Mr. Scott Duckers. 
 5. Alternativist Arguments. 6. Reply by the Tribunal. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE HOME OFFICE SCHEME 221 
 
 I. Introductory. 2. The Scheme of Alternative Service intro- 
 duced. 3. The Reply of the Persecuted. 4. Conditions of 
 Release. 5. The Scheme spoilt. 6. Dartmoor. 7. The Harms- 
 worth Stunt. 8. Other Home Office Centres. 9. The Wasteful- 
 ness of the Scheme. 10. Its Managers. 11. Its Punishments. 
 12. Its Restlessness. 13. Lynching at Knutsford and elsewhere. 
 14. Protests and Summary, 
 
CONTENTS 27 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PA<» 
 
 PRISON. I. TREATMENT 252 
 
 I. General Description. 2. The Cell. 3. Routine. 4. Letters 
 from Prison. 5. Cold and Ventilation in Prison. 6. Silence and 
 Solitude. 7. The Chaplain. 8. Friends' Meetings. 9. Punish- 
 ments. 10. Scotland. 11. The Doctor and the Diet. 12. 
 Broken Health. 13. Prison Periodicals. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 PRISON. II. DISCUSSIONS, CONCESSIONS AND RELEASE " . . 283 
 
 I. Minute of the Friends' Yearly Meeting. 2. Was there to be 
 an effort for release or relief ? 3. Work-striking. 4. Avoiding 
 arrest. 5. Government policy to the Prisoners. Repeated 
 Sentences. 6. Concessions under Public Protest. 7. The Wake- 
 field Experiment. 8. Increasing Strain. 9. Revolt at Wands- 
 worth. 10. Public Opinion organized. 11. Release. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 DEATHS 312 
 
 I. Walter Roberts. 2. Arthur Butler. 3. Arthur Horton. 
 4. Henry W. Firth. 5. Ernest England. 6. Bennett Wallis. 
 7. W. E. Burns. 8. Walter Bone. 9. Paul Leo Gillan. 10. List 
 of Deaths. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 FINAL 326 
 
 I. War Office Confession. 2. Continued Relief. 3. Disfranchise- 
 ment and Speech by Lord Hugh Cecil. 4. Concluding Convention 
 and Address by the Chairman. 5. Last Words. 
 
 STATISTICS 
 
 I. General Introduction, 2. Men Exempted. 3. Men Arrested. 
 4. Total Number of C.O.'s. 5. Analysis of arrested men. 
 6. Number of Absolutists and analysis of the figures. 
 
 APPENDIX 
 SUMMARY OF THE MOVEMENT ABROAD 353 
 
 I. Australia. 2. Austria. 3. Canada. 4. Germany. 5. Holland. 
 6. New Zealand. 7. Russia. 8. Scandinavia. 9. S>\itzerland. 
 10. United States. 
 
 AUTHORITIES 381 
 
 INDEX 383 
 
CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 1. To appreciate the story in this book the reader must 
 transport himself from the weary disillusionment of 1921 
 to the war-eager days of seven years ago. By this time 
 Europe knows alike its sufferings and its reward. There 
 is no military enthusiasm in the world to-day. But the 
 young resister under the first Conscription Act did not breathe 
 this atmosphere of disillusionment. 
 
 In 1916 the nation still beheved in the noble idealism 
 of the war. Brave young men filled our Army till it was 
 counted by millions ; hundreds of thousands had already 
 died. The need for victory was the deepest emotion of 
 the people. Nothing had yet come in to blur the glory 
 of the ideal. Lonely young men here and there who would 
 not enter the Army had to stand against the conviction and 
 the passion of a united nation. 
 
 2. The conscientious objectors knew nothing of all that 
 was to come. They seemed to hold aloof from the hard 
 and dangerous work of defending their country, as defending 
 it was then understood. The families of the soldiers who 
 had died very naturally felt this concerning them. The 
 protesters were called poltroons, and many a misgiving 
 must have crossed their own minds in their isolation. Most 
 of the bravest and best of their fellows had volunteered 
 for the greatest of crusades. The Derby recruiting scheme 
 had worked up an enthusiasm and a pubHc pressure which 
 drove before it the available men from factories and offices. 
 
 29 
 
30 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 Most of the clergy were preaching up the war as the cause 
 of the Lord against the mighty. 
 
 The young conscript had to have faith strong enough 
 to see beyond the pubKc feehng of the time, and to follow 
 his faith into practice, when he seemed to most people to 
 be merely a shirker in doing so. The women he knew 
 cut his acquaintance. His mother and his brothers often 
 jeered at him at home. He was chosen by his employer 
 to be dispensed with, and so left open to be punished for 
 his refusal to serve, without the business exemption he 
 might otherwise have had. 
 
 This was a test for the hardest kind of courage, in men 
 not sustained by habits of military discipline, not side by 
 side with equally brave fellows in the trenches, not drilled 
 into mechanical obedience, not honoured by everybody, at 
 any rate in words and at the moment. These young men 
 had nothing to rely upon but man's unconquerable mind and 
 whatever they could conceive of spiritual help in the Unseen. 
 " Shirker,*' " coward," '* dog," were the words they were 
 thought to deserve, when the Derby canvassers came to 
 their workshops or the employer interviewed them in the 
 office. It is marvellous that so many braved the blast. 
 
 The British public heard more about conscience during 
 the war than it ever heard before in our time, and it produced 
 extraordinarily diverse effects upon its mind, from reverent 
 sympathy to wild anger. During the war, I am afraid, all 
 pleas which were merely moral were too often discounted. 
 On a Sunday, in a debate which followed an address in the 
 open air in Manchester, one speaker said there was no such 
 thing as conscience, another that it was all rot, another 
 that it was a synonym for selfishness, another that it was 
 cowardly and a refuge for sliirkers. No one spoke of it 
 with reverence. The anonymous letters which reached me 
 told me with varying degrees of vituperation that conscien- 
 tious objectors were of the nature of vermin. From this 
 level of perception upwards there was avowed or tacit 
 consent to persecution for conscience* sake, and a general 
 scepticism, even in some religious circles, as to the men*s 
 genuineness. Even after this had been proved by the endur- 
 ance of long sentences, very few of those who found utterance 
 
INTRODUCTORY 81 
 
 seemed to think that any wrong step had been taken in 
 punishing them. 
 
 The fact is that the consciences of the few were up against 
 the instinct of self-preservation which accompanies every 
 war. Few people could even understand, much less sym- 
 pathize with, anyone to whom the immediate call of the 
 State was not supreme. 
 
 3. Let me try to explain the view of those who heard a 
 higher call in conflict with it. 
 
 Their whole souls were in revolt against war. War 
 means blind and wholesale death and maiming of innocent 
 men. It means the torture of wounded men lying in the 
 open, bleeding to death through hours of deadly thirst 
 and moaning pain. It means the foul stench of decaying 
 flesh of the living and of the dead ; the kindly cruel liftings 
 and cuttings ; it makes the maimed cripple, causes years 
 of blindness or of madness ; it means desolate homes, poverty, 
 and a fatherless generation growing to manhood. It means 
 lonely hves of women and the hopes of parents blasted. 
 To inflict these things upon the foe is the undisguised purpose 
 of both combatants. Then, nowadays, there is also the 
 murder of civiUans, men, women and children, in the cold 
 silence of the sea, or by bombs from the air in the night, 
 or by starvation through a naval blockade. 
 
 To destroy the garnered wealth of the world, to condemn 
 to toiling poverty an entire generation of mankind after 
 all is fought out, to ruin every lovely and cherished possession, 
 to put death and destruction everywhere for life and growth, 
 to baflie the march of beneficent evolution, to spoil all the 
 lovely work of the great Handicraftsman, the offspring 
 of the Father of Life, to slay the strongest and degrade the 
 race — this is the purpose and the method of war. 
 
 This evil end can only be achieved through a moral 
 suicide no less disastrous. In war hatred becomes a duty, 
 love ridiculous ; to win the war by the denial of every 
 spiritual faculty of man is thought to be the only possible 
 course. Falsehood has its place in the military handbooks 
 as a necessary weapon ; fraud and force combine. The 
 fellowship of mankind, the brotherhood of man under the 
 
82 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 fatherhood of God, is earnestly denied in word and deed. 
 People are always persuaded for military purposes that 
 the foes of the moment are incarnate devils. 
 
 In war every moral law, every habitual mental attitude 
 of civilized man, is reversed. In the world of conduct he 
 stands on his head ; everything usually driven below is at 
 the top and conspicuous. We labour generally to preserve 
 life, to nurture the weak, the aged, the child. We build 
 and sow and reap. We avoid lying, tricks and chicane. 
 We tr}^ to be pleasant to all ; to do good to all and to receive 
 good from all — to possess our souls in patience — to follow 
 the *' golden rule." We cherish our independence, are 
 miserable if we cannot choose our own actions, and determine 
 to remain responsible beings. In war all this is reversed. 
 Even in sexual indulgence, well-informed chaplains say 
 that the current idea of the soldiers was that, over in France, 
 there need be no restraint, and they believe that only a 
 rather small minority held to their home standard. 
 
 It can cause no surprise that the consciences of good men, 
 or even of ordinary sinners, should revolt against this hideous 
 organization of wickedness. But the nation was deceived 
 about the political facts ; it had been stimulated daily for 
 years to suspicion and fear by its favourite papers ; national 
 traditions were full of war. Further, the men who made 
 the war did not themselves have to suffer in it. In account- 
 ing for any war, this is a crucial consideration. About 
 a score of men in all Europe, with ambitions to serve, or 
 full of political hatreds, or fearing popular revolution, or 
 knowing no better, and with strong class interests behind 
 them, plunged the world into a war which, we are now 
 learning, was avoidable. 
 
 4. Then England called. Our pulses beat more rapidly ; 
 the temperature of our spirits rose to that of war-fever. 
 Even the sun's rays appeared less benignant, seemed to 
 call for the shedding of blood. Delusion blew in on every 
 breeze. People became afraid of shadows. Every German 
 was a possible spy. The herd instinct, the origin of our 
 patriotism, and in itself a glorious endowment, overcame 
 the quiet reason of times of peace. Young men were stimu- 
 
INTRODUCTORY 83 
 
 lated by the sight of uniforms, by the flaming pens of 
 journaUsts, by the germ from women's eyes, by elderly 
 approval. All this produced a sense of duty in most men 
 which, though in my view mistaken, must be understood 
 and respected hke any other honest conviction. Even if 
 perverted, the imperative of conscience must be obeyed. 
 The conscientious objector never failed to honour his comrades 
 in the Army. 
 
 In this atmosphere, then, isolated and despised, some 
 sixteen thousand young men are known to have refused 
 to join the Army because they felt it to be wrong to do so. 
 The reader will judge before the end whether the courses 
 into which our governors were driven show them to have 
 been rightly guided in the persecution. For in this region 
 also trees are known by their fruits. 
 
 The conscientious objectors thus came into an awkward 
 clash, and, for the present, an insoluble conflict, with a 
 Government which ordered compulsory military service. 
 Their patriotism was as real as that of other men ; but 
 their love of their own country did not mean hatred of other 
 countries ; they were willing to serve their land in all peaceful 
 ways under a voluntary system. By years of public work 
 in the past, and by more years in the future, they hoped 
 to be not unprofitable servants of the State, if they seemed 
 to do little at the moment. 
 
 They were asked if they were wiUing to let the Germans 
 come and do to England what they did in Belgium, and if 
 not, why they let themselves be protected by the sacrifice 
 of others. As a matter of fact the ambitions of Germany 
 were not in England, but in the Balkans and the Near East. 
 But I admit the awkwardness of the dilemma and the misfit 
 between the humanitarian ideal and the war situation. 
 You cannot, in fact, put a piece of new cloth on an old 
 garment, or new wine into old bottles. You cannot mend 
 a machine with a piece from an entirely different machine. 
 You cannot patch the Balance of Power with the Sermon 
 on the Mount, nor fill the ImperiaUsts and the exploiters of 
 mankind with the thought that the greatest among us is 
 he that serveth. You cannot expect a lover of his kind to 
 act in harmony with the European system of Emperors 
 
 8 
 
Si CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 and diplomats, war offices and spies. We must begin 
 further back — a long way further back — if we are to make 
 an environment to suit our ideal. 
 
 I do not blame a Government for acting as the vast 
 majority of the people desire. They cannot put new cloth on 
 to an old garment either. Nor do I for a moment blame — 
 nay, I honour, Quaker as I am — those men who volunteered 
 and suffered in their country's service. Nevertheless, no 
 one can expect us to provide a solution at the moment for 
 a situation which has been produced by policies contrary 
 to all our principles. 
 
 It may be replied, " That is all very well, and it does 
 not matter much, because you are so few, but how if you 
 became a large fraction of the nation ? Then we should 
 fail before the German arms." My reply is that then there 
 would have been no war. One cannot imagine one nation 
 mainly pacifist and the others military, among the Great 
 Powers, who have, in fact, a common civilization, and are 
 essentially of one culture. The nations move broadly 
 together. The only hope for the world is in this very kind 
 of conscientious feeling, and in the wide extension of 
 unflinching Peace principles. 
 
 5. It is not surprising that the ground taken by the 
 conscientious objectors was so varied as it turned out to be ; 
 for war itself includes a multitude of evils and attacks 
 consciences on many sides. The Christian objection, which 
 centred in the Society of Friends, was also represented in all 
 the religious bodies to a small extent ; though only by a 
 tiny minority in each. The Christadelphians, the Plymouth 
 Brethren, and some smaller sects, found war inconsistent 
 with their Bibles, and held aloof from actual slaughter, 
 but accepted service in the Army which did not directly 
 involve killing anyone. The clergy generally, by preaching 
 and working for the war, must bear their share of the evil 
 of the war spirit, so slow, even now, to be exorcised, and so 
 ruinous. What has become of the great claim of the Christian 
 Church and of the unique service which it should render 
 for Christ in the world ? 
 
 The religious objection was in many men based on the 
 
INTRODUCTORY 35 
 
 voice of God in the Soul — the mystic's authority. In others 
 it was purely Christian, derived from the plain words of 
 Jesus. Some Christians took Tolstoy's objection to all 
 force, others were supporters of the police. 
 
 Numerically, the larger part of the ultimate resistance 
 came from Socialists. Some took the humanitarian stand- 
 point, not in essentials different from the Christian objection ; 
 others were mainly out against Capitalism. Many advocated 
 a Socialist philosophy based upon a new conception of the 
 relation of the State to the individual citizen. Some would 
 not help a militarism which was the means of exploitation. 
 Some of these would have been willing to take up arms in a 
 violent revolution, others declined any such methods anywhere. 
 
 For the young Quaker it was not so difficult as for the 
 others. Tradition and f amity influence, at any rate, he 
 generally had on his side. It was expected of him that he 
 would resist military service as his fathers had done. The 
 Society offlcially and zealously supported him. Neverthe- 
 less, even to him, the sudden duty of realizing his principles 
 came as a challenge and a problem. Tradition was not 
 enough to give the strength now demanded. Every act 
 had to be thought out afresh, every principle checked, and 
 the right path was often far from obvious : it meant a fresh 
 valuation of spiritual things. 
 
 To some the questioning was long and never fully satisfied ; 
 many who enlisted were harassed by recurring doubts, 
 many who stood aside remained uncertain and confused. 
 Was their objection a traditional scruple or a living voice 
 from Heaven ? Fortunate were those who saw from the 
 first a clearly shining light upon their individual duty. 
 Happy especially were those whose famihes and friends 
 shared or respected their convictions. 
 
 Many and various, then, were the origins and upbringing 
 of the men who banded themselves together to resist con- 
 scription, and many and various in consequence their beliefs — 
 religious, moral and political. Yet, beneath the individual 
 forms of thought and phrasing there was a fundamental 
 faith. It was a common conviction among those who stood 
 together in the struggle which enabled them to form 
 so close a fellowship. 
 
36 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 6. The common basis of their fellowship was the beHef 
 in the sacredness of human life as the vehicle of personality. 
 They could not assume the responsibility of taking the hfe 
 of a fellow-man or of uniting themselves to an organization 
 which was deliberately designed for the destruction of human 
 beings. And here in military conscription they saw a 
 measure which thrust that momentous undertaking as a 
 binding obligation on the thoughtless or reluctant lads 
 and men who came within its scope. They had never 
 attempted to discourage those who had freely followed 
 what they felt to be the line of duty and had joined the 
 forces ; but they could have no part in imposing, by com- 
 pulsion, upon others what they themselves felt to be wrong. 
 Their faith was rooted in a sense of the sacred worth of 
 human personality, uniting all mankind in an inviolable 
 brotherhood, transcending all frontiers and barriers, all 
 artificial divisions of fellow-countryman and alien, ally and 
 enemy. In all human beings of whatever colour or nation- 
 ality or class, there is a universal life, a quality which makes 
 them one beneath all differences. It has many names — the 
 Inner Light, the Undying Fire, the Christ Within, the Spirit 
 of Humanity. It is the hope of the world. It demands 
 our reverence, the reverence that comes to him who, as 
 Bertrand Russell wrote, " feels in all that lives, but especially 
 in human beings, and most of all in children, something 
 sacred, indefinable, unlimited, something individual and 
 strangely precious, the growing principle of life, an embodied 
 fragment of the dumb striving of the world." " Proximus 
 est omni homini omnis homo*' said St. Augustine, defining 
 the answer of Jesus to the question, " Who is my neighbour ? '* 
 — " The neighbour of every man is every other man." 
 There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither German nor English, 
 there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor 
 female ; beyond these differences of race and class and sex 
 we are all one. To deny this common spirit is the essential 
 atheism, to quench it in ourselves or others the sin against 
 the Holy Ghost. 
 
 This was the central message of Jesus. He showed 
 to men the value of the human soul as the abiding-place 
 of God. No one was excluded from those for whom Christ 
 
INTRODUCTORY 87 
 
 died. There was not a man or woman in the world whom 
 He would not count His brother or His sister. *' The great 
 believer in man," He has been called. Sir John Seeley 
 truly summed up the essence of Christianity as " the 
 Enthusiasm of Humanity.'* Jesus Himself was the friend 
 and comrade of everyone; He sought and enjoyed the com- 
 pany of outcasts and outsiders, of publicans and sinners, 
 profiteers and prostitutes, top-dogs and bottom-dogs, men 
 and women who were unpopular and disreputable and 
 declasses. He was the friend of Roman soldiers and of 
 Jewish Zealots, (the Sinn Feiners of the time) as well as of 
 Samaritan enemy aliens 
 
 But men make distinctions and preferences. We divide 
 and classify our fellows, and apportion accordingly praise 
 or censure, rewards or punishments, affection or contempt. 
 When we have found the label or the epithet — " Hun " or 
 *' profiteer " or " criminal " — we act accordingly, with the 
 appropriate welcome to our circle or dismissal from the 
 pale. But we miss the man in men. Half the cruelty and 
 injustice in the world arises from our fatal habit of seeing 
 people as " cases," or in " classes," and dealing with them 
 in batches according to some prescribed and ill-adjusted 
 code. But the great souls who have come nearest to the 
 spirit of Jesus have been men who have discarded all these 
 labels, who have been " little brothers " and have made no 
 claim to anything but love. An outstanding example to-day 
 is Eugene Debs, the American Socialist who has spent 
 three years in prison for his faith. " Your Honour," he 
 said, addressing the Judge at his trial, *' years ago I came 
 to the conviction that I was not one whit superior to any- 
 one on earth. And I said then as I say now, that while 
 there is a lower class I am in it, while there is a criminal 
 class I am of it, while there is a soul in prison I am not 
 free." 
 
 That is Christ's spirit of universal fellowship and identifica- 
 tion with suffering humanity. Most men have only known 
 occasional glimpses of it. Nevertheless to many of the 
 resisters it has become confirmed as a faith since they were 
 thrown among the outcasts of society in their imprisonment. 
 They have lived on a footing of equahty with the frequenters 
 
38 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 of lock-ups, and they have found good fellowship with 
 hardened gaolbirds. 
 
 After his first imprisonment one C. O. remembers having 
 a sudden vision of the two thieves who were crucified with 
 Jesus. He says he had seldom thought of them before. 
 " We do not often think of their crucifixion. But I am 
 convinced that we do not think of them nor of their kind 
 enough. For this is what it comes to. As long as we have 
 a gallows outside our Jerusalems so long Jesus will be 
 crucified. It is because we treat criminals like that, that 
 we treat saviours as we do. So long as we have slums, 
 workhouses and prisons, so long Jesus will be crucified." 
 
 7. For it is not only war that violates this universal 
 brotherhood, it is every form of " man's inhumanity to 
 man," every kind of exploitation of the lives and personalities 
 of others, every degree of degradation that our social and 
 industrial conditions mean for men, women and children. 
 That is why these conscientious objectors were not content 
 with a merely negative protest against war. They had a 
 positive faith in the light of which our social relationships 
 also must be made such that everywhere " human life may 
 become of more account." 
 
 All men remember to-day those who will never return, 
 homes where there are lonely hearts. That is war. Some 
 too think of homes where the simple joys of life are shut out 
 by anxiety and want, unemployment, and the spectres of 
 famine and death. That is poverty. We see the tragedy 
 of lives that are spent from first to last in the often futile 
 pursuit of a mere livelihood, and of other lives rich in all 
 that wealth can give but poor in everything else, because 
 empty of meaning and interest. And seeing this, we set 
 ourselves to change it, to make sure that men and women 
 shall not grow old and tired of life before they have begun 
 to live. We plan a new society, a new world ; some of us 
 call it the Kingdom of God, and others the Co-operative 
 Commonwealth. But it is the social expression of Pacifism, 
 for Peace is no mere negative of war, but a splendid positive 
 ideal of active life and co-operative endeavour of which 
 war and all the things that make for war are the denial. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 39 
 
 The conscience of a pacifist gains a wider meaning in 
 the hght of considerations Hke these. It is no merely 
 individuahstic concern for a man's own purity or the salva* 
 tion of his own soul, but a compulsion to champion a truth 
 that seems to him vital to the soul of the nation and of 
 mankind. To stand by such a truth so far as he sees it is 
 a binding duty, and the only line of truly patriotic conduct. 
 To betray it is to be false to one's self, one's nation, and 
 humanity. To postpone acting upon it until others see 
 it or until he has the support of numbers and a powerful 
 organization is surely a temptation. All great advances 
 in human history have been made possible because individual 
 men and women have acted on what they believe to be true 
 whether it was popular or unpopular, whether it was safe 
 or perilous, and most often when it was both unpopular and 
 perilous. To-day's great causes call for the same faithfulness. 
 Disarmament will come about when a suihcient number of 
 people refuse any longer to bear arms, to manufacture arma- 
 ments, or to ask for armed protection. And Peace — the 
 positive realization of human fellowship and co-operation — 
 will be achieved in so far as we attempt in all things to 
 live in the spirit of universal love. 
 
 8. There must have been a few men whose objection 
 to service in the Army was based, not on such principles as 
 these, but on fear. Conscription was the greatest tragedy 
 of all in their case. On the other hand, it was common 
 to meet during these decisive months the man who dared 
 not follow conviction and be a CO. (as the conscientious 
 objectors came to be generally called in this age of initials) i 
 Many made no secret about it. But for the claims of their 
 wives and children, or their mothers, many men, often in 
 businesses dependent upon them, have said openly that 
 they would have gone to prison with the stalwarts. Others 
 could not resist the scorn or the entreaties of their wives 
 or families. I knew intimately a case where a mother's 
 influence saved her son for the Army. One of the gentlest 
 of my friends in gaol had a young wife who did not come 
 to see him, but wrote letters of reproach and selfish complaint 
 instead. *' Stick it out, mate I " soldiers in the camps would 
 
40 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 say to the CO., whose courage they admired. Many were 
 the admissions by the more thoughtful officers that these 
 were truly brave men. Clifford Allen's cell in the detention 
 barracks was decorated with wild flowers gathered by his 
 soldier guards, who also lent him their own pillows for his 
 plank bed. 
 
 To those of us who knew the sufferers close at hand 
 and bore their reproach with them the statement of these 
 general considerations is not necessary. One could not 
 know the men without respecting their courage. The 
 gentle Christian, the defiant Marxist, both rang true. 
 
 9. But, in fact, the alternative on which these men 
 chose prison was, in only few cases, actual fighting service. 
 Most of them had been admitted as genuine, and had been 
 offered and declined non-combatant military service, or had 
 declined " work of national importance,'* or, after the 
 Home Office scheme was begun, had declined that. Only 
 those few who had been wholly rejected from the beginning 
 by their Tribunals and again rejected by the Central Tribunal 
 had been left to the choice of Army or prison. Any shirker 
 who may have put in a claim would, if refused, be likely to 
 drop out and join the Army. If accepted as genuine, he 
 would choose the softest option. I venture to state my firm 
 belief that not one mere shirker was to be found in the prisons. 
 Among the hundreds of men whom I saw preparatory to 
 their claim at their first Tribunal, who came for advice and 
 guidance, not more than two or three after intimate talk 
 excited my suspicion of their honour. A friend of mine 
 in the Home Office settlement on Dartmoor told me that 
 among the many hundreds there he thought that two or 
 three were merely shirking. Not all the men who started 
 finished the race, faithful to the end. But a surprisingly 
 small number gave in. About 4 per cent, are known to 
 have done so, or to have been willing to leave prison to 
 join the Friends* Ambulance Unit. The latter course would 
 mean either compromise or a change of view, in an Absolutist.'^ 
 By other men it would be quite a right course. The few men 
 who, often with deep unhappiness and loss of self-respect, 
 * This term is explained in Chapter VI, 
 
INTRODUCTORY 41 
 
 finally gave in, did it, in the cases I know, for the sake of 
 their wives and children, left to the resources of charity. 
 The courage and insight which held the thousands faithful 
 will always remain memorable. Failure of moral strength 
 in face of the enemy was punished by death or terrible condi- 
 tions of imprisonment. The purpose of Army discipline is 
 to provide this greater fear to cast out fear. The lonely 
 *' shirker " in prison had no such deterrent ; everything 
 that prison could do was done, to weaken his morale, depress 
 his personality, lower his vitality and enslave his will. 
 Against all the miseries of the dreadful quinquennium 1914- 
 1919, the steadfast courage of the persecuted pacifists, like 
 the heroism of the troops, is a glowing point, and strengthens 
 our hope for humanity. 
 
 Professor Peake, in his honest and courageous book. 
 Prisoners of Hope, writes, on pp. 97-8 : — 
 
 *' Yet I do not hesitate to say that, had I to choose 
 between the lot of the soldier and that of those for whom 
 I am pleading, I should select the former. For then I should 
 be swimming with the stream, sustained not only by inward 
 conviction, but by universal applause. The sense that I 
 was in a great and mighty movement, striking my hardest 
 for freedom and for right, would uplift me. But, choosing 
 the other, though with the approval of my conscience, I 
 should be pulling against a raging torrent of popular opinion, 
 branded as a coward, my conduct explained by the meanest, 
 most contemptible motives, my name cast out with scorn 
 by the servants of that Master whose will I was, in this refusal 
 of military service, seeking to do." 
 
 The late Mrs. Hobhouse in her powerful and influential 
 book, / Appeal unto Ccesar, writes : — 
 
 *' I answer, as the mother of sons in France, who are 
 daily risking their lives, subjected to the horrors and dis- 
 comforts of the trenches, that I feel less distress at their 
 fate, fighting as they are their country's battles, with the 
 approval of their fellows, than I do for that other son under- 
 going for his faith a disgraceful sentence in a felon's cell, 
 truly ' despised and rejected of men.' " 
 
42 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 10. The great diversity of the conclusions reached by 
 the consciences of the rebels against conscription would 
 be enough to show, if any showing were needed, that con- 
 science, though uttering an absolute imperative for each 
 man is no uniform or infallible guide. Indeed, it may be 
 held, and I naturally hold, that those who went into the 
 war under a sense of duty were mistaken. This did not 
 make them the less brave. But by most good men who 
 thought on the issue a decision was reached in for o conscienticB 
 to support the war. Considering what an abomination war 
 is, it is this, not the conscientious objection to it, which 
 demands explanation. 
 
 Since compulsion of conscience is essentially an attack 
 upon the soul, and persecution an attempt to coerce the 
 soul through the pains of the body and of the mind, one 
 would have supposed that religion, which is an activity 
 of the soul, would have been the last region of human affairs 
 in which to find persecution. But, instead, as we know, it 
 has been its chief centre. This fact brings out with aston- 
 ishing clearness the great difference between religion and 
 religions, between the inward life and organized Churches, 
 between the religion of the spirit and the religions of authority. 
 These have always persecuted ; and yet how utterly futile 
 such an attempt must be from the beginning. You cannot 
 make a man a Catholic or a Protestant by persecution, for 
 religion is an inward faith. You can only make him pretend 
 to be such. Persecution for conscience' sake is a direct 
 tyranny of the material over the spiritual. 
 
 Conscience is the faculty by which we discriminate between 
 right and wrong in conduct, as taste is the faculty by which 
 we discriminate the wholesome from the poisonous in food, 
 and the eye is the organ by which we discriminate light 
 from darkness around us. To deny its authority is therefore 
 to deprive a man of his moral personality. Obedience to 
 conscience is a man's only chance of self-respect or well- 
 being. To deny it is to commit moral suicide, to move 
 towards utter degradation. 
 
 Recurring to the metaphor of conscience as the eye of 
 the soul, we cannot forget that " If the light that is in thee 
 be darkness, how great is that darkness," 
 
INTRODUCTORY 48 
 
 There is no infallibility anywhere on the earth, for 
 everything is the product of human faculty, and human 
 faculty is a developing thing, never perfect, always growing 
 better or worse. Though the dicta of conscience are absolute 
 for the individual, they are absolute for him alone. By 
 his own conscience each man must stand or fall. Doubtless 
 the mirror, as Ruskin calls it, into which we look and see 
 God, is cracked and bent, but it is all we have, and our duty 
 is to make the best of it. There is no other light given to 
 men. Every authority which asserts sway is only accepted 
 by its devotees at their own choice, and under such light 
 as they have. 
 
 What we have of conscience is the result of previous 
 visitations of divine grace, and of the previous training 
 that we have given our souls. To speak completely, we must 
 add that it is the result of what our forefathers also have 
 received and of the strife of their souls. Our business is to 
 keep up the heavenly nourishment and the inward discipline. 
 Conscience may be likened to the accumulated limestone 
 stalactite in the cavern, which results from the perpetual 
 dripping of the laden water from the roof, leaving its deposit 
 on the aspiring stalagmite below. This need not be sym- 
 metrical, for it may have been built up upon a queer-shaped 
 rock. All that we ask is that the laden water shall still 
 flow and the stalactite shall grow larger. 
 
 Sir George Adam Smith, at his Inaugural Address as 
 Moderator at the United Free Church Assembly for 1916, 
 said : — 
 
 "To ' conscientious objectors ' who appealed to the 
 words or to the example of the Lord it might be as conscien- 
 tiously, and far more reasonably, replied that the doctrines 
 of non-resistance or of political peace at any price found no 
 sanction in the Gospels. To put peace before justice, before 
 the redemption of the slave, before the deliverance of the 
 tortured, and the defence of the purity of women and of 
 children, was to turn Christianity upside down." 
 
 This may be taken as a type of the kind of response which 
 was made to the resistance herein described, by ecclesiastical 
 authorities. 
 
44 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 I have always held personally that the doctrine of non- 
 resistance was untenable as an absolute law, and unsatisfactory 
 as a Christian principle on account of its negative character. 
 It is difficult for any thinking person to maintain that 
 there are not cases in life in which force ought to be 
 used. Nor is " peace at any price " a correct statement of 
 our position. There is in morality no protective tariff ; 
 there is no moral duty, however clear or high, which is not, 
 in the clash of competing motives, weighed and compared 
 with other duties. What is right and wrong cannot be 
 settled by generalities, but always has to be worked out in 
 detail. This is because moral quality does not inhere in 
 an act itself alone, but in the doing of the act by a person. 
 It is the doer who is right or wrong, not what he does. This 
 is a far-reaching consideration. 
 
 The rest of the Moderator's comparisons are equally 
 beside the point in practice. The false antithesis between 
 peace and righteousness was very common during the war. 
 Translated into practice it presumably means that where 
 your side is wholly in the right, and the other people wholly 
 wicked in their purpose, you ought to go to war to stop 
 that purpose. The great European war cannot be described 
 so simply as that. Unscrupulous, overbearing and ambitious 
 as Germany has shown herself to be, and full, as she has 
 been, of the military spirit, it is impossible for an honest 
 enquirer in face of the facts now known, to conclude that 
 all the blame for the European rivalry is to be laid at her 
 door. I It is rather to be put down to the hopeless chaos 
 of international relations in Europe, to mutual fear and 
 suspicion on all sides, and to the unrestrained desire to 
 possess the land and the labour of weak peoples, of which 
 no country can accuse any other of being uniquely or 
 exceptionally guilty. 
 
 With regard to liberty and to the security of women and 
 children ; — war is the great cause of the destruction of these 
 things on a wholesale scale. How can we imagine that a 
 higher morality will ever come as the upshot of any war ? 
 
 » See How the War Came, by Earl Loreburn ; Diplomacy Revealed, by 
 E. D. Morel; issues of Foreign Affairs, March to July, 1921 ; books of auto- 
 biography by Lord Fisher, Wilfred S. Blunt, Bethmann Hollweg, and others ; 
 How We went into the War, by Irene Cooper Willis. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 45 
 
 Even if you slay a number of the fellow-countrymen of 
 the criminals, you have no certainty that you have either 
 prevented the crimes or checked their continuance. 
 
 But we are driven to a further query. Do we substitute 
 justice for injustice, righteousness for unrighteousness, 
 by the methods of war ? We let loose a torrential flood of 
 unrighteousness in the process ; and no one can say, judging 
 from the past, that the terms of peace by which wars have 
 been concluded have been in themselves more just, or have 
 led to more future justice, than the circumstances under 
 which the wars were begun. It has generally been a trans- 
 ference of power, not a moral purification, which has closed 
 hostilities. 
 
 Holding, then, these convictions, the young men with 
 whose story this book is concerned approached their time 
 of trial. 
 
 ADDENDUM TO CHAPTER I 
 
 The following article, by Dr. Alfred Salter of Bermondsey, 
 appeared in the Labour Leader a few weeks after war broke 
 out. It represents the response of the thorough-going 
 Christian to the war, and long before conscription came it 
 acted as the standard to which many Christians set them- 
 selves to conform. It was one of the formative utterances 
 of this critical epoch. Hubert W. Peet tells us that by 
 various agencies one and a half million copies were distributed 
 in this country. He says it was translated into most European 
 languages and into Chinese. There is definite knowledge 
 that over eighty persons were sent to prison, one for ten 
 years, for distributing it in Australia, New Zealand, America 
 and South Africa. 
 
 The more purely humanitarian statement of the testimony, 
 apart from consciously Christian influence, which inspired 
 so large a portion of the body of protest, is well put in the 
 Preface and in Clifford Allen's Presidential Address to the 
 
46 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 first N.C.F. Conference, for which see Chapter V. Dr. Salter's 
 article is as follows : — 
 
 "The Religion of a CO." 
 
 '* Behind all human actions and motives there is a 
 philosophy or creed, and behind all actions and motives 
 that affect us deeply there is a religion. What a man thinks 
 or does at times like these depends on what his religion is. 
 Every man has a religion, though he may not know it. 
 
 There are only two main religions in the world, though 
 each of them has many forms : — (i) The religion which 
 trusts in the power and ultimate triumph of material forces 
 — faith in materialism. (2) The religion which trusts in 
 the power and ultimate triumph of spiritual forces — faith 
 in God. 
 
 The materialist Religion believes in the big battalions, 
 the millions of armed men, the weight of battleships, the 
 superiority of artillery, the efficiency of organization, the 
 adequacy of food supplies, the stability of financial resources. 
 Count up your ships and your men, your horses and your 
 chariots, your money and your allies, and put your trust 
 in them. The scene in which you have now to act is one 
 in which God does not count. Force alone matters. That 
 is the gospel of Materialism, which, for the time being, seems 
 to be the accepted doctrine of Europe; and the doctrine 
 which is being preached from nearly every pulpit in England. 
 
 The other religion is the simple faith that the only thing 
 that matters is the doing of God's will ; that whatever 
 happens or threatens, the last word is with Him. For the 
 man who believes in God there is only one sure means of 
 defence, one true line of safety, one clear path of duty — obedi- 
 ence to God's command. The position in which we may 
 be placed may be a difficult one, the combat may seem very 
 unequal — one weak voice against a roaring mob, a few 
 unarmed visionaries against the bristling battalions of the 
 State, a group of obscure nobodies against all the weight and 
 splendour and authority of an Empire. But this religion 
 teaches that the cause of right wins in the long run in spite 
 of odds against it, in spite of temporary defeat, in spite even 
 
INTRODUCTORY 47 
 
 of apparent annihilation. This religion believes that Truth, 
 ignored, martyred, crushed it may be for the time, will 
 emerge triumphant when the glory and pomp and power 
 of Empire are vanished and forgotten. Assyria, Babylon, 
 Egypt, Persia, Rome, Spain, were all mighty world-powers 
 that conquered by relying on material force. By each of 
 these in turn the claims of love, of mercy, of brotherhood, 
 of the sanctity of human life, were treated with scorn as 
 contemptible weaknesses, and the advocates of such claims 
 were suppressed or laughed out of court. All these military 
 Empires in their day and generation were omnipotent. 
 Nothing could stand against them. All have perished and 
 gone — but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. 
 
 In considering our duty as citizens and politicians, then, 
 our actions are really determined by our religion. 
 
 My religion is the Christian Religion. I may misunder- 
 stand it, but I must speak as I have been given light. If 
 in my bottommost heart I want to know what I should do 
 under any given circumstances, I must ask myself what 
 is God's command on the subject, and what would Christ 
 do in my place. In the matter of this war I must try and 
 picture to myself Christ as an Englishman, with England 
 at war with Germany. The Germans have overrun France 
 and Belgium, and may possibly invade England by airship 
 and drop bombs on London. What am I to do ? Am I 
 to answer the Prime Minister's call, make myself proficient 
 in arms, and hurry to the Continent to beat the Germans 
 off? 
 
 Look ! Christ in khaki, out in France thrusting His 
 bayonet into the body of a German workman. See ! The 
 Son of God with a machine gun, ambushing a column of 
 German infantry, catching them unawares in a lane and 
 mowing them down in their helplessness. Hark ! The 
 Man of Sorrows in a cavalry charge, cutting, hacking, 
 thrusting, crushing, cheering. No ! No ! That picture 
 is an impossible one, and we all know it. 
 
 That settles the matter for me. I cannot uphold the 
 war, even on its supposedly defensive side, and I cannot, 
 therefore, advise anyone else to enlist or to take part in what 
 I believe to be wrong and wicked for myself. A country, 
 
48 CONSCBIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 as an individual, must be prepared to follow Christ if it is 
 to claim the title of Christian. 
 
 There is a great place waiting in history for the first 
 nation that will dare to save its life by losing it that will 
 dare to base its national existence on righteous dealing, 
 and not on force, that will found its conduct on the truths 
 of primitive Christianity, and not on the power of its army 
 and navy. And there is a great place waiting in history 
 for the first political party that will dare to take the same 
 stand and will dare to advocate the Christian policy of 
 complete disarmament and non-resistance to alien force. 
 No nation and no political party (and for that matter no 
 Church either) is at present prepared to do that, although 
 they all, more or less, profess to be Christian. The inference 
 is irresistible that the nations of Christendom, the orthodox 
 political parties, and the organized Churches believe in the 
 Religion of Materialism, and not in God. 
 
 For myself, I can see no logical or practical half-way 
 house between the policy of being always anti-war (anti- 
 e very- war, including this war), a policy based on the teaching 
 of Christ, and the policy of Lord Roberts, Lord Charles 
 Beresford, Leo Maxse, and General Bernhardi, based frankly 
 on material self-interest. The latter policy requires the 
 keeping always ready of the maximum possible army and 
 the maximum possible navy, equipped with the maximum 
 possible efficiency. If we are to rely on force at all, then 
 we ought clearly to see to it that we have a greater force 
 on our side than our enemies can put forward. If it is right 
 to defend one's country by taking part in war at any time, 
 it is right and wise and necessary to begin the defence 
 when it can be begun with real hope of success, not at the 
 last moment. If it is right to recruit now for national 
 defence against Germany, then we ought to have listened 
 to Lord Roberts and the others and have had our million 
 men, armed and trained, ready before the crisis arrived. 
 We ought to have had their equipment, barracks, officers, 
 and so on in being now, instead of hurriedly improvising a 
 scratch army at the fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh 
 hour. If the defence is right now, the Radicals, the Labour 
 Party and the Socialists have been wrong all along in 
 
INTRODUCTORY 49 
 
 opposing increased armaments and general military service. 
 When this war is over the Roberts-Beresford-Blatchford 
 party will demand, and consistently demand, that we should 
 immediately commence to arm as never before in order to 
 protect ourselves against the next war. That is the obvious 
 logic and worldly wisdom of the situation, if you admit 
 the use of force at all. 
 
 But I do not base my position on logic or worldly wisdom. 
 I base it simply on the command of God and the teaching 
 of Christ. Christ's teaching applies as much to defensive 
 as offensive wars ; in fact. His precepts are directed mainly 
 to the method of defence. ** Render not evil for evil," 
 " Overcome evil with good," *' Love your enemies," *' Unto 
 him that smiteth you on the one cheek, . . ." are commands 
 which imply antecedent offence on the part of the enemy 
 and specify the method of defence on the part of the Christian. 
 To the great majority of the people all this sounds utter 
 foolishness in face of the present situation, but the divine 
 sense has always been hidden from the wise and prudent, 
 and has only been revealed to the babes of simple faith and 
 childlike heart. 
 
 Whatever is right is best. That is the first axiom of 
 faith in God. Best now and best hereafter, best from 
 the point of view of expediency and tactics as well as best 
 from the point of view of ultimate results, if only we could 
 see far enough and clearly enough. If " Thou shall not kill " 
 is right, it is also best, both for individuals and the nation. 
 Because I believe in the final reign and triumph of right, 
 whatever happens, I believe that all killing is murder and 
 is wrong, even in defensive wars, so called, and I will not 
 stain my conscience with blood by going to war myself or 
 by urging anyone else to go. 
 
 What is the result of such a policy ? If I refuse to fight 
 or support measures of defence, then I may get shot by the 
 enemy as an act of war or I may be shot by the authorities 
 of my own State as guilty of treason. Very well. I say 
 deliberately that I am prepared to be shot rather than kill 
 a German peasant with whom I have no conceivable quarrel. 
 I will do nothing to kill a foe, directly or indirectly, by my 
 own hand or by proxy. So help me, God. Never. 
 
 4 
 
50 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 If the Socialists of Germany had felt able to take this 
 line, there would have been no European war. Many of 
 them would, doubtless, have been executed by the Kaiser, 
 but there would have been no war, for over two-fifths of 
 the German Army consists of Socialists. I believe that 
 such an action would not only have made war impossible, 
 but would have meant the speedy triumph of Socialism 
 in Germany, instead of its indefinite postponement. But 
 the German Socialists were not able to take such a line 
 because of their religion. They hold the materialistic faith. 
 To-day Socialists are stabbing one another as eagerly as 
 the nominal Christians — for the same reason. 
 
 We are told that Germany is arrogant, brutal, overbearing 
 and tyrannical, threatening Europe with the menace of 
 Militarism, and that this war will free the whole world from 
 this menace. You will not redeem the world from the tyranny 
 of force by employing force, you will only enthrone force 
 in another place. You will not eliminate Militarism from 
 Europe by opposing to German MiHtarism a superior British- 
 French- Russian Mihtarism. You will simply establish 
 Militarism securely in England. You cannot cast out 
 Beelzebub by calling on the name of Beelzebub. 
 
 You only will overcome force by love. (A silly, sloppy 
 sentiment, you say ! ) You will only overcome arrogance 
 by humility. You will only conquer brutality by kindliness. 
 You will only supersede Militarism by developing in the 
 hearts of all peoples the spirit of brotherhood and forbearance ; 
 war does not do that. This war will not do that. It will 
 leave instead a bitter heritage of hate to bear more fruit 
 in due season. 
 
 Friends, the only path of safety, of sanity, of salvation, 
 is faith in God ! Believe and obey. Do His will and take the 
 consequences. Be sure that those consequences will be the 
 best for you and for the world. He that would save his 
 life shall certainly lose it, but ' he that will lose his life for 
 My sake shall save it.' " 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE MILITARY SERVICE ACTS, 1916 
 
 I. It must have been known all along to the military that 
 they would not attempt to wage a vast land war without 
 conscription. Indeed, we have been told by one of them 
 that the attaches in the British Embassy at Paris hailed 
 the war with delight as making the longed-for conscription 
 inevitable. But no such word was breathed to damp the 
 enthusiasm of 1914. The British people hated the name 
 and the thing. It was to them the very symbol of tyranny, 
 a device by which the Government of France had broken 
 strikes, an enslavement, and an opportunity for the moral 
 degeneracy of youth. It gave the Army chiefs the chance 
 of exercising, unquestioned, whatever harsh discipline they 
 thought fit. It took away what control the people had 
 over the waging of a great war. Even Lord Roberts's 
 modified scheme of National Training had not been accepted 
 by the people or by either political party. 
 
 So enlistment was left voluntary, till the nation was 
 committed to a military undertaking too vast even for the 
 number of men pressed into the Army by every act of 
 private persuasion or compulsion under the Derby scheme. 
 Under this scheme men were asked to " attest,'* that is, to 
 undertake to serve when called up. The War Office had 
 drained the country of all willing men who could be at 
 all reasonably spared. But it was now represented to be 
 a choice between defeat and a force so vastly increased 
 that conscription was the only way to collect it. The 
 Society of Friends, and the No- Conscription Fellowship, 
 described later, foreseeing what was likely to come, pub- 
 lished a protest against it in advance, giving clear notice 
 of their opposition. 
 
 51 
 
 -m%^-. 
 
52 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 2. Its path had been prepared by a Registration Act, 
 declared by Mr. Asquith not to have any ulterior purpose 
 for conscription. This was not generally believed, and a 
 few men regarded it as the beginning of Militarism, and 
 refused to register. Many men registered, adding that they 
 would refuse conscription if imposed. A common declara- 
 tion to this effect was made by Friends and members of 
 the No-Conscription organizations. Conscription was not 
 broached till there were so many men voluntarily enlisted 
 that they and their friends would form a strong body of 
 opinion in favour of it for other people. 
 
 Then the married and the unmarried were skilfully 
 divided in interest. When the unmarried alone were called 
 up, the married supported the Bill, hoping their turn might 
 never come. When, in the next Act, it did come, the un- 
 married already under arms, and their friends, supported it. 
 Similarly, the age was gradually raised ; but that was pro- 
 bably dictated more by necessity than policy. It caused, 
 nevertheless, the older men, still secure, to support the 
 enrolment of the young. The whole policy was astonish- 
 ingly clever. All was prepared — the interests of the nation 
 were divided, and the great stress of the war had become 
 apparent. The nation had come to believe that every 
 available man must be compelled to join up. 
 
 3. The first Conscription Bill, known as The Military 
 Service Act (2) was introduced by Mr. Asquith, then Premier 
 of the first Coalition, on January 5, 1916. 
 
 It declared in its principal clause that unmarried men 
 or widowers without children dependent on them, between 
 eighteen and forty-one years old, were to be " deemed '* 
 to have been enlisted and to have been forthwith trans- 
 ferred to the Reserve. That is, they all became soldiers, 
 subject to certain exceptions and exemptions, could be 
 called up when wanted, and if any question arose con- 
 nected with being called up, it should be decided by a civil 
 court, and refusal to respond to the call should not be 
 punishable by death. The Act was to remain in force till 
 six months after the close of the war. 
 
 Tribunals were to be set up to examine appeals for 
 
THE MILITARY SERVICE ACTS, 1916 53 
 
 exemption under various heads, among which was *' a 
 conscientious objection to the undertaking of combatant 
 service '* ; and the Local Tribunal, if they considered the 
 grounds of the application established, were to grant exemp- 
 tion. It proceeds, in Clause 2 (3) : — ** Any certificate of 
 exemption may be absolute, conditional or temporary, as 
 the authority by whom it was granted think best suited 
 to the case, and also, in the case of exemption on conscien- 
 tious grounds, may take the form of an exemption from 
 combatant service only, or may be conditional on the appli- 
 cant being engaged on some work which in the opinion of the 
 Tribunal dealing with the case is of national importance." 
 
 This last sentence was not in the original form of the 
 Bill, but was introduced by the Government to meet the 
 views of T. Edmund Harvey and Arnold S. Rowntree, 
 Quaker members of Parliament. 
 
 Local Tribunals were arranged for each local registration 
 district, or a part of it, to number not less than five or more 
 than twenty-five persons. Above these were Appeal Tribu- 
 nals for larger areas, and finally a Central Tribunal. But 
 only by leave of the Appeal Tribunal could a case go before 
 the Central Tribunal. No doubt, but for this clause, every 
 case would have been carried to the Central Tribunal, and 
 the machine have become congested. 
 
 It was a notable step forward to admit a conscientious 
 objection on moral as well as denominational grounds. 
 
 4. Mr. Asquith, in his speech on the first reading, warmly 
 justified the conscience exemption against the mockery of 
 some members, by referring to the example of Pitt, who 
 exempted Quakers from the compulsory militia during the 
 war with Napoleon, and to the recent Australian Acts, 
 which did the same. He pointed out that it only relieved 
 men from combatant duties within the Army, and com- 
 mended mine-sweeping as a good alternative. 
 
 Sir John Simon, in opposing the second reading on 
 January 12th, said that the exemption from combatant 
 duties only, within the Army, would not be accepted gener- 
 ally ; that the Tribunals would turn out a failure ; and 
 that under this Bill no way would be found for safeguarding 
 
54 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 the conscientious objector without making the meshes of 
 the net too wide. 
 
 Arnold S. Rowntree expressed the Quaker point of view 
 that war was anti-Christian. He explained that some 
 Friends had tried to meet the difficulty by founding their 
 ambulance unit, which contained in the neighbourhood of 
 live hundred Friends, and that others were in large numbers 
 helping the war victims in France. He warned the House 
 against beginning a religious persecution, and doubted the 
 competence of the Tribunals. 
 
 In Committee on the i8th, Philip Snowden moved a 
 clause to safeguard the persistent objector from the death 
 penalty under the Army Act, Section XII (i). Sir F. E. 
 Smith said that the War Office would not inflict that penalty 
 on such men. It was pointed out by Mr. Snowden, Mr. 
 Outhwaite and Mr. Trevelyan that the danger lay with 
 those not admitted by the Tribunal to be genuine and so 
 not counted conscientious objectors. Finally, the clause 
 excused the conscientious objector from the death penalty 
 for refusing to obey the call to the colours. It was, how- 
 ever, held afterwards that this excuse only covered the 
 initial refusal and left the persistent objector liable to a 
 death sentence after his forcible inclusion in the Army. 
 
 On the 19th, Mr. Joynson Hicks proposed that instead 
 of the exemption being general it should be confined to 
 Quakers or members of other religious bodies which include 
 an objection to all war among their fundamental tenets. 
 He called the clause the Slackers* Charter, was satirical at 
 great length about these shirkers, would like to have had no 
 exemption clause, but was willing as a practical, if illogical, 
 measure, to exempt certain clearly definable bodies of a 
 religious character. It is noticeable how some people only 
 acknowledge religious or moral motives when connected 
 with a recognized creed or church. It was a great point in 
 favour of the British Act that it did not confine exemption 
 to members of certain religious bodies. To guard against 
 shirkers joining the Society of Friends, Mr. Joynson Hicks 
 proposed to confine the immunity to those who were members 
 on August 15, 1914, and thought it ought to have been 
 August 1st, because presumably some might have fled 
 
THE MILITARY SERVICE ACTS, 1916 55 
 
 to the safe fold the moment the war began. How little he 
 knew his Society of Friends, with their carefully deliberate 
 admissions, and how little he knew of the victims of the 
 Act, many of whom expressly avoided joining Friends till 
 the war was over, so as to avoid even the appearance of 
 seeking shelter. 
 
 Friends had already made it known that they would 
 accept no denominational exemption, such as was granted 
 afterwards in America. Friends desired no special favour 
 for themselves. They would stand with more lonely people 
 outside. 
 
 Mr. Bonar Law declined Mr. Joynson Hicks's amend- 
 ment on lines of sound argument. He made, however, the 
 curious statement that " towards the end of the seventeenth 
 century an attempt was made to induce the Quakers to 
 fight, but they practically went to prison in a body." This 
 incident has not found its way into Quaker records. It is 
 not often that a piece of misinformation has proved so 
 salutary. 
 
 5. T. Edmund Harvey followed with a truly great speech 
 on the Peace position, worthy to rank in spirit with the 
 utterances of John Bright in the same place in an earlier 
 and less terrible day. He pointed out that the non-com- 
 batant exemption would fail to meet the needs of most men. 
 
 " We profoundly believe that the soldier and the military 
 system belong to a stage of society which has to be tran- 
 scended, and that we are working towards a state of society 
 in which war will be a thing of the past. We believe that 
 if there are men who feel the importance of this, and feel, 
 above all, that if they are obedient to the dictates of religion, 
 and to all that which is dearest and best in life, they are 
 bound to follow what they believe to be, not only the letter, 
 but the spirit of the teaching of Christ. They must, having 
 accepted that point of view, endeavour to live up to the 
 principle that they believe He laid down, and not return 
 evil for evil, but endeavour to love even their enemies." 
 
 He said that many men would be willing to lose their 
 lives or all their property in obedience to the Higher Law. 
 Nor were they limited to men avowedly Christian, or even 
 
56 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 professedly religious. He warned the Government that 
 compulsory civilian alternative service would not meet all 
 cases, and that only absolute exemption would. He con- 
 cluded by mentioning certain forms of hard voluntary work 
 already being done, or which might be undertaken. 
 
 Sir Henry Craik made the significant admission that 
 these principles struck at the very foundations of the State 
 system. Mr. Barnes recommended that absolute exemption 
 should include Socialists. Mr. Chaplin thought every man 
 who preferred to love his enemies at this time was unworthy 
 of the name of Englishman. Mr. Charles Trevelyan, in 
 a very forcible speech, warned the House that there would 
 be many thousands who would wholly refuse connection 
 with war. He demanded complete exemption, not subject 
 to any Tribunal's view ; for the only judge of a man's 
 conscience is the man himself. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Samuel, the Home Secretary, made a speech 
 on which in those days we built a large edifice of hope. He 
 agreed that religion was not a corporate but an individual 
 thing. "Is it really contemplated that now, when for the 
 first time you are making military service compulsory in 
 this country, it should be accompanied by the arrest and 
 imprisonment of a certain number of men who unquestion- 
 ably, by common consent, are men of the highest character, 
 and in other matters, good citizens. I am sure hon. members 
 would not wish to contemplate that there should be any- 
 thing in the nature of religious persecution, or that you 
 should have this body of men locked up in the gaols of this 
 country." He explained that the Government could not 
 follow Mr. Trevelyan in making a man's statement sufficient, 
 and that they had altered the Harvey-Rowntree amend- 
 ment by giving the duty of approval of alternative service 
 to the Tribunals instead of the Government drawing up 
 a list of approved calhngs. He went on, in an important 
 passage, the foundation of much hope, to say that a boot- 
 maker, who claimed under Subsection I (a) that his trade 
 was so necessary as itself to carry exemption, but failed in 
 that plea, would, if he were a conscientious objector, have 
 his calling accepted, and obtain exemption on it. " We 
 want to give the widest possible latitude. I have been 
 
THE MILITARY SERVICE ACTS. 1916 57 
 
 asked, ' What is the difference between the classes of work ? ' 
 A man may come forward and say, * I am a bootmaker and 
 want to go on making boots/ The Tribunal may say, 
 ' There is a sufficient number of bootmakers already, and 
 really it is more important that you should become a soldier 
 than remain a bootmaker/ Therefore the man is sent to 
 be a soldier. But if he comes forward and states, ' I am 
 a conscientious objector, and I do not want to fight ; I 
 come under paragraph so-and-so of the Act, and I am en- 
 gaged in making boots, which is a work of national import- 
 ance. As such I shall do useful work for the nation.' The 
 Tribunal may reply, ' While this is not a work of national 
 importance, if you say you are a conscientious objector, and 
 object to becoming a soldier, you will obtain your exemption/ 
 That is, I believe, precisely the object of the hon. member's 
 proposal. But the hon. member says the effect of the 
 Government's proposal is that his friend would have forced 
 upon him, by the requirements of the Tribunal, some par- 
 ticular kind of work. Surely that is exactly what he 
 himself proposes. He proposes that the Tribunal shall give 
 the individual man exemption, but at the same time say, 
 ' You need not go as a soldier, because you are a conscientious 
 objector, but it must be conditional on your performing 
 work for the State.' " When this speech was brought 
 before certain Tribunals for their guidance the reply was that 
 speeches in Parliament were of no importance. 
 
 Mr. T. M. Healy, in order to widen the choice for 
 objectors, proposed to say work of *' national interest " 
 instead of " national importance," but he was over- 
 ruled. 
 
 Sir Stephen Collins asked Mr. Joynson Hicks whether 
 he would not respect the conscience of members of the 
 House who had no strong religious convictions as much as 
 those of members who had. He received a blunt " No " 
 in reply. He then recounted an argument with a group 
 of young men in the lobby, (a deputation from the No-Con- 
 scription Fellowship), the strength of whose convictions 
 had deeply impressed him. Sir Philip Magnus supported 
 Mr. Joynson Hicks, but said they would withdraw the 
 amendment in his name. Captain Craig from Ulster stated 
 
58 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 quite erroneously, that the Society of Friends had modified 
 its views, and should be ruled out. 
 
 Mr. Outhwaite next brought forward an amendment 
 allowing exemption to a claimant who made a statement 
 of his conscientious objection on oath before two justices 
 of the peace. He feared Socialists would not be properly 
 treated by Tribunals. 
 
 Mr. Long, on behalf of the Government, declined to 
 accept the amendment. Mr. Snowden supported it, though 
 his preference would have been to have the oath taken 
 before the Local Tribunal. (No doubt the general liberty 
 to substitute an affirmation w^ould have held here.) He 
 pointed out the futility of the Tribunals' tests, illustrated 
 by the arbitrariness of many magistrates under the Vaccina- 
 tion Act, which had caused their discretion to be taken 
 away. He also alluded to the Australian and New Zealand 
 prisons filled with conscientious objectors whose plea had 
 been refused. He pointed out that there would be great 
 opposition, and that the Government had failed to carry 
 out their Munitions Act in South Wales, and had shrunk 
 from applying this Bill to Ireland because of the opposition 
 of its people. He alluded to the ten thousand members 
 of the No-Conscription Fellowship, and prophesied the most 
 unfair variety in the behaviour of Tribunals. Viscount 
 Wolmer expressed his faith in the justice of the Tribunals. 
 
 7. Thirty-nine, against 289, voted for Mr. Outhwaite's 
 amendment. They constitute roughly, with those who 
 voted against the third reading, the group who, through 
 good report and evil, and amid increasing hatred and 
 deepening isolation, stood up for peace and for the victims 
 of conscription in the last Parhament. They may be 
 classified as follows : — 
 
 The U.D.C. Group. — Joseph King, Arthur Ponsonby, 
 Richard Lambert, Charles P. Trevelyan. 
 
 The I.L.P. Group.— W. C. Anderson, F. W. Jowett, J. 
 Ramsay MacDonald, T. Richardson, Phihp Snowden. 
 
 Other Labour Men. — G. N. Barnes, C. W. Bowerman, 
 J. R. Clynes, F. Goldstone, J. H. Thomas, Will Thorne, 
 G. J. Wardle, W. Hudson. 
 
THE MILITARY SERVICE ACTS, 1916 59 
 
 Friends. — J. Allen Baker, T. E. Harvey, Arnold S. 
 Rowntree, J. W. Wilson. 
 
 Nationalist. — L. Ginnell. 
 
 Independent Liberals. — Dr. C. Addison, Sydney Arnold, 
 John Burns, Sir W. P. Byles, H. G. Chancellor, W. Clough, 
 A. G. C. Harvey, J. M. Hogge, R. D. Holt, Edw. T. John, 
 Leif Jones, B. Kenyon, Sir E. H. Lamb, D. M. Mason, R. L. 
 Outhwaite, Arthur Sherwell, J. H. Whitehouse. 
 
 A few of these went over to the Government position, 
 such as Dr. Addison, Mr. Barnes and Mr. Wardle (who 
 became members of the Government), and Mr. Will 
 Thorne. 
 
 T. E. Harvey moved that in II [d) *' objection to com- 
 batant service " should run " objection to military or 
 combatant service.'* This, if it had passed, would 
 have saved much hardship afterwards. Fifty-five voted 
 for it. 
 
 On a further attempt by T. E. Harvey to have a special 
 Tribunal for conscience cases, Mr. Long undertook to put 
 on the Tribunals " men who by their training and experience 
 would ^iwe full and fair consideration even to the more 
 extreme cases." 
 
 If this were a drama like The Dynasts, the mocking 
 spirits would be heard at this point. Such was the fair 
 beginning of the chapter of persecution. 
 
 8. On the third reading. Sir John Emmott Barlow, 
 Thomas Lough, Richard Denman, P. A. Molteno, Philip 
 Morrell, James Parker (of Halifax), W. M. R. Pringle, G. C. 
 Rees, Sir John Simon, and H. B. Lees-Smith, in addition to 
 members named before, voted against the Bill — thirty-eight 
 in all. The names of Dr. C. Addison, G. N. Barnes, 
 C. W. Bowerman, J. R. Clynes, F. W. Jowett, B. Kenyon, 
 J. R. MacDonald, W. Thorne, G. L. Wardle, J. W. Wilson, 
 do not appear, for various reasons, in this final though 
 hopeless protest. Some were unavoidably absent. 
 
 Sir John Simon did not follow up his leadership on this 
 occasion by further ParUamentary action, but devoted 
 himself instead to a large practice at the Bar. The fort in 
 Parliament was held by a group of members chiefly from 
 
60 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 the Union of Democratic Control, the Independent Labour 
 Party and the Society of Friends. Questions about the 
 ill-treatment of men by the military, about hardships in 
 prison, the abuses of D.O.R.A. and other evils which followed 
 this comparatively hopeful debate, were bravely put in 
 great numbers by Philip Snowden (most of all), by Mr. 
 Ponsonby, Mr. MacDonald, Mr. Trevelyan, Mr. Whitehouse, 
 Mr. T. E. Harvey, Mr. Joseph King and others. One visit 
 to the House was enough to show me how hot and hostile 
 was the atmosphere in which this group, sitting close 
 together on a bench below the gangway, fought their good 
 fight. 
 
 Among the great newspapers the Manchester Guardian 
 continued, with its usual fidehty to truth, to insert letters 
 exposing particularly bad cases of cruelty. With few 
 exceptions the Press, except our own small organs, would 
 not ventilate the case of the sufferers in the cause of peace. 
 Question time in the House was the best check upon tyranny, 
 and naturally resentment also was concentrated there. 
 
 9. The Bill went up at once to the House of Lords. 
 The debate there gave opportunity for a great speech by 
 Lord Courtney of Penwith on the second reading on 
 January 26th. He said that those who held that war was 
 wrong did not say to the Government, " I will not," but, 
 " I cannot." Their resistance had formerly compelled 
 statesmen to grant exemption, and they had then found that 
 it worked perfectly well. He said the first exemptions of 
 this kind were granted to the Mennonites in Holland about 
 1580, when the country was engaged in the deadhest grips 
 with Phihp IL Catharine of Russia, about 1775 or 1780, 
 granted the same exemption, and Napoleon did the same 
 as well as Pitt, all for wise reasons of state. He said Lord 
 Chatham would have refused to serve in the American 
 War, and Charles James Fox in the war against revolu- 
 tionary France. He reminded the Peers that many of 
 them supported the revolt of the generals in the Curragh 
 camp against the prospect of fighting Ulster. In Com- 
 mittee Lord Courtney moved to alter " objection to the 
 undertaking of combatant service " to " objection to 
 
THE MILITARY SERVICE ACTS, 1916 61 
 
 undertake any service or engage in any action in support of 
 the war or to the undertaking of combatant service.'' The 
 Bishop of London opposed the amendment. He thought 
 httle of conscience till it was " educated " ; that is, till he 
 approved its conclusions. The Government refused to 
 accept the amendment, and it was not pushed to a division. 
 Viscount Peel wished to narrow the possible exemption to 
 one from combatant duties only. But Lord Lansdowne 
 refused it, as the Government wished to enable the Tribunals 
 to give an absolute dispensation. With this important 
 utterance Parliament spoke its last word on the Bill. 
 
 10. The stage is easy from military to industrial con- 
 scription. If the Government has the power to send every 
 one into the Army, they have the power to exempt upon 
 conditions, and they may make the condition that a man 
 must take up such work as the Government may need. 
 There was a scheme for providing labour for munition 
 factories from among those men pronounced medically 
 unfit for the Army ; and such men were crocks indeed. 
 The military representative at the Shoreditch Tribunal 
 disclosed it.^ The medical rejects were to be enrolled at 
 the Labour Exchanges, and when a fit man was found in 
 a munitions factory he might be sent to the Army, and 
 the unfit man from the Labour Exchange might take his 
 place. If he refused, perhaps, to leave his home, or for 
 other reasons did not wish to change his occupation, he 
 would be sent to the Army, medical exemption notwith- 
 standing. The cruelty of such a course to the cripple or 
 the invalid, his uselessness to the Army, his probable death, 
 were not to hinder the terrorism to be exerted by the 
 military. The form A.R.M., W.2, which the man would 
 have to sign, ran : — " I understand that I am liable to 
 return to miUtary service at any time that I cease to be 
 employed by a firm named by the Ministry of Munitions.'* 
 Here we have the industrial conscription repudiated by 
 the Government and dreaded by the Labour and some 
 Liberal members. The Sheffield Telegraph stated that the 
 Army Council proposed to carry out this ** substitution 
 
 » Tribunal, November i6, 191 6, quoting the Manchester Guardian. 
 
62 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 scheme " for agriculture, and other badged and indispensable 
 occupations. The scheme never matured, I beheve. But 
 it was a perfectly natural and logical part of a national 
 system of conscription. 
 
 The industrial effect of conscription was made plain in 
 France, where men were paid only soldiers' wages in the 
 munition factories. If they objected they were drafted 
 under conscription into the Army. The memorable defeat 
 of the French railwaymen in the strike on the Nord Railway 
 in 1910 will not be forgotten. The Government called the 
 strikers to the colours and made them work their own rail- 
 way as soldiers. The Spanish Government did the same 
 in 1916. The ex-Kaiser openly said that was the way he 
 would have broken the English Railway Strike. Mr. J. H. 
 Thomas told the House on May 16, 1916, of a Dundee 
 employer who, when his men struck, reported them to the 
 military, who at once called them to the colours. Colonel 
 Augustus Fitz-George, in a speech on August 26, 1915, 
 said openly that conscription would be necessary, " because 
 the people are getting out of hand." 
 
 II. Happening to have the opportunity of examining the 
 forms sent down for the use of the Tribunals, I found that 
 space was only arranged for filling in this generally futile 
 " exemption from combatant service." Were the forms 
 printed before the Act was passed and the alternative of 
 work of national importance was inserted ? This official 
 suggestion may easily have had large results. 
 
 One often wondered, when moving among the machinery 
 of compulsion, noting the piles of printed forms, and the 
 armies of clerks attached to the Tribunals, the laborious 
 courts martial, the increase of the population of gaols 
 and detention barracks and their cost, the illness and 
 enfeeblement of the victims, the great waste of all kinds 
 of skill among thousands of capable young men, besides 
 the ruin of businesses abandoned by conscripts, and much 
 loss and waste besides ; one often, I say, wondered whether 
 on the whole conscription had been worth while, on a purely 
 military valuation. I am quite incompetent to decide 
 But the writer of the following portion of a leading article 
 
THE MILITARY SERVICE ACTS, 1916 63 
 
 from the Manchester Guardian early in 192 1 was, I believe, 
 an actual soldier, and his opinion has the weight due to an 
 editorial in that great newspaper : — 
 
 *' Many ardent politicians at home seem to exult as 
 much, or rather more, at getting into the trenches a man 
 who feared or disliked being there, or who thought it wrong 
 to be there, than they did at getting a volunteer. No doubt 
 it seemed just the same thing to them, from the military 
 point of view, or rather they did not consider the military 
 point of view at all. But it was often a grievously different 
 thing to a subaltern or his sergeant whether every man in 
 their sector was a man who was carrying out a duty acknow- 
 ledged and embraced by himself or whether one of them 
 might be a man with his heart and mind not in the job. 
 
 " Even for the late war conscription was more a poli- 
 tical than a military expedient. It found its most eager 
 advocates among civilians. It was never much liked by 
 our troops already in the field ; the Australians in the field, 
 if we remember rightly, voted against its adoption for 
 Australia. Probably its chief real value was the political 
 one — it may have helped to remove the false impression 
 of many Frenchmen that we were not pulling our weight. 
 Simply from the military point of view we should have 
 done best for the Allied cause if we had kept to voluntary- 
 ism and given it a fair chance — not the chance that it got. 
 The War Office killed it in Ireland. It did almost every- 
 thing imaginable to kill it in England, where many recruits 
 found it almost as hard to enter the Army as they find it 
 now to get work. We should thus have obtained an Army 
 somewhat smaller than the mixed one we ultimately got, 
 but far larger than the voluntary one that we got at first, 
 and each year it would have been reinforced, not by the 
 whole body, suitable and unsuitable, of youths reaching 
 military age, but by virtually everything well worth having 
 among that body. But many politicians and well-meaning 
 civihans can never understand that quality counts for even 
 more than quantity in private soldiers, and that voluntaryism 
 is the only sieve which, on the great scale, riddles out the 
 poor qualities and keeps the good. Even when our armies 
 
64 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 in France had become only semi-voluntary it was still un- 
 thinkable that there should arise such mutinies in them 
 as those of the French conscripts in the black spring of 1917. 
 *' We shall not have any more wars in Europe as long 
 as the men who fought in and survived the last one are 
 alive to hold the Fochs and Ludendorffs and Churchills 
 down, but if ever we did, strict voluntaryism, organized 
 with some intelhgence and some sympathetic decency, 
 would be the course for England, more surely than ever." 
 
 12. Brigadier-General Childs w^as the official in whom 
 the persecution was incarnated. He was an able man, 
 and among the qualities which constituted his ability was 
 an affable and courteous attitude towards the friends of 
 the persecuted. He was always accessible, agreeable and 
 reasonable. But beneath the velvet glove was the iron 
 hand, and with all the mutual courtesies there were many 
 disappointments. All the Government schemes turned out 
 to be worked in a worse spirit than you would gather from 
 the anticipations of General Childs. 
 
 13. The Bill had been passed by an overwhelming 
 majority, because members of Parliament believed that it 
 was necessary in order to win the war. But the instinct 
 of the people who were to be forced into the Army was in 
 real revolt against it. Promises had been made by the 
 Prime Minister that conscription should never be adopted 
 except by *' general consent." This then was the kind of 
 general consent which existed. Let us take the industrial 
 organizations. 
 
 The Trades Union Congress (January 6th) voted on the 
 Bill, and the result gave : — For it, 541,000 ; against it, 
 2,121,000. The Miners' Federation (January 13th) showed 
 38,000 for the Bill, 653,190 against it. The National Union 
 of Railwaymen passed on January 5th a resolution of un- 
 compromising opposition. 
 
 The sub-committee of the Triple Alliance (Miners, Rail- 
 waymen, Transport Workers), on January 19th, said : — 
 " As reports received from the various organizations gave 
 evidence of the deep-seated hostility and determined oppo- 
 
THE MILITARY SERVICE ACTS, 1916 65 
 
 sition of the rank and file of the workers to the measure/* it 
 was decided to remit the question to the separate Executives. 
 Practically unanimous votes were passed in the strongest 
 terms by the War Emergency Workers' National Committee 
 (January 13th), by the Scottish Labour Party (January 15th), 
 by the Welsh miners, who threatened a strike, by workers 
 on the Clyde, the Thames and the Mersey. The National 
 Executive of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, the National 
 Executive of the Dockers' Union, and many other important 
 unions, and trades and labour councils without number, 
 were against what they rightly felt to be servitude. The 
 meetings held expressing the voice of the middle class 
 opposition were not reported in the Press. It is indeed 
 a striking instance, conspicuous and on the largest scale, 
 of the fact that in time of war organized democracy, which 
 sometimes appears to hold the nation in the hollow of its 
 hand, is powerless against the machine of government it is 
 supposed to create and control. 
 
 14. The next business was to appoint the Tribunals. 
 They were partly chosen from lists sent up by the political 
 associations in the constituencies. No effort can have been 
 made to choose psychological experts or men of uncon- 
 ventional religious sympathies or Socialist leanings. They 
 consisted of elderly local magnates or tradesmen, often with 
 a Labour man, known to be in favour of the war, added. 
 One or two exceptional Quakers, who were not supporting 
 the Society's peace views, were asked here and there, and 
 a few women, who were generally fiercer than the men. 
 In the larger places stipendiary magistrates and county 
 court judges were made chairmen. Their judicial experi- 
 ence was a real check on the zeal of their amateur colleagues. 
 Activity in furthering the recent Derby recruiting scheme 
 was a passport to appointment. Tribunals were already in 
 existence under the Derby scheme for attested men. They 
 formed the nucleus of the bodies appointed under the Act. 
 The Tribunals were not courts of justice, with rules and a 
 fixed procedure. They were parts of the Executive Govern- 
 ment, with powers not properly defined, and with a head- 
 long, or at least very rapid, way of discharging their busi- 
 
 5 
 
66 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 ness. It was common to let the chairman decide after 
 a word or two of conference. In trying to describe these 
 bodies it is impossible to say anything that is universally 
 true, except that they endlessly varied. There was nothing 
 to check the bias of temperament. They had not evolved 
 a type. They were, indeed they had to be, rough and ready 
 in their judgments — though happiness and liberty for years 
 to come, even hfe and sanity, depended for their victims on 
 these momentary verdicts. 
 
 Incapable as they were of performing correctly their 
 delicate task, unable to judge lifelong convictions which 
 they felt to be of an eccentric type, or to diagnose his moral 
 courage or cowardice from a man's appearance or his answers 
 to a few stock questions, or from written testimonials, they 
 might yet have done much better than they did, but for 
 the presence of the mihtary representative. He was an 
 emissary of the War Office, a standing counsel against every 
 apphcation. Through being always there, often sitting at 
 the same table with the members of the Tribunal, and being 
 akin in sympathies, these men dominated weak Tribunals. 
 They were treated with a deference not granted to their 
 opponents. With conspicuous unfairness they were not, in 
 any case known to me, sent out of the room when the appel- 
 lants withdrew for the Tribunal to consult. They were 
 generally in khaki, and often used their position to brow- 
 beat and intimidate applicants. 
 
 Pubhcity was afforded by statute to the proceedings. 
 But, as a general rule, the publicity ordered by Parliament 
 was in time refused. The sittings came to be held in small 
 rooms, and only relatives or friends interested in the cases 
 were allowed to occupy the limited number of chairs. The 
 Press could not be excluded. The excellent rules for the 
 guidance of Tribunals, sent down by Mr. Long from the 
 Local Government Board, showed that that department 
 attempted at the beginning to carry out faithfully the 
 wishes of Parliament and the Government. 
 
 15. In a circular sent round to local authorities on 
 February 3, 1916, Mr. Long wrote : — 
 
 " While care must be taken that the man who shirks 
 
THE MILITARY SERVICE ACTS, 1916 67 
 
 his duty to his country does not find unworthy shelter 
 behind this provision, every consideration should be given 
 to the man whose objection generally rests on religious or 
 moral convictions. Whatever may be the views of members 
 of the Tribunal, they must interpret the Act in an impartial 
 and tolerant spirit. Difference of convictions must not 
 bias judgment. 
 
 " The local authority, in making their appointments to 
 the Tribunal, should bear in mind that the Tribunal will 
 have to hear, among the applications, those made on the 
 ground of conscientious objection. Men who apply on this 
 ground should be able to feel that they are being judged by 
 a Tribunal that will deal fairly with their cases. 
 
 *' The exemption should he the minimum required to meet 
 the conscientious scruples of the applicant. 
 
 ** There may be exceptional cases in which the genuine 
 convictions and the circumstances of the man are such that 
 neither exemption from combatant service nor a conditional 
 exemption will adequately meet the case. Absolute ex- 
 emption can be granted in these cases if the Tribunals are 
 fully satisfied of the facts." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK 
 
 I. Our rulers, then, in this Conscription Act, inflicted 
 upon many citizens the bitter alternative of being false to 
 the highest call or appearing to be meanly sheltering behind 
 others. Then was instituted the most extraordinary attempt 
 to exercise spiritual insight ever handed over to bodies of 
 amateurs. The task would have been essentially impossible, 
 even if exercised sympathetically by bodies of men trained 
 to understand the ways of sensitive souls, if such men there 
 are. But the Tribunals, as we have seen, were generally 
 selected from such local notabilities as had shown great 
 interest in recruiting under the Derby scheme, and such 
 members of the Labour Party as supported the war. Then 
 the impossible became the tragic. Suspicious to begin 
 with, appalled by the number of conscientious objectors, 
 blankly ignorant often of the psychology of the Christian 
 or non-Christian idealist, and groping about with a lack 
 of positive evidence, the Tribunals fell back on their preju- 
 dices. When the result was in doubt, it would seem that 
 the verdict of the Tribunals generally went against the 
 applicant. It should, I submit, have gone the other way. 
 A lenient error only kept an unwilling soldier in useful civil 
 work, much needed by the country. An error against the 
 applicant rendered an otherwise useful citizen a suffering 
 victim for years in prison or an encumbrance on the fighting 
 strength of the Army. 
 
 In March 1916 the Tribunals settled to their work. 
 Whilst success was impossible, they need not have failed 
 as badly as they did. In few cases did they obtain the 
 confidence of those whose destiny they decided. Local 
 government is not at ordinary times a striking success 
 
 68 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK 69 
 
 in many parts of England, and this was a branch of 
 local government, specially autocratic in its mifettered 
 powers, and dealing with a region of thought and con- 
 viction to which its members were usually strangers. 
 One clear idea they had — to detect shirkers. The young 
 applicant, a farm labourer perhaps, appearing before 
 a ring of local squires, had often no great command of 
 English, used only a small vocabulary in his daily life, 
 the words of the chapel and the farm, and now stood up 
 alone before the headmen of his village world, inarticulate 
 with nervousness. He was met with icy manners and had 
 to answer academic questions, not yet solved by the Bench 
 of Bishops, about the Sermon on the Mount, the utility of 
 force, and a German invasion. He seemed to the company 
 and to himself to make out a poor case, not strong enough 
 to overcome the current driving every one to the war. 
 So that the Tribunal felt free to take the patriotic course. 
 On this procedure the young man might suffer three years* 
 hard labour, if he survived to the end. 
 
 2. There was little uniformity in the practice of the 
 Tribunals. The Local Tribunal at Liverpool was hopelessly 
 tyrannical, the one at Manchester was judicial and reason- 
 able in the division presided over by its chairman, Mr. 
 Edgar Brierley, the stipendiary. The Appeal Tribunal in 
 the same building, for the Salford Hundred, was often fair 
 and judicial in Judge Mellor's room ; but I fear I have 
 gone from Sir William Cobbett's boiling with indignation. 
 In Parliament Square, London, two Tribunals sat, with two 
 contradictory methods. Sir Donald MacLean holding the 
 fort for liberty in one of them. 
 
 Mr. Prichard, a prominent Free Church minister, a well- 
 known pacifist and a member of several public bodies in 
 London, had two sons, both in the Civil Service. The 
 elder one came before Sir Donald Maclean at a section of 
 the Appeal Tribunal held in the House of Commons, with 
 two testimonies to his character, and received exemption. 
 The younger son appeared at Spring Gardens with four 
 very clear and influential testimonies to his sincerity. He 
 offered, if necessary, to resign his place in the Civil Service, 
 
70 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 and was willing to undertake work of national importance. 
 His appeal was dismissed. One member of the Tribunal 
 said that if he had been sincere he would have imitated 
 another Battersea man, John Burns, and resigned at the 
 outbreak of the war. But at that time he had not entered 
 the Service and was only fifteen. Another said that a 
 sincere man would not have used a Government tag to 
 fasten his papers together — ^though it happened that the 
 tag was his own. When he pleaded in favour of the Christian 
 teaching, " Resist not evil,'* he was told that his father was 
 in the habit of resisting gambling and drunkenness. The 
 military representative, not knowing much of Nonconformity, 
 sent out for a Prayer Book. Besides this, there were the 
 usual questions about defending the attacked mother and 
 locking the door at night. This slur upon the well-known 
 men who had testified to his honesty may stand as a 
 specimen of Tribunal justice. 
 
 Again, you might get justice from the Kingston Tribunal, 
 but could hope for no exemption from the one just across 
 the Thames. The Bolton Tribunal began by giving absolute 
 exemptions where the Act seemed to require them ; but it 
 found itself isolated in the Lancashire district. 
 
 3. Tribunals were painful places. At Oxford, the Mayor, 
 a tradesman in High Street, had at his disposal the liberties 
 of undergraduates plainly of a high spiritual type. He 
 was aided by a military representative much out of his 
 depth, who enquired of a religious applicant whether Jesus 
 had not said, " An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." 
 In reply he got half a chapter from the Sermon on the 
 Mount read to him. The same gentleman also thought 
 that Tolstoy was the name of a place. Such were the War 
 Office's ethical experts. The Oxfordshire Appeal Tribunal 
 sat for a whole day dealing with a band of about thirty 
 undergraduates, as fine and brave a group as I have ever 
 seen, whose sincerity was written on every face and in 
 every attitude. The Tribunal administered non-combatant 
 duties in the Army to all; the equivalent, as they knew, of 
 rejection. To one only, a Quaker, work with the Friends 
 Ambulance Unit, under a Local Government Board circular, 
 was afterwards granted. 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK 71 
 
 Scripture was oddly used at times. A military repre- 
 sentative at Manchester asked a man if he believed in the 
 words, " The meek shall inherit the earth." " But," he 
 went on, " how can they inherit it without anybody to 
 fight for them ? " At a Tribunal near London a young 
 man began to explain the meaning of a certain passage 
 "in the Greek." "Greek," shouted the chairman, "you 
 don't mean to tell me that Jesus Christ spoke Greek. He 
 was British to the backbone ! " Besides this, the Chairman, 
 who thought mine-sweeping was sweeping dust out of coal 
 mines, was only harmlessly ignorant of things outside his 
 range. At Holborn a member of the Tribunal asked a 
 man, " Do you ever wash yourself ? You don't look it. 
 Yours is a case of an unhealthy mind in an unwholesome 
 body." At Shaw, in Lancashire, a member of a body 
 bidden by the Government to be impartial and tolerant 
 said, " You are exploiting God to save your own skin. 
 You are nothing but a shivering mass of unwholesome fat." 
 This was addressed to a man of high scientific attainments, 
 employed in research under the Manchester Corporation, 
 and asked by the British Association to join one of its 
 Research Committees. A master at Harrow, whom I know 
 well, was told he ought to be put across some one's knees 
 and spanked. Such is the voice of a little brief authority.^ 
 
 4. Cases of defiance of the law frequently occurred. 
 At Seaton Delaval the Chairman told a man who refused 
 non-combatant service that he was liable to be shot if he 
 refused. Doubtless the idea was to make him afraid — 
 not quite the purpose of a Tribunal. On March 8th the 
 Leyton Tribunal told a man they had no power to grant 
 absolute exemption. What had happened since March 2nd, 
 when they had actually granted it ? Are we to put it 
 down to sheer ignorance of the Act that the Chairman of 
 the Tribunal at Montrose said he had no power to grant 
 exemption to a man who could prove that, for two years 
 before the war, he had belonged to a society which held 
 as a tenet that all war was wrong ? 
 
 « See Mr. Outhwaite in Hansard, March 16, 1916, a speech of great force 
 and deep interest. 
 
72 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 The military representative at Sheffield told an applicant 
 that before his Tribunal there was only one way to absolute 
 exemption, and that was death. If he is correctly reported 
 as calling it his Tribunal he was only acting, in a way not 
 uncommon, as though he were a member of it. At Man- 
 chester once, the military representative turned angrily 
 to the Pressmen present and ordered them not to report 
 some words I had felt it right to address to the Tribunal. 
 Such is the military notion of the liberty of the Press. At 
 Wigton an applicant appeared who was dumb or inarticulate. 
 His father appeared to speak for him, but in spite of Mr. 
 Long's regulations that testimony and representatives 
 should be freely heard, the Tribunal refused to hear him 
 and dismissed the case. At Tipton a cripple, unable to 
 appear on account of health, had sent his statement by a 
 friend ; but, quite illegally, a member of the Tribunal refused 
 to hear an appeal by proxy. ** It is not allowed." At 
 Springhead two brothers applied. The appeal of one was 
 briefly heard and dismissed, the second was dismissed 
 unheard, the Chairman saying that it was *' waste of time 
 to hear the other." At Mountain Ash representation by 
 a layman, though specially provided for, was refused. Re- 
 fusals of this kind were painfully common. Attempts, 
 more or less persistent and successful, to hold the sittings 
 in private, contrary to the Act, were made at Falmouth, 
 Oswaldtwistle, Heist on, Bromley, Mountain Ash, Doncaster 
 Musselburgh, Sunderland and Swansea. In the end they 
 generally succeeded. 
 
 In one case the public were only admitted to a gallery 
 at the far end of a long room, confessedly that they might 
 be out of earshot. This, again, is referred to in the L.G.B. 
 circular of March 23rd ; but the Government still failed 
 to overcome the policeman at the door of the Tribunal, 
 so far as my observation went. 
 
 The military did not hesitate sometimes to tear up or 
 to retain a certificate of exemption when it had been ob- 
 tained. A case of that kind came under my personal notice ; 
 another is reported, and cases were mentioned in the House 
 by Sir John Simon from Leicester and from Dewsbiury. 
 A good many of the above cases of maladministration were 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK 73 
 
 published by Mr. B. Langdon Da vies, secretary of the 
 National Council against Conscription. ' Some are from my 
 own experience. Day after day questions were asked in 
 the House, especially by Mr. Snowden. He made a long 
 speech on the subject on March 22nd, detailing the abuses 
 which were sent to him day after day from individuals and 
 associations, as the man willing to plead the cause of the 
 oppressed and in a position the oppressors could not destroy. 
 Outside the House there was no English liberty left. It 
 had been scorched up by the spirit of war. 
 
 The Local Government Board circular letter of March 
 23rd, quoted later, shows how the Act had been misinter- 
 preted. Most Tribunals argued that since an applicant had 
 to prove an objection to combatant service, it was only 
 from combatant service that they could exempt him ; and 
 so they ignored their power to grant absolute exemption 
 or work of national importance provided by Clause II (3). 
 
 The matter came before the High Court of Justice in 
 the case of F. LI. Parton on April 18, 1916, and was tried 
 by Justices Darling, Lawrence and Avory. Justice Darling 
 conducted the case with little dignity or self-restraint. He 
 made small outward show of impartiality and gave his 
 judgment to the effect that Tribunals could only exempt 
 from combatant service. Justice Lawrence concurred, but 
 Justice Avory could not agree that the power of Tribunals 
 was limited in this way. It was time for the Government 
 to intervene ; they did so in the following month, in the 
 provision made in the second Act, but only after hundreds 
 of men had passed beyond the jurisdiction of the Tribunals. ^ 
 
 Another device widely practised was to tell applicants 
 that they could not have forms of application for exemption 
 till they had attested, as though they were applying under 
 the Derby scheme. This was a rather obvious lie, for 
 
 » The National Council against Conscription, afterwards called the 
 National Council for Civil liberties, was formed to deal with the political 
 aspects of the attack on liberty, and both Mr. Langdon Davies and Mr. 
 Snowden were kept supplied with material from N.C.F. sources. 
 
 » Military Service Act, 1916 (Session 2), (May 25, 1916) — Subsection 3 
 of Section 4. (3) It is hereby declared that the power to grant special certi- 
 ficates of exemption in the case of an application on conscientious grounds 
 under Subsection (3) of Section (2) of the principal Act, is additional to and 
 not in derogation of the general power conferred by that Act to grant an 
 absolute, cQndjtion?il or temporary certificate in sucli cas^s, 
 
74 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 the act of attestation plainly showed that a man had no 
 objection to joining the Army, and therefore put himself 
 outside the conscience clause. Mr. Snowden on February 
 17th, Mr. Jowett on February 21st, Mr. Anderson and Mr. 
 T. E. Harvey on February 24th, brought up cases of this 
 kind, and Mr. Long promised to lose no time in stopping 
 the trick, under which some men had been induced to attest. 
 
 5. Mr. Snowden's speech produced a leading article in 
 the Daily Chronicle on Tribunals, criticizing " the grave 
 scandal " — ^the " gross military irregularities " — " the brow- 
 beating of men by deliberate misstatements of the law " — 
 '* the cheating of some, the kidnapping of others " — their 
 '* inconsistency, their uneven hand, their frank and avowed 
 illegalities." The week before the Bishop of Oxford had 
 written a brave letter to The Times, advising the Tribunals 
 '* to be more respectful where there is good evidence of 
 conscientious conviction." The Bishop of Lincoln wrote 
 a similar letter. The General Committee of the Free Church 
 Council passed a unanimous protest. The Solicitor's Journal 
 of March i8th was completely shocked by the procedure 
 of these scratch bodies enjoying a brief tenure of power 
 over their fellows. 
 
 It was natural that such should be the efEect of the 
 impact of these tyrannies on the minds of just men. But 
 it did not lead to an uprising of public opinion. In war- 
 time, it appears, standards usually accepted are thrown 
 down. Public opinion acquiesced in the long-drawn suffering 
 of the next three years, caused directly by these often frivolous 
 bodies. Mr. Snowden's speech was reprinted as a penny 
 pamphlet under the title of " British Prussianism. The 
 Scandal of the Tribunals." It was widely circulated. It 
 contained fifty-four narratives, similar to those I have 
 already detailed. Mr. Snowden said that he was not reading 
 one in twenty of the cases. The pamphlet told of men 
 refused a hearing, denied the support of advocates, prevented 
 from appealing, of forms of appeal being delayed or with- 
 held, of men richly abused and insulted, of military repre- 
 sentatives acting as members of the Tribunal, of kidnapping 
 or carrying men off illegally, and of lawless threats of armed 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WORlt tS 
 
 action by the military. The speech was contemporary with 
 Mr. Long's excellent circular to the Tribunals of March 23rd. 
 
 6. But the Government, after this, ceased to stand for 
 the justice so lacking in their instruments. To all appear- 
 ance popular opinion rather approved hard dealing for 
 those who would not fight, and did not greatly mind ille- 
 galities. The state of the war, the endurance of the troops, 
 their sufferings and their casualties filled the public mind. 
 The persecution for conscience' sake of men dubbed faddists 
 or even cowards seemed but a drop in the world's ocean 
 of suffering. Nearly every family had a man or men at 
 the war. People cannot maintain detachment of mind 
 under such overwhelming waves of personal fear and hope. 
 In later times the stand for human liberty made on principle 
 by these youths will be more worthily valued. 
 
 The Government began, as it happened, with the 
 youngest ; the first batch of sufferers was, on the average, 
 under twenty-one years old. They did not always shine 
 in argument. They were new to this kind of dialectic. 
 
 7. For some months before, at many places, attempts 
 had been made to afford some guidance to these young 
 fellows. This had been arranged from headquarters in 
 London, and was generally taken up. Every night at 
 the Friends' Institute in Manchester, for instance, came 
 some thirty or forty rather perplexed young men, to be 
 advised by a group of Friends about the actual details of 
 the procedure under the Act, the filling up of their forms, 
 and the mazes and pitfalls into which they might be led. 
 We had, of course, to take care not to produce bogus appli- 
 cants, as we were roundly accused of doing by the less 
 reputable newspapers. We were, in fact, honoured by visits 
 from spies, apparently anxious about their souls. It is 
 possible that the principal help we gave was in letting the 
 men feel that they were not alone. We did not foresee at 
 all correctly what Tribunals would be like. We saw some 
 curious Biblical literalists. When I found that that was 
 a man's line I asked him what he would say if the Tribunal 
 faced him with " The Lord is a man of war." The answer 
 
76 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 came quick : " Oh, the Lord may make war as much as 
 He thinks well. But we must not." So the business was 
 not without its humours. 
 
 The usual poser set by the Tribunal was to ask what 
 the applicant would do if a criminal assaulted his mother. 
 If he said he would resist, he was a war-man ; if he said he 
 would not, he was a liar and a humbug. The proper answer 
 required a rather careful statement of the difference between 
 the policeman and the soldier, the difference between a 
 testimony against organized violence in war and a testimony 
 against all use of force — which an impatient Tribunal, even 
 if it followed such subtleties, turned out to be unwilling to 
 hear, and which the nervous applicant might find it difficult 
 to formulate really well and convincingly. 
 
 Then if a man said he would not take human life, which he 
 regarded as sacred, it was not difficult to show cases where the 
 preservation of the lives of many depended on the death of 
 one lunatic or criminal. But lengthy replies were not favoured. 
 
 To sum up : I have rarely, if ever, heard or read of 
 any truly understanding and sympathetic argument at a 
 Tribunal, such as would really bring out that depth and 
 sincerity of conviction which it was the purpose of the 
 Tribunal to probe. What proved to be three years of 
 imprisonment was hastily meted out by men sufficiently in- 
 capable of a judicial temper to commit the offences described 
 by Mr. Snowden and others above. There were, of course, 
 more careful and dignified bodies to be found. Everything 
 that is here stated is to be qualified by the fact that one 
 cannot make any universal statements truthfully about the 
 Tribunals. Variety was their note. There were a very 
 few absolute exemptions allowed, often taken away on appeal 
 by the military. Even in the better behaved bodies it was 
 a shock to see men, one's neighbours and acquaintances, 
 whom one had esteemed, suddenly transformed and appearing 
 in a new and unpleasant light, doing what one knew to be 
 injustice. Herein they were, after all, only in harmony with 
 the general feeling of the time. 
 
 8. The debate of March 22, 1916, initiated by the speech 
 of Mr. Snowden's of which some summary has been given, 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK 77 
 
 was a very central one in our subject. It reveals the early 
 situation created by the Tribunals, the unwillingness of the 
 Government alike to permit injustice and to take drastic 
 measures to stop it, and it shows that hopes in the good 
 intentions of Mr. Long and Mr. Lloyd George were still 
 cherished by the Peace group in Parliament, particularly 
 with regard to the organizing of alternative service. 
 
 T. Edmund Harvey followed in support of Philip Snowden. 
 He pleaded for a different spirit in the Tribunals, and 
 mentioned that Mr. Bowes, an applicant at Bermondsey, 
 protested that while he was stating his case one member 
 of the Tribunal was ostentatiously reading a newspaper. 
 The member replied, '* You protest, do you? Well, you can 
 go on protesting.*' The Chairman said to the applicant, 
 " How do you know that he is going to vote in your case ? " 
 He replied, " That is what he is here for." Finally, the 
 newspaper reader automatically held up his hand against 
 the application. Mr. Harvey also told how Mr. Theodore 
 Sherwell, a Friend at Redcar, was treated kindly, and even 
 deferentially, by the Tribunal, to whom his family was 
 known. His genuineness was acknowledged, and yet his 
 application was refused. At Bermondsey the Tribunal refused 
 to consider a conscientious objection by a man who had 
 also appealed because he had tubercular disease of the spine. 
 Apparently a morbidly tender conscience carried immunity 
 from other diseases. Mr. Harvey pleaded with the Govern- 
 ment to press the Tribunals to allow work of national 
 importance, which they were ignoring. The Oxford Tribunal, 
 he said, had before it two undergraduates, Mr. Blelloch 
 and Mr. Postgate, who were then negotiating for work of 
 national importance. It had refused to adjourn to permit 
 of their arranging for it. The interruptions to this very 
 moderate speech showed that the Tribunals in their worst 
 illegalities had sympathizers in the House. 
 
 After an interval Mr. Philip Morrell followed, adding to 
 the cargo of injustices already brought forward, though men- 
 tioning only a few of those the particulars of which he had 
 in his hand. He described the case of Mr. Runacres, a 
 scholar of Jesus College, Oxford, whom I have seen, and 
 whose honesty is written on his face and in his every act. 
 
78 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 He was a theological student at Pusey House, standing, in 
 a few months, for Honours in Theology and could have 
 promptly entered the safe harbour of ordination. He had 
 credentials from the head of Pusey House, from one of its 
 Fellows, and from his examining chaplain. But a Fellow 
 of Jesus wrote a letter to the Tribunal, saying that he was 
 an objectionable man, being a Socialist, and he hoped he 
 would not be exempted. Result : no exemption, and the 
 name of his detractor refused to him. At the Appeal 
 Tribunal he was asked whether he was a Socialist, and 
 because of that his application was refused. While the 
 Appeal Tribunal was considering whether he might appeal 
 to the Central Tribunal he was illegally seized by the 
 military. Ultimately he went to prison, to Dyce and 
 Wakefield. He is now in the Anglican Ministry in Leeds. 
 
 Mr. J. W. Wilson followed in the House in an extremely 
 moderate speech, urging unity of practice upon the Tribunals, 
 and a reasonable scheme for doing work of national import- 
 ance. 
 
 Mr. Arnold Rowntree, who spoke next, credited Mr. Lloyd 
 George with a sympathetic attitude, and begged him to 
 act accordingly. He instanced the case of Mr. Watkins, 
 later one of my flock, or rather my friends, whom as a 
 Quaker chaplain in goal I saw every week. The Chairman 
 at the Ledbury Tribunal, near which my friend was then 
 teaching, admitted that his conviction was sincere, but added 
 " I don't believe in it ** ; and the Tribunal gave him no 
 exemption. Mr. Lloyd George, thus appealed to, tried to 
 dwell on the number of insincere applicants. He mentioned 
 three of these, from one of which he was compelled to with- 
 draw, the facts being known to Mr. Snowden. The second 
 must, he said, have been insincere because he had obtained 
 by seniority a good position in business through others 
 going to the war — a curious argument even for a man in 
 a difficulty — and the third was a man who had been in the 
 Territorials. This may have been a weak case, but no details 
 were given ; and we may remember the experiences of 
 other soldiers like Siegfried Sassoon and Miles Malleson, 
 which were broadly of this type. Mr. Lloyd George held 
 up to contempt those who would not join the R.A.M.C. 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK 79 
 
 and save life. He had to be reminded later by Mr. White- 
 house that the difficulty was the enlistment, the Army 
 oath, and he might have added, as was found later, the 
 liability to be transferred from the R.A.M.C. to a combatant 
 unit. Mr. George asked for the co-operation of the friends 
 of the C.O.'s in arranging alternative service. 
 
 Mr. Pringle followed, telling how at Glasgow the military 
 representative had said, " We can only allow exemption 
 from combatant service." At Go van one of the Tribunal 
 had said that conscientious objection was " all bunkum," 
 thereby showing his unfitness for his work. Mr. Whitehouse 
 spoke with misgiving of the non-combatant corps in the 
 Army then being organized by the War Office. Mr. Long 
 concluded by saying that no conscientious objector could 
 possibly be sent to France and so incur the penalty of death 
 for disobedience. How little he knew his military the 
 sequel showed. 
 
 9. A certain circular from the Central Tribunal may 
 find place here. I cannot do better than print the reply 
 made to it by the friends of the persecuted, which includes 
 the circular itself. 
 
 To the President of the Local Government Board, 
 
 Sir, 
 
 We desire to lay before you some considerations 
 relative to the subject of '* Conscientious Objection ; Moral 
 Grounds," which is discussed in Circular R96 (Notes of 
 further cases decided by the Central Tribunal, circulated 
 for the information of Tribunals). The Case No. is 55, and 
 the decision is recorded in the following terms : — 
 
 *' The Central Tribunal have had before them a 
 number of appeals by persons alleging conscientious 
 objection to military service not based on any religious 
 ground. These persons are in most cases members 
 of some Socialist organization. The cases differ. 
 
 *' In some the objection alleged is based on oppo- 
 sition to the present war ; in others on disapproval 
 of the present organization of society, which the man 
 considers not worthy of defence, though he would fight 
 
80 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 in defence of a State organized in a way he approves. 
 These opinions, however genuinely and strongly held, 
 do not, in the view of the Central Tribunal, consti- 
 tute conscientious objection within the meaning of the 
 Military Service Acts. 
 
 " In the majority of the remaining cases, the Central 
 Tribunal are satisfied that the appellants have a genuine 
 belief that the taking of human life in any circumstances 
 is morally wrong, and the Central Tribunal hold that 
 such an objection is properly met by exemption from 
 combatant service. In some of these last cases the 
 appellant has proved a genuine settled conscientious 
 objection not only to the actual taking of life, but to 
 everything which is designed directly to assist in the 
 prosecution of the war. Such cases, where established, 
 entitle the appellant, in the opinion of the Central 
 Tribunal, to exemption from all forms of military 
 service upon conditions as to performing work of 
 national importance, the terms of which will be found 
 in cases decided by the Central Tribunal. 
 
 ** The Central Tribunal have carefully considered such 
 authorized publications of Socialist organizations as 
 have been laid before them. On the material available 
 they do not find that membership of any such organiza- 
 tion is in itself evidence of a conscientious objection 
 to military service. 
 
 " The Central Tribunal regard the age of the man 
 alleging conscientious objection as an important factor 
 in the consideration of the question whether his objec- 
 tion is so deliberate and settled as to entitle him to 
 exemption or to the widest form of exemption.'* 
 
 I. It is clear that this finding of the Central Tribunal 
 annuls the specific declaration of the second Military Service 
 Act that it is within the competence and discretion of 
 Tribunals to give absolute exemption. Under the first 
 Act some doubt arose concerning the power of Tribunals 
 to give absolute exemption, and in order to remove this 
 doubt this power was categorically affirmed in the second 
 Act. The effect of the Central Tribunal's decision is to 
 override the plain intention of Parliament. We recognize 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK SI 
 
 that the decisions of the Central Tribunal are not neces- 
 sarily binding upon other Tribunals, but it is obvious that 
 the issuing of these decisions in a Local Government Board 
 circular gives them an authoritative character which is 
 certain to affect profoundly the judgment of the Tribunals. 
 It must be remembered that the conscientious objection of 
 many men is of such a nature that it can be met only by 
 absolute exemption. 
 
 2. We wish to point out that the distinction which is 
 made in this decision between religious and moral grounds 
 of conscientious objection is unsound. A conscientious 
 objection on whatever grounds professed involves in every 
 case an appeal to the ultimate moral authority which the 
 individual recognizes. It is impossible to state at what 
 point a man's moral judgment begins consciously to acquire 
 what is commonly known as a religious or spiritual sanction, 
 and it implies an unwarrantable assumption on the part 
 of any body of men that it should issue a categorical pro- 
 nonucement upon a subject which involves very difficult 
 and contentious metaphysical considerations. 
 
 3. The taking of life is the greatest moral responsibility 
 which can be imposed upon a man. It may legitimately 
 be regarded as belonging to a category entirely separate 
 and different from any other task which the State may 
 require of him. Even if a man may not in all circumstances 
 object to take life, it is morally wrong and indefensible to 
 compel him to do so in a cause which he cannot justify to his 
 own conscience, whatever the grounds may be upon which 
 he has reached this conclusion. 
 
 4. We observe that it is recommended that men who 
 have successfully sustained an objection to all forms of 
 military service should receive complete exemption from 
 military service " upon conditions as to performing work 
 of national importance, the terms of which will be found 
 in cases decided by the Central Tribunal." These terms 
 included a proviso in one case that the '* work of national 
 importance ** shall be useful for the prosecution of the war. 
 This renders the exemption thus granted wholly nugatory, 
 inasmuch as work which is " useful for the prosecution of 
 the war," however indirect it may be, does by that descrip- 
 
 6 
 
82 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 tion of it become a form of service which a man who objects 
 to war will also reasonably and rightly include within the 
 scope of his objection. Moreover, there are men whose 
 conscientious objection extends to any form of alternative 
 service imposed under a Military Service Act. 
 
 5. We protest strongly against the recommendation that 
 the age of the applicant should be regarded as an important 
 factor in judging to what extent he is entitled to exemption 
 on conscientious grounds. That a person's youth should 
 make his statement of his conscientious objection crude 
 and inadequate is only natural, but it does not at all follow 
 that his objection is unsound or immature because he is 
 young. Moreover, if a man be old enough to fight, he is 
 also old enough to have an opinion whether it be right 
 or wrong to fight ; and if he is not old enough to have such 
 an opinion, it is a moral outrage to compel him to fight. 
 And if he be compelled into the Army at eighteen years of 
 age because he is not considered to have a ** deliberate 
 and settled " objection, will he then be allowed to claim 
 release from the Army, say, at twenty-one years or whatever 
 the age may be at which his conscience may be judged to 
 have reached maturity ? 
 
 We are confident that you will recognize the weight 
 and importance of these considerations and that you will 
 lay them before the Central Tribunal with a view to a 
 revision of its findings in these particular cases. 
 We are. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 For the Men's Service Committee of the Society of Friends, 
 Robert O. Mennell, Hon. Secretary. 
 Hubert W. Peet, Organizing Secretary. 
 
 For the No-Conscription Fellowship, 
 
 A. Fenner Brockway, Acting Chairman, 
 Catherine E. Marshall, Hon. Secretary, 
 
 For the Fellowship of Reconciliation, 
 
 Henry T. Hodgkin, Chairman. 
 Richard Roberts, Secretary. 
 
 18, Devonshire Street, 
 Bishopsgate, E.C. 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK 88 
 
 10. All through the conscription period questions on 
 abuses were put to Ministers, and the art of avoiding an 
 answer and concealing the important facts was carried to 
 great perfection. The Government ceased in the spring 
 of 1916 to be the champion of unpopular justice to the 
 conscientious objectors. It suffered from the degeneracy 
 which affected most people and institutions, as we became 
 more deeply involved in a world of war where the moral 
 law was wrong side up. In reply to one of these speeches, 
 Mr. Long said that he had made many enquiries into abuses 
 brought up in the House and had almost always found 
 them incorrect. Anyone who knew the cases first hand 
 would be led to the conclusion that enquiries made only 
 of the persons accused could generally be parried with some 
 sort of defence. 
 
 The Local Government Board wrote again to the Tri- 
 bunals on March 23rd, a letter containing the following 
 paragraphs : — 
 
 *' It has been represented to Mr. Long that in some 
 cases at least Local Tribunals, in dealing with applicants 
 on grounds of conscientious objection to the undertaking 
 of combatant service have seemed to be under the impression 
 that the only form of exemption which could be given in 
 such cases is an exemption from combatant duties only. If 
 this is so, the Tribunals have overlooked Subsection II (3) of 
 the Act. . . . Some Tribunals are alleged to have subjected 
 applicants to a somewhat harsh cross-examination with 
 respect to the grounds of their objection. ... It is desirable 
 that enquiries should be made with tolerance and impar- 
 tiality. In this connection reference may be made to Mr. 
 Long's circular letter of February 3rd." ^ 
 
 The circular adds that any application made by a Friend 
 who is willing to work with the Friends' Ambulance Unit 
 will be acceptable to the Army Council, and will not be 
 opposed by their representative. 
 
 The Tribunals are once more reminded that they are 
 to hold all their sittings in private only when the circum- 
 stances of the applicant render it desirable. 
 
 » See Chapter II, p. 66. 
 
84 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 There were many other advisory paragraphs all counsel- 
 ling moderation. 
 
 II. In practice, in spite of Mr. Long, and the obvious 
 intention of the Government and the Act, the necessary 
 discretion left to the Tribunals was abused, irrespective of 
 what Ministers might have said in the House. Most Tri- 
 bunals after a short time came to the conclusion never to 
 give absolute exemption, and some publicly stated the fact. 
 The War Office decided at once that it would be of no use 
 to send all the Friends' Ambulance men back from France 
 to stand their Tribunals, so they were exempted in a 
 body so long as they continued this work. A few conscien- 
 tious objectors who were theological students, or mission 
 workers, or secretaries of missions, were exempted either as 
 C.O.'s or as ministers. A very few exemptions by Tribunals 
 at the beginning were absolute, but it is difficult to find and 
 name definite cases. Since this was the only exemption 
 acceptable to many, the exemption clause, speaking broadly, 
 failed of its purpose through the action of the Tribunals 
 appointed to carry it out. The military representative 
 always opposed the absolute claim, presumably by order 
 of the War Ofiice or the Army Council. It would be 
 interesting to see from the circulars sent down to them 
 whether, or to what extent, the military were deliberately 
 stultifying the House of Commons and usurping the Govern- 
 ment of the country. 
 
 In curious contradiction to the Government hostility to 
 the Absolutists stands the action of the Purley Local Tribunal, 
 who early in August actually dismissed four applications 
 because the men had expressed their willingness to accept 
 alternative service, and so were not considered genuine. * 
 
 Quakers, as before mentioned, were generally treated 
 better than others. Their religion was, at any rate, a 
 concrete fact about them. When A. Barratt Brown and 
 W. J. Chamberlain, fellow-members of the National Com- 
 mittee of the N.C.F., were brought up together before the 
 Local Tribunal at Birmingham, only Brown the Quaker 
 was allowed a conscience. 
 
 » Tribunal, August lo, iqi6. 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK S5 
 
 At first hopes were widely held that the Appeal Tribunals, 
 consisting of county instead of municipal magnates, would, 
 through having greater minds, redress the impulsive irregu- 
 larities of the butcher, the baker and the candlestick-maker. 
 But this did not happen. Sometimes they were better, 
 sometimes worse. On the average they were about the 
 same. They had more power, because their decision was 
 final, and it was only by their leave that any appeal could 
 go to the Central Tribunal. This latter concerned itself 
 with doubtful issues and the interpretation of facts, and 
 did not always see the applicant. This made its work 
 easier, and it saved time and expense, but it cannot have 
 helped the correctness of their decisions. It is remarkable, 
 as showing how far total exemption was ahead of the mind 
 of the governing class, that this supreme Tribunal also gave 
 no complete exemption. The conscientious objector was 
 up against the herd instinct. 
 
 I have only seen one descriptive account of the Tri- 
 bunals from the point of view of its chairman or members. 
 This is in chapter vi. of a book entitled For Remembrance, 
 by Mr. (now Sir) Harry Cartmell, who was mayor of Preston 
 from 1913 to 1919, and has published with George Toulmin 
 and Son of Preston an account of his long mayoralty. He 
 was chairman of the Local Tribunal, and seems to have 
 been a just and kindly man, and one who, whilst feeling the 
 Tribunal's preliminary unfitness for this work, appears to 
 have done his best, with less than the ordinary prejudice. 
 He gives a humorous and sympathetic account of many 
 testimonies which would generally be considered undoubtedly 
 eccentric. 
 
 12. The only other central instruction sent to the 
 Tribunals which we need mention is included in a batch 
 of specimen cases, with their verdicts, which were 
 sent down by the Central Tribunal to the Appeal 
 Tribunals throughout the country, as a guide to their 
 decisions. 
 
 One of these cases was that of Douglas R. Bishop, a 
 Friend and a typical Absolutist, ^ about whose genuineness 
 
 » The meaning of " Absolutist " is explained in Chapt^ VI. 
 
86 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 there was no doubt. Upon it was made the following 
 important pronouncement : — 
 
 " The Central Tribunal, after hearing the appellant in 
 person, were satisfied that, apart from his objection to the 
 actual taking of life, his position was that his conscience 
 would not permit him to accept as a condition of exemption 
 that he should undertake any work other than work to 
 which he felt he was called, and that of that call he must 
 be the sole judge. The Tribunal did not consider that 
 this was a form of conscientious objection recognized by 
 the Military Service Act, or one that could be recognized 
 by any organized State." 
 
 We have here a flat denial by a branch of the Executive 
 of a clause in an Act of Parliament, a denial both of its 
 letter and its spirit. Parliament lays it down that the 
 exemption may be complete, if that is what is required to 
 meet the case of the applicant ; the Central Tribunal takes 
 upon itself the heavy responsibility of declaring that the 
 very kind of objection aimed at should be excluded from 
 the operation of the clause. Parliament said that in such 
 circumstances a man's conscience was to override military 
 demands ; the Central Tribunal said that the needs of the 
 organized State were to override the Absolutist's conscience. 
 This, combined with Mr. Lloyd George's expressed intention 
 to inflict all possible punishment upon the Absolutists, 
 fixes the headquarters of responsibility for all that 
 followed. 
 
 The methods of the Central Tribunal may be judged 
 from the case of two young men named Solomon, whose 
 father, on his death-bed, in the solemn manner customary 
 with Jewish patriarchs, obtained a promise from his sons 
 that they would never consent to perform military service. 
 In pursuance of this promise they became conscientious 
 objectors. The Central Tribunal refused to admit them 
 as genuine because, in their opinion, the conscience was 
 not a personal one against war, but only due to their promise 
 to their father. In consequence of this curious limitation 
 of the sphere of conscience, these sons were kept in gaol 
 till the end, in spite of their willingness to accept the Home 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK 87 
 
 Office scheme. A question in Parliament failed to move 
 the authorities. 
 
 13. The Local Government Board's circular of March 
 23rd produced little visible effect ; it was, indeed, too late ; 
 and on April 6th Mr. Snowden returned to the attack in 
 the House of Commons, the only available place. He 
 concerned himself this time with the Appeal Tribunals only, 
 and with what had been done there since the issue of the 
 circular a fortnight before. Non-combatant service in the 
 Army, the verdict known to be equivalent to punishment 
 in nearly all cases, was at this time the usual one with the 
 Local Tribunals, and the appeals for a better verdict from 
 the superior Tribunal were numerous. In many cases the 
 latter body light-heartedly took away the *' non-combatant " 
 verdict and totally rejected the claim for exemption, in 
 cases where a genuine conscience had been admitted in the 
 Tribunal below. This was often done wholesale, without 
 any examination. Instances of this kind were mentioned 
 as having occurred during a fortnight or less in the Appeal 
 Tribunals for the County of London, for Monmouthshire 
 and for Stoke-on-Trent, where a batch of eight were sum- 
 marily treated together without evidence. Ordinarily, leave 
 to appeal to the Central Tribunal was refused. At Manchester 
 the case papers were so marked before they came before 
 the Tribunal at all. The Surrey Tribunal announced 
 that *' the Act does not permit exemption from non-com- 
 batant duties in the case of a conscientious objector." The 
 Chairman of the West Sussex Tribunal announced that he 
 had no power to grant absolute exemption. But for the 
 state of public opinion, these Tribunals would have been 
 discharged by any self-respecting Government. The Middle- 
 sex Tribunal admitted that a man was genuine, and then 
 peremptorily dismissed the case, in spite of the protests 
 of counsel. The Durham Appeal Tribunal calmly said, 
 '* We are not bound by any statement made by any members 
 of Parliament or any circular issued by the Local Govern- 
 ment Board.'* This was said to me in private in Manchester, 
 and probably in many other places to others. The Chair- 
 man of the Middlesex Tribunal told a Socialist he could 
 
88 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 not have a conscience, therein following the example of the 
 Local Tribunal at Burnley. In Midlothian the Edinburgh 
 Local Tribunal had given absolute exemption in nineteen 
 cases. Eighteen of these were reversed, and non-combatant 
 service ordered. Eight military representatives were present. 
 At Liverpool and West Glamorgan general refusal of the 
 right to appeal to the Central Tribunal was the order of 
 the day. The Appeal Tribunal at Manchester was being 
 held one day in two divisions. All the men in one 
 court got non-combatant service, all in the other had no 
 exemption at all. It was odd that the cases should have 
 been so divided into genuine and fraudulent. A journalist 
 of long experience, not a pacifist, had written to Mr. Snowden : 
 " During a long and varied experience as a journalist I 
 have visited many courts of justice, but I have never before 
 witnessed such a travesty. It was so flagrant that as a 
 point of duty I have furnished a lengthy statement of it 
 to the President of the Local Government Board, giving 
 him a detailed account." 
 
 Mr. Snowden went on to say that, during the last five 
 weeks, he had received 2,600 letters on the administration 
 of the Act. That means seventy-five letters a day to the 
 Parliamentary champion. All of us who were friends of 
 the witnesses for Peace in those days were kept busy with 
 letters and interviews. But the Tribunals would rarely 
 listen. A member of a Tribunal in Wiltshire wrote to Mr. 
 Snowden that he was convinced that these men were being 
 treated unjustly and illegally, and that their right to a 
 conscience was practically denied. At Plymouth the re- 
 cruiting officer could write to an appellant, " You had better 
 come and save trouble ; I've had the result of your appeal 
 already.'* This was before it had been heard. Mr. Snowden 
 went on to describe a number of illegal arrests : but probably 
 enough detail has been given already. 
 
 At the Tribunal at Willesden the Chairman asked, *' Do 
 you believe the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin ? " 
 The applicant said, " Yes," and the Chairman said, " Then 
 would you not be forgiven if you took part in this war ? " 
 This reminds one how true it is that " if the light that is 
 within thee be darkness, how great is that darkness," 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK 89 
 
 Seme of the exemptions granted by the Tribunals were 
 no less remarkable than those they refused. There was a 
 curious tenderness to the providers of drink. A beer-taster 
 had exemption ; so had a man who supplied port wine to 
 the troops, and a man engaged in exporting liquor to 
 Australia ; also all the brewers of the Brewery Company at 
 Brentford. At Southwark, in March of 1916, exemption 
 for six months was granted to twenty-one single men em- 
 ployed by the Amalgamated Press, one of the Harmsworth 
 firms who print Home Chat, Comic Cuts, and such nationally 
 important literature. At Market Bosworth all the men 
 employed by the local Hunt were exempted. 
 
 The difficulty is to know when to stop in quoting the 
 proceedings of these Tribunals : readers may possibly be 
 willing to hear some more. At Oldbury : — Member of Tri- 
 bunal : *' Do you really mean to say you wouldn't kill 
 anybody ? *' Applicant : ** Yes.*' Member of Tribunal : 
 *' What an awful state of mind to be in ! " At Worcester, 
 to a Christian objector one of the Tribunal replied, " But 
 the very essence of Christianity is to fight. The Old Testa- 
 ment is full of fighting." At Willesden an applicant quoted 
 Jesus as saying, ** You cannot serve two masters." The 
 unabashed Chairman replied, " But I say you can serve 
 two masters." 
 
 Very interesting accounts of the hearings given to Friends 
 at the Tribunals were published weekly in the Friend, 
 beginning March 17, 1916. The records include some of 
 the better findings of these bodies, as well as the worse. It 
 is difficult to select for quotation, though the cases of Henry 
 P. Adams, H. Runham Brown, A. Barratt Brown and others 
 sorely tempt a historian with limited space. 
 
 14. Rather than give one or two of these examinations 
 in full, I will append a few court martial and Tribunal 
 statements and letters, selected from a collection itself 
 selected by the Friends' Service Committee, and printed in 
 their pamphlet The Absolutists' Objection to Conscription 
 (May, 1917).^ They represent the Christian standpoint : — 
 
 » statements from a non-Christian position will be found on other 
 pages, 
 
90 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 " During my recent imprisonment I have been able 
 not only to study the New Testament very carefully, but 
 also to spend much time in waiting upon God, and the 
 result has been to strengthen my conviction of the sinfulness 
 of all war and to lead me to see that I can best serve my 
 fellow-men by a loyal obedience to God's will. I hope, 
 in view of these circumstances, that the court will be able 
 to see why my refusal to wear khaki is the only course I 
 could honourably adopt. It was this that led me to with- 
 hold any application to the Tribunal on business grounds ; 
 it also prevented me from accepting alternative service 
 under the F.A.U. or the Home Office, and when in the 
 Army made me refuse all medical examination. The reason 
 is that I consider the Military Service Acts are crimes against 
 humanity, and I cannot acquiesce in them in any way. 
 I cannot, as it were, ' compound a felony ' by accepting 
 any form of compulsory alternative service as my price of 
 exemption." 
 
 *' It is true that the * Absolutist ' position is the only 
 one which appeals to the fighting-men. It is only by calling 
 them to dare all and risk everything in The Great Adventure 
 that we can attract men who have shown such wonderful 
 heroism in warfare." 
 
 *' The experience I am going through is far too wonderful 
 for words, and I really think that the last few months have 
 been about the happiest in my life. 
 
 " I have more or less feared every stage before I got to 
 it, but have found it all wonderfully easy when the time 
 came, and have known in a very real sense something of 
 the presence of God in my life. I don't think I ever felt I 
 was imprisoned, and I found that there was no such thing 
 as solitary confinement to one who believes in the ever- 
 living Spirit of Jesus. I think you outside have the more 
 difficult task at present, really. May you all know the 
 strength that comes from our common Father." 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK 91 
 
 " I wish you and those who have to carry on all the 
 burden of the work could have the joy of seeing the little 
 group of thirty-two Absolutists at Maidstone. They are 
 absolutely inflexible. No scheme or * arrangement ' would 
 even be considered by them. They are all N.C.F.-ers except 
 two ; some of them are working men, Socialists, with families 
 outside, and no personal honour to get from their stand, 
 no reputation to make, but just their own sense of right 
 and wrong to keep them faithful and ready for future work. 
 Honestly, I have never gained so much inspiration from 
 meetings and conventions and such-like as I have from 
 these unconquerable men." 
 
 " In the teaching of Christ there is no room for suspicion, 
 jealousy and hate, only the conquering love that casts out 
 fear. It is fear that bids the nations arm and fight against 
 each other ; until, therefore, we accept in all its literal 
 meaning the negative commandment, ' Thou shalt not kill,' 
 and the positive commandment, ' Love one another, even 
 as I have loved you,' until then we shall not only have war, 
 but shall fail in all duty before God and man. However 
 imperfectly I have followed that teaching in the past, my 
 life in prison . . . has been a great inspiration to me, and 
 I stand before you now firmer in faith than ever. I have 
 become filled with an ever- widening sense that * all the 
 material force the world contains is powerless against the 
 spirit of indomitable love.' " 
 
 " I stand here reverently to witness for the heroic Christi- 
 anity of Jesus Christ ; for the belief that the only way to 
 overcome evil is to conquer it by indomitable love and 
 unwavering service. By this I mean a love that never 
 admits defeat, that goes on loving and serving regardless 
 of risk, regardless of possible consequences — in literal in- 
 terpretation of our Master's orders : * Love your enemies, 
 do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that 
 despitefuUy use you and persecute you.' 
 
 " It will no doubt be urged that such a belief is hopelessly 
 
92 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 Utopian and Idealist, and cannot be brought down into 
 the practical world of to-day." 
 
 '* Truth is more to me than victory, and if the great 
 forces of love and service are ever to triumph over 
 those of fear and mistrust, some one must try to make 
 a beginning. I am anxious to take my place amongst 
 those beginners.*' 
 
 15. Those of my readers who do not know intimately 
 many of the more prominent conscientious objectors to 
 war will not find it easy to realize what the refusal of abso- 
 lute exemption really meant in terms of human experience. 
 It would therefore seem wise for one who knew many of 
 them well to try to express in a few lines what manner of 
 men they were. The real difficulty is one of choice ; for 
 every man mentioned there are a dozen who might have 
 been ; and if I naturally select men well known and well 
 educated, it is not that I do not realize the same unfitness 
 in rejecting the clerk and the mill hand, who were often 
 of as great worth and made an equal or a greater sacrifice. 
 Indeed, the marvel of the whole movement was the rank 
 and file. With everything to lose, and to lose inconspicuously, 
 their courage and sincerity made one believe in human 
 nature after all. 
 
 The men in the following list were all in prison for long 
 periods. They had elaborate Tribunal experiences, in which 
 they were given either non-combatant service or work of 
 national importance, or both in turn. These they rejected 
 as Absolutists. In some cases the Tribunals expressed 
 regret that these were not acceptable, and that they had 
 a (self-made) rule never to allow absolute exemption. 
 
 Clifford Allen had been a student at University College, 
 Bristol, and an Exhibitioner at Peterhouse, Cambridge. 
 He had devoted himself to the Labour movement on coming 
 down from the University, and had been general manager 
 of the Daily Citizen, the official organ of the Labour Party. 
 He was not a Christian, in the usually accepted sense of 
 any denomination ; his religion was Socialism. His story 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK 98 
 
 runs through all these records, as Chairman of the N.C.F. 
 He has since become a member of the National Council of 
 the Independent Labour Party, and has visited Bolshevik 
 Russia as one of the Delegates from the British Labour 
 Movement. 
 
 Walter H. Ayles was a Town Councillor at Bristol, and 
 is a Labour candidate for Parliament. He has joined the 
 Society of Friends, and is a member of the National Council 
 of the LLP. 
 
 G. H. Stewart Beavis has resided in France and Germany, 
 and besides his business, taught languages at the Working 
 Men's College, Crowndale Road, N.W. His early training 
 and his international associations led him to an intense 
 belief in the Brotherhood of Man. 
 
 Robert O. Mennell was a London merchant and member 
 of a highly respected Quaker family at Croydon. He was, 
 quite unnecessarily, taken in handcuffs through his native 
 town, on December 30, 1916, on the way to a long imprison- 
 ment. He was Hon. Sec. and Treasurer, while free, of the 
 Friends' Service Committee, which was the active arm of 
 the Society in the fight with conscription, and took the 
 part of a leader at headquarters in all that happened. 
 
 A. Barratt Brown, after a course in Greats at Oxford, 
 became lecturer on Philosophy at the Friends* educational 
 centre at Woodbrooke, near Birmingham. He is now Vice- 
 Principal of Ruskin College, Oxford. He was a leading 
 member of the Friends* Service Committee, the N.C.F. 
 National Committee, and of the Joint Advisory Council, 
 and his name occurs elsewhere in this book. He belongs 
 to the LLP. 
 
 A. Fenner Brockway was the son, the grandson, and 
 the nephew of missionaries, and was born at Calcutta. He 
 was sub-editor of the Christian Commonwealth, and after- 
 wards editor of the Labour Leader, the official organ of 
 the I.L.P. He had been a Settlement worker in Pentonville, 
 and had travelled widely over Europe. He is at present 
 combining with journalism the Joint Secretaryship of the 
 Prison System Enquiry Committee, and is the Labour 
 candidate for the Lancaster Division,^and all who know him 
 hope that his gifts may find scope in Parliament 
 
94 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 T. Corder Catchpool volunteered for the Friends' Ambu- 
 lance Unit in 1914 ; had worked at Ypres when the battles 
 raged in Flanders ; and while he was in prison was awarded 
 the Mons Medal. He finally found that the Friends' Ambu- 
 lance Unit, of which he had become Adjutant, was displacing 
 men who were drafted — with bitter complaints — to the 
 firing line. While his friends were suffering under con- 
 scription in England, he felt that he must join them and 
 leave his position of privilege with the Unit. He is a member 
 of the Society of Friends, and has devoted his life to its 
 service. He is employed in the cotton trade at Darwen. 
 
 Oswald Clark belongs to a well-known Quaker family 
 in business at Doncaster, and was constantly occupied with 
 the meetings and the work of the Society. His firm had 
 refused all Government contracts, and when he found that 
 they made leather for some firms who took such contracts 
 he abandoned all his profits in the business. 
 
 Roderic K. Clark is a Cambridge Honours man in 
 Economics. He is a member of many of the important 
 committees which do the work of the Society of Friends in 
 London. 
 
 Hugh Gibbins was a graduate in Honours of Manchester 
 University, an influential business man in Birmingham, 
 devoted to the Adult Schools of the Society of Friends, and 
 would have been allowed to continue his business by the 
 Tribunal if he had been willing to recognize that the Tribunal 
 had any authority over him. He is an active member of 
 the Independent Labour Party. 
 
 Stephen Hobhouse is the eldest son of the Right Hon. 
 Henry Hobhouse. He had joined the Society of Friends 
 and had devoted his life for many years to its ministry, 
 and to social work in the East End. He lived, and lives, 
 in Hoxton, in a workman's flat, a life of simplicity and 
 privation, having renounced his position and prospects as 
 his father's heir. He was a scholar at Eton and student 
 of Balliol ; took a First Class in Mods, and a Second in 
 Greats. He abandoned the post he had held for seven 
 years in the Board of Education, in order to help the refugees 
 in Constantinople during the first Balkan War. He is 
 physically unfit for the Army on three different counts, and 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK 95 
 
 could easily have obtained medical exemption. Since the 
 war he has devoted himself to prison reform, and has written, 
 with Fenner Brockway, an important book upon it. 
 
 James H. Hudson, a graduate of the University of 
 Manchester, was a teacher under the Salford Education 
 Committee and a strikingly powerful speaker for the I.L.P. 
 He has now joined the Society of Friends, to which in 
 sympathy he already belonged. He might have gone on 
 teaching under leave of the Tribunal, if he had felt it 
 right to take so easy an alternative. 
 
 Dr. Ernest B. Ludlam is a Friend ; had been a Master 
 at Clifton College and was engaged in scientific research at 
 Cambridge when he was arrested. The Government offered 
 him a chance of continuing his research, but when he found 
 that the results were being used for military purposes he 
 refused to continue it, and went to gaol. 
 
 Hubert W. Peet is a journalist. He was Organizing 
 Secretary of the Friends' Service Committee and one of 
 the editors of a paper called the Ploughshare. He is a 
 member of the I.L.P. and Secretary of the Friends' Central 
 Literature Council. 
 
 Aylmer Rose was Organizing Secretary of the N.C.F. 
 from very early days, and was kept busy with giving advice 
 to enquirers, many of whom were helped by his clear insight. 
 He was a distinguished debater on the side of Peace at the 
 Fabian Society and elsewhere. He disappeared into prison 
 in January 1917. 
 
 Maurice L. Rowntree, son of the late Joshua Rowntree 
 M.P., took a course in Theology at Oxford and was lecturing to 
 working people at the Swarthmore Settlement in Leeds when 
 he was arrested. He has joined the I.L.P. He belongs to 
 the well-known Quaker family of Rowntree, and devotes his 
 leisure and ability entirely to the welfare of the disinherited 
 classes. He has written two books on Social Reform. 
 
 Malcolm Sparkes had done distinguished service as the 
 founder of the Builders' Parliament and the inventor of the 
 plan finally modified and embodied in the Whitley Councils. 
 He had abandoned the Directorship of his business when 
 it became controlled. He too is a member of the Society 
 of Friends and a Guild Socialist. 
 
96 CONSCRIPTION AND CONwSCIENCE 
 
 George A. Sutherland, also a Friend, had taken Degrees 
 in Science at Cambridge and at the Cape of Good Hope ; 
 had been a University Lecturer in South Africa ; and was 
 a Master at Harrow when conscription fell upon him. He 
 had been a convinced pacifist for years. 
 
 Morgan Jones, M.P., is the first CO. to be elected to 
 Parliament. He is a teacher by profession. His father was 
 a miner. He is well known as a Socialist speaker and leader 
 in South Wales, where he has been a County Councillor. 
 He was elected in 192 1 by a large majority over both 
 Coalitionist and Communist, 
 
 H. Runham Brown is a London Congregationalist, son 
 of a Sunday-school superintendent and grandson of a 
 minister. At his Tribunal three were for absolute exemption 
 and four against, the result of which was the useless 
 exemption from combatant service. The Appeal Tribunal 
 withdrew even this admission of honesty. He served 
 three terms of the usual length. 
 
 Wilfred Wellock had been a student at Edinburgh 
 University ; he was a local preacher, and the author of 
 many articles and some books in favour of social reform and 
 on religious subjects. He had carried on a pacifist periodical 
 of his own. He belongs to the Independent Methodists, whose 
 preachers, though they were unpaid, were exempted, but he 
 declined to take advantage of this privilege. He was a 
 vegetarian, and suffered a good deal in prison before a suitable 
 diet was organized. It was my privilege to hand him in 
 prison the earliest copy of one of his books just published. 
 
 Besides these, one might well make mention of Eric P. 
 Southall, a member of one of the old Quaker families at 
 Birmingham. The Tribunal stated that it was with regret 
 and reluctance that they refused his claim. In curious 
 contrast with this was a remark of the Central Tribunal, 
 politely stating that they could not understand why he 
 had not been given absolute exemption at first ; which was 
 odd, because they never gave absolute exemption themselves. 
 There was also Henry Smith, a member of a well-known 
 Quaker family at Belper, brother of Lydia S. Smith, who 
 comes later into this narrative. I have omitted the names 
 of some others who appear incidentally in other parts of this 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK 97 
 
 book. I had hoped to insert a complete list of all men who 
 came before Tribunals, but had to abandon it. For one 
 thing, it would have added two shillings to the cost of the 
 book. 
 
 i6. During March 1916 the machinery of exemption 
 was enlarged in two ways : — 
 
 The Friends* Ambulance Unit * was extended for Friends 
 only, to cover work not connected with ambulance at all. 
 The term Friends was used as broadly as it would bear. 
 This was called the General Service Section of the F.A.U., 
 and it arranged for teaching, farm work, and other humble 
 and useful occupations. The F.A.U. Committee laid it 
 down that all who accepted work under their General Service 
 branch should undertake to do no Peace Propaganda, and 
 take part in no local Peace Meetings. In practice this 
 was not enforced in very determined cases. These restric- 
 tions were not unnatural for the men doing actual ambulance 
 work with the Army. No doubt the Committee felt that 
 their privileged position would be imperilled if riots took 
 place on village greens. This led to some correspondence 
 between the Ambulance Unit Committee and the Friends' 
 Service Committee,^ who could not approve of any such 
 limitation on general grounds ; also the Service Committee 
 disliked the plan, as being an advantage granted to Friends 
 only, thus tending to break the full community of suifering. 
 A Government, however mistaken, claims the right to sup- 
 press rebellion. But for a minority to convince a majority is 
 the only course open to it, and no democratic Government 
 is within its rights in stopping propaganda, however it 
 may dislike them. 
 
 17. Secondly, there was a development concerning cases 
 of men who were allowed to do work of national importance. 
 It was extremely unusual to allow a man to continue the 
 work he was doing, the work in which, of course, he could 
 serve the country best. Teachers were doubtless doing work 
 of national importance. In Germany the schools and 
 colleges went on, and the teachers were exempted. But 
 
 « See Chapter IV. 
 
 7 
 
98 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 here no CO. who had been trained to teach was allowed 
 to do so. They had to work in quarries or on the land, 
 inefficiently. Certain amateurs from other professions, who 
 had not learnt how to teach, were allowed, very gingerly 
 and occasionally, to do so. This permission to do work of 
 national importance gave great openings for petty tyranny. 
 In Manchester we had frequently to find home and work 
 for men from Liverpool, whose Tribunal had a way of com- 
 pelling the men to move twenty-five miles away and not 
 to follow their own profession, a strange way to secure 
 efficiency in a national crisis. Destitution would have 
 followed had there been no relief organization. A man 
 so treated had two homes or lodgings to maintain on an 
 unskilled labourer's wage, if he could obtain such work in 
 a place where he was unknown and untrained in new work, 
 and where most employers would refuse a conscientious 
 objector. In many cases sympathetic employers were 
 prevented by their workpeople from employing a CO. To 
 take one instance, printed in the Manchester Guardian. 
 A man from Manchester was allowed to find work there, 
 as he had a wife and family depending upon him, provided 
 it was poorly paid. He made thirty applications, and was 
 finally accepted by a sympathetic firm at thirty shillings 
 a week, half his usual salary. The Chairman of the Tribunal, 
 when this was reported to him, remarked that the firm, 
 being friendly, might very likely give him more, refused 
 his sanction, and said the man must find work ten miles 
 out of Manchester. So he faced the world again, adrift. 
 Sympathetic employers, it appeared, were not trusted, and 
 no others would employ him. This case is very typical. 
 The main purpose of the body charged with the duty of 
 careful exemption had become penal. The body set up 
 to protect the genuine conscientious objector had become, 
 under the herd instinct, his worst enemy. It punished 
 him as a bad citizen, instead of granting the exemption 
 to which he was by law entitled. 
 
 i8. The difficulties about work of national importance 
 became so great that the Government set up a Committee 
 to advise Tribunals about it, and to endeavour to bring 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK 99 
 
 the work and the workers together. Of all the bodies set 
 up by the Government this was the most satisfactory. But 
 its powers were, perhaps for that reason, very limited. It 
 could do nothing but advise Tribunals when they chose 
 to consult it about a case, and it could not enforce any 
 advice it gave. Nevertheless it treated nearly four thousand 
 cases and was a really useful body. It was set up by the 
 Board of Trade and was generally called the Pelham Com- 
 mittee, from the Hon. H. W. Pelham, its first chairman. 
 T. Edmund Harvey, M.P., who was the author of the amend- 
 ment allowing work of national importance, was a member, 
 and also later Mr. Charles Wright, an opponent of the war. 
 The other original members were Mr. Charles Fenwick, M.P., 
 and Mr. Graham S. Spicer. But for a long time many 
 Tribunals ignored it ; it could not initiate any effort to 
 obtain or sanction work. The Clerk of the Appeal Tribunal 
 at Manchester thought the Committee very troublesome, 
 and did not acquaint his chairman. Judge Mellor, with the 
 circulars about it. This chairman made a practice of giving 
 to cases he thought genuine, *' Non-combatant service under 
 the Pelham Committee." This was a contradiction in terms; 
 that is, in the technical terms as used. The men were carried 
 off by the military and sent to prison. I was able to let 
 Judge Mellor know the real situation, and he, to his great 
 credit, set about correcting the mistake. He had about 
 sixty cases up before him again, and gave them " work of 
 national importance under the Pelham Committee." But 
 alas ! the Army had got hold of many of them. There 
 appears to be no way out of the Army. It took the Judge 
 three weeks, as it took me six, to have this wrong righted. 
 Even at the end eight men could not be got out, and served 
 the usual long imprisonment. To show how it worked in 
 detail I quote an account I wrote for the Press at the time, 
 about Harold Kiernan, the man whom it took me six weeks* 
 effort to liberate : — 
 
 " Yesterday I was permitted to visit a brave young 
 fellow in the guardroom at Bury Barracks. He is a working 
 man and his parents are dependent upon him. He is hunger- 
 striking, rightly or wrongly, and is, of course, in conflict 
 
100 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 with the military authority and in danger of imminent 
 court martial for refusing to obey orders. How he came 
 into this position is of importance to every Englishman. 
 
 *' He received from the Salford Hundred Appeal Tri- 
 bunal at Manchester relief from combatant duties only, 
 and was referred to the Pelham Committee of the Board of 
 Trade. This decision recognizes the reality of his conscien- 
 tious objection. It is, however, self-contradictory, for a 
 man excused from combatant duties is still a soldier under 
 military orders, whilst the Pelham Committee is formed 
 to provide and organize occupations for those who are 
 exempted conditionally on finding work of national impor- 
 tance. But here comes in the curious thing characteristic 
 of the present muddle, all of whose confusions, as it happens, 
 tell against exemption. The chairman and the clerk of this 
 Tribunal have both refused to take any action whatever 
 with the Pelham Committee towards carrying out the decision. 
 They say they have nothing to do with it, and quite wrongly 
 assert that they have no official cognizance of its existence, 
 though in fact the clerk has received its circulars. The 
 Pelham Committee, on their side, are only authorized to 
 deal with cases sent to them by the Tribunals. Between 
 these two the victim, along with the utility of the Pelham 
 Committee, falls to the ground ; the decision becomes a 
 mockery, the military take advantage of it and capture 
 their man. In this case he was brought before a magis- 
 trate ; his solicitor pleaded for a remand in order to get 
 the Pelham machinery to work ; the recruiting authority, 
 with their usual sense of justice, objected, and, presumably 
 with his eyes open, the magistrate committed the man, 
 with an admitted conscience against the war, to the military. 
 The authorities at the Barracks at Bury were totally in 
 the dark about any reference of their man to the Pelham 
 Committee, inasmuch as the papers which recorded it had 
 been kept back by the recruiting people in Manchester, 
 who also informed the commandant at Bury that the Pelham 
 Committee had ceased to exist, a perfectly baseless state- 
 ment. So that, if it had not been for the chance that we 
 could turn up a newspaper cutting which the prisoner had 
 with him, there was no evidence to prove that the whole 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WQHK, 101 
 
 procedure had been a mistake. Whethei* the case will get 
 worse or better I do not yet know, but I would like to ask 
 Mr. Lloyd George, who now is * the under dog * for whose 
 sake he entered politics and continues there, and what are 
 ' the Liberal principles ' which are not violated in practice 
 by the Tribunals and the military under the Act which 
 he has set up ? *' 
 
 The Pelham Committee made out a list of recognized 
 callings to which men might be put. The list was not 
 published, but I have a copy. It is as follows : — 
 
 Preliminary List of Occupations 
 
 which the Pelham Committee recommends to the Tribunals 
 as being of National Importance. 
 
 Agriculture. — Farm labour, market gardening and 
 fruit growing, seed raising, agricultural machinery 
 making and repairs. Agricultural education and 
 organization. 
 
 Forestry. — Cutting, hauling and preparing timber. 
 
 Food Supply. — Flour milling, sugar refining, margarine 
 production. 
 
 Shipping. — Mercantile marine, shipbuilding and re- 
 pairing. 
 
 Transport. — Railways and canals. Docks and wharves. 
 Cartage connected with same. 
 
 Mining. 
 
 Education. 
 
 Public Utility Services. — Sanitary services. Local 
 authorities. Fire brigades, civil hospitals, work- 
 houses, infirmaries, asylums. 
 
 19 To put into summary form this very variegated 
 chapter : — We see that it records one attempt after another 
 on the part of the authorities to remedy the worst hardships 
 of the system. But the regulations were seldom retrospec- 
 tive, and always slow of application ; and all the time 
 the stream to the prisons proceeded, of men who had missed 
 
102 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 the later ameliorations. Irregularity of treatment was the 
 mark of the whole system. 
 
 The sittings of these Httle Tribunals were mostly 
 undignified occasions, with Httle that was spectacular going 
 on. But there, nevertheless, the long struggle for freedom 
 was being waged by the indomitable spirit of man. The 
 State appeared to triumph and the young men went to 
 prison. But in the suffering of three long, slow-going years 
 their spirits won their victory over the flesh and over the 
 world, and endured to the end, pure and strong. 
 
 ADDENDUM 
 
 The following sketch, written by Miss Eva Gore-Booth, 
 begins with realism and ends with vision. It gives, I think, 
 an equally truthful and certainly a more vivid picture of 
 the Tribunal system than carefully collected facts by them- 
 selves can, and I think my readers will value it, and join 
 with me in thanking the authoress for leave to print it 
 here. 
 
 The Tribunal. 
 
 The ugly, airless room with its hot-looking glass roof 
 seemed to be strewn with wreckage and haunted with 
 memories of vain appeals and helpless protest. It was 
 just 3.30. The watcher in the gallery, whose head was 
 beginning to ache from the bad air, was engaged in counting 
 up from notes, taken by her next-door neighbour, how 
 many small businesses had been wrecked since she came 
 in at two o'clock. It was like walking down a street looking 
 at the remains of the shops after a Zeppelin raid. One 
 old man, particularly, it was impossible to get out of one's 
 head. He was a working man whose two sons had started 
 a little tailoring business three years ago. One of them 
 was already at the war, and the old man had come to claim 
 exemption for the remaining son. He was so obviously 
 frail and broken that you would have thought his case 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK 103 
 
 would have wrung pity out of a drum-head court martial. 
 He had brought with him a solicitor, who explained that 
 if his son had to go the business would have to be shut 
 up, and the old man and his wife of sixty-eight would have 
 to go to the workhouse. For a moment one felt sure that 
 even these men, with their merciless mania for destruction, 
 must feel a touch of human sympathy and understanding. 
 There was a moment's pause. Then the Military Repre- 
 sentative looked up and said decidedly, " We want that 
 man," and in a moment the Chairman was pronouncing 
 his strange formula, " The Tribunal have carefully con- 
 sidered your case, and find they cannot grant you any 
 exemption." The old man, who had stood all through 
 the proceedings, turned and groped out of the room with 
 a sort of lost and baffled look that was very painful. After 
 that came a conscientious objector. He was a very young 
 man, obviously sincere, and intensely nervous. You felt 
 that never before in his life had he dreamt of telling the 
 public about his rehgious convictions. The watcher noticed 
 that her neighbour who took the notes was praying for 
 him with concentrated force and energy. He was fair 
 game for the Tribunal, especially for its clerical repre- 
 sentative, who seemed to pursue him with the relentless 
 animosity of the professional for the enthusiastic amateur. 
 He was quickly reduced to pulp. It was found out that 
 he was not really a Quaker, that he only went to the Friends' 
 Meeting House because he agreed with their views about 
 war, and he did not even subscribe to their funds. Of 
 course after that he had no chance. Then the Church 
 intervened, and the clergyman floored the poor young man 
 with the inevitable Sphinx riddle, '* If a German attacked 
 your mother, what would you do ? " The young man 
 hesitated for a minute, then he said in a very low, uncertain 
 voice, " I would try to make terms with him." ** How I 
 wish the Government would go and do likewise," was the 
 thought that passed through the watcher's mind as she 
 craned her head over the gallery railing. But down below 
 in the Tribunal the remark was received with general derision. 
 The clergyman stuck to his point, " Would you rather kill 
 a German or allow a German to kill your mother ? " The 
 
104 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 woman with the notebook drew in her breath, and prayed 
 hard. The young man did not answer. Over and over 
 again the clergyman repeated his question, doubtless con- 
 vinced that his foe was utterly defeated, not knowing, as 
 indeed men of his kind never do know, the difference between 
 silence and defeat. Quickly, though after the usual " care- 
 ful consideration " of a minute and a half, the man's claim 
 to a conscience was dismissed, and he himself was hustled 
 out. At the door, in his nervous hurry he managed to 
 collide with the next applicant, a large and somewhat heavy- 
 looking merchant. He had come to protest against the 
 ruin of his business. The Tribunal were much politer to 
 him, he was a publican, and one of them actually chaffed 
 him about being one of his best customers. One could 
 see they respected him as an honest, upstanding Englishman, 
 not one of those wretched shivering cowards hiding behind 
 their humbugging consciences. But still, for all that, his 
 doom was sealed. The usual formula was said over him, 
 and he went away protesting. After that two or three 
 conscientious objectors got very rough treatment. One 
 man, who looked refined and rather delicate, and said he 
 was studying architecture, was asked in the good old hearty 
 Enghsh fashion, *' how often he had a bath,** and if he 
 " lay in bed all Sunday," and advised by the Tribunal " to 
 get up early and go to bed early, and his conscience would 
 soon cease to trouble him." The whole attack was quite 
 unprovoked, the assumption seeming to be that the posses- 
 sion of a conscience indicated the presence of an unhealthy 
 mind in an unhealthy body. Anyhow, for that young 
 man the cross-examination began with insult and ended 
 with injury. And all the time he was quite unmoved and 
 gentle, yet sticking firmly to his belief that war is against 
 the spirit, teaching and example of Christ, in the face of 
 the Church and its official representative. 
 
 There was another applicant who gave the nerves of 
 the Tribunal a very bad shock indeed by the crudity of 
 his answers. He was a pleasant, smiling young man with 
 an unperturbable temper, much at his ease, and obviously 
 full of friendly interest in his fellow-creatures. He was 
 asked, " Why do you consider Christ was opposed to war ? " 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK 105 
 
 He leant back in his chair and considered for a moment. 
 " Well, you know/' he said, slowly smiling at the Tribunal, 
 *' one can't exactly picture Jesus Christ taking a bayonet 
 and sticking it into a German soldier or an English one 
 either, for the matter of that ! " A distressed flutter passed 
 over the Tribunal. *' Oh,** said the Chairman, tactfully 
 trying to cover up such an unexpected lapse from good 
 taste and good feeling, " I don't think we need consider 
 such an extreme case as that." Afterwards the same young 
 man electrified the Tribunal by allowing that some time 
 before the war he had lectured on *' The Hypocrisy of Patriot- 
 ism." By that time, of course, his case was hopeless, but 
 he filled up the measure of his iniquities by letting out the 
 disgraceful fact that he dared to live, and lecture too, in 
 the sacred precincts of the Y.M.C.A. Not even content 
 with this, when asked why he ventured to live there he said, 
 quite unconcernedly, that it was called Christian, and there- 
 fore he thought it was a very suitable place to shelter a 
 man with his views. Of course he had no chance, but 
 then nobody else had either, and, at all events (the watcher 
 thought to herself), he got a real run for his money. 
 
 At any rate, there were the three types — the nervous young 
 man who had no fluency, but whose sincerity broke through 
 the strain of his uneasy manner, and was quite unques- 
 tionable ; then there was the other, quiet and determined ; 
 and, lastly, the straight-looking young man with the pleasant 
 face, who knew so well how to hold his end up in that rather 
 one-sided debate, where his adversaries had been rehearsing 
 their parts over and over again for endless weeks of weary 
 afternoons. Two things they all had in common, they 
 were all sincere, and they were all dismissed as impostors 
 by the Tribunal. The watcher had just remembered that 
 that was the last conscience case that was going to be 
 heard that afternoon, and was beginning to calculate how 
 she could get out without treading on her neighbour's toes, 
 or making too much noise, when she became aware that 
 a new claim for exemption was being read out, which seemed 
 to her based on rather an odd assertion : " that the Spirit 
 of God in the hearts of men has no power to hurt or kill 
 anyone." The Clerk read this out in a rather puzzled 
 
106 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 voice, whilst the new applicant sat down and looked with 
 apparent interest at each member of the Tribunal in turn. 
 The watcher noticed the manner of the Chairman stiffen 
 as the man allowed he had been out of work for some years 
 and had no permanent address. " A regular loafer/* he 
 murmured aside to the clergyman, who nodded back to 
 him with a kind of " I-know-the-sort-of- fellow " expression. 
 Then the Chairman began his usual conscience-searching 
 questions. The applicant had a very peculiar voice, clear 
 and rather high, with a curious, almost tragic, sound in it. 
 After a few minutes the woman who took notes, and had 
 begun writing again, suddenly shut up her book, sat bolt 
 upright, and gazed over the heads of the Tribunal, with a 
 look of astonished interest at the young man's impassive 
 face. He looked up, and a glance of recognition passed 
 between them. At the moment one was glad to see he 
 had a friend in the gallery. He seemed a man of very 
 decided views. When the Chairman asked him what Church 
 or religious society he belonged to, he said, " I am not here 
 for any Church, but for the sake of Reality and Truth." 
 When the clergyman asked him to explain his rather blas- 
 phemous-sounding assertion that the Spirit of God had 
 no power to kill or hurt anyone, he said, *' Power to hurt 
 is an evil thing, therefore the Spirit of God has no power 
 to hurt anyone." " Well, I'm not a theologian," said the 
 Chairman, " but I don't see what that's got to do with 
 your objection to defending your country." " Don't you 
 see," said the applicant, " that the truth in a man's soul 
 is the Spirit of God. Therefore a man who knows his 
 own soul can never hurt or kill a living thing. It is only 
 they who do not understand themselves who can do these 
 things." The Tribunal obviously couldn't imagine what 
 he was driving at, or what all this talk had to do with 
 conscientious objection to military service. " Anyway," one 
 member remarked, " too much conscience seems to have 
 a very odd effect on the brain." The young man said 
 nothing. But when the Chairman asked him " how long 
 he had held these views," his emphatic answer, ** Always," 
 provoked some laughter among the members of the Tribunal 
 and one member asked him, " was he born a pacifist or 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK 107 
 
 did he feel it coming on after being christened ? " The 
 clergyman frowned as if he felt this remark was derogatory 
 to one of the most important ceremonies of the Church. 
 But the young man answered the question at once, as if 
 he had been waiting for it. " These ideas," he said, " are 
 not yours or mine to come and go, and be taught to one 
 person and not another. The spirit that has no power 
 to hurt is your own soul, only you do not know it. When 
 you have found your own soul you will understand my 
 words, but not till then." The clergyman got rather red. 
 '* Since when,'* he said hufhly, " has the Spirit of God 
 prevented a young man like you doing his best to help 
 his country and his friends." " I am here," said the appli- 
 cant, " to show others the Reality I have found in myself, 
 not to help them to kill each other." 
 
 *' That's not what you're here for," said a member 
 of the Tribunal rudely. *' You're not thinking of helping 
 anybody. I don't suppose a man like you ever helped 
 anybody in his life. I take it you're here to get us to 
 help you to gQt out of doing your duty and defending 
 your country." 
 
 Now came the time for the clergyman's cow^. "If," 
 he said, *' your mother was attacked by a German with 
 a bayonet, would you not kill him to save your mother's 
 life ? " 
 
 " May I ask you a question in return ? " said the appli- 
 cant. *' Do you believe in God ? " and he looked straight 
 in the clergyman's face. The clergyman was irritated. He 
 answered sharply, ** Look here, young man, it won't help 
 your case to be impertinent ; you must know I am a 
 clergyman. ..." 
 
 The young man answered without apologizing but with- 
 out anger. " Then you do believe in God," he said. *' Well, 
 if that is so, do you not think my mother's life would be 
 safer in His hands than in mine, stained with my brother's 
 blood ? " "I suppose you'd leave her to her fate and run 
 away," said a member of the Tribunal, with a kind of vague 
 spite. The young man did not answer. Another member 
 of the Tribunal, who seemed a little friendlier than the 
 others, asked the applicant if he would not help his country 
 
108 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 by doing non-combatant service. In this way he could 
 help his friends without injuring his enemies. To this he 
 answered with a friendly smile but a decided shake of the 
 head, " The only work I will do is the work of the Spirit 
 that is within me." 
 
 " In fact/' said the Chairman, summing up, " you won't 
 help your fellow-citizens, and you don't recognize your 
 duty to the State that provides for you and defends you 
 from your enemies. Don't you think you're rather selfish ? " 
 The young man said, " It is God, not the State, who defends 
 us and provides for us, and all the people in the world are 
 our fellow-citizens. I help everyone whom God gives me 
 the power to help." 
 
 By this time the clergyman was really angry. " Do you 
 ever read your Bible, young man ? " he said. The applicant 
 smiled. " Not often," he said. " I thought so," said the 
 clergyman. ** Then you probably don't remember that 
 Christ told us to render unto Caesar the things that are 
 Caesar's." " Yes, but so few things are Caesar's," said the 
 young man ; " some metal coins he has minted, the house 
 he has built, the land he has seized, but never my soul or 
 yours. My soul, my life, my conscience, my mind have 
 nothing to do with the State. They are free as the sunshine 
 and the air, for they belong to God alone." " You seem 
 to me to repudiate all your most sacred obligations," said 
 the clergyman; " do you really think you can claim to be 
 called a Christian, in any true sense of the word ? " He 
 had taken up the telephone book, and was turning over 
 the leaves as he spoke. There was a moment's pause. 
 Then the applicant answered, " You may call me what 
 you will," he said, *' I am one who lives the truth he has 
 found in his soul." 
 
 " He says he has a conscience ; why, he isn't even a 
 Christian," said a member of the Tribunal. About three 
 minutes later the Chairman announced the decision of the 
 Tribunal in the usual formula : ** The Tribunal has given 
 your case the most careful consideration," he said, *' and, 
 owing to your refusal to help your country in any way 
 they have come to the conclusion that your conscientious 
 objection is not genuine, and therefore they refuse to give 
 
THE TRIBUNALS AT WORK 109 
 
 you any exemption whatever." The young man said 
 nothing, and turned to go out of the room. As he did so 
 the woman with the notebook got up suddenly and leaned 
 over the railing staring at him. He looked up, and there 
 was something in his face, seen at a new angle, that startled 
 me. I had a sudden attack of curiosity. " Who is that 
 queer young man ? *' I said to her ; "I seem somehow 
 to have heard him speak before, I don't know when or 
 where. ..." '* Oh, do you not know," she said, " it is 
 Someone I have been hoping all my life to meet — people 
 said He would come again, but, indeed, I never thought 
 to find Him here." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 
 
 I. When a man had been rejected by both his Tribunals, 
 or had been admitted to be genuine but had received some 
 form of exemption which he could not accept, he received 
 a calling-up notice, and awaited at home a visit from the 
 police. In their strange and humiliating company he was 
 taken to the recruiting office, and thence to a police cell ; 
 there during a night of loneliness to realize the lot he had 
 chosen, so new to his experience. He was brought next 
 day before a magistrate, proof was given of his liability 
 and his refusal to serve ; and after having the opportunity 
 of expressing a public testimony he was formally fined £2 
 and handed over to the military who were in readiness. 
 At the barracks he committed some act of technical dis- 
 obedience, such as refusing to salute or to wear khaki, and 
 was put into the guardroom. This in time became the 
 routine, but at the beginning confusion reigned, and all sorts 
 of prolonged attempts, of which this chapter tells, were 
 made to deal with these puzzling people. 
 
 The guardroom is close to the barracks gate, at a con- 
 venient spot to which to run in ** drunks " brought in late. 
 The rooms, of which there may be two, are absolutely bare 
 of furniture except plank beds fastened to the wall. Here 
 days and nights with the roughest and least sober of the 
 soldiers have to be endured. There is a choice between 
 walking about and sitting on the floor, if all the plank beds 
 are taken by bodies reacting from a debauch. The excellent 
 Court Martial Friend and Prison Guide, issued by the N.C.F., 
 advised a CO. to take to the police-court for use in barracks 
 a safety razor and a tube of ** Gremos " (which is used 
 without water), spoon and fork, lest he have to eat with 
 his fingers (as he might in some places), comb, handkerchiefs, 
 
 110 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 111 
 
 pencil, letter cards stamped, and a book and, if allowed, 
 underclothing. A man of quiet and delicate life suffers 
 much from this first experience, and needs all the help his 
 spirit can gather from the Unseen. But in time there were 
 many good guardroom talks with soldiers. It is not very 
 difficult to get access to the prisoner through an amenable 
 sergeant. Much writing has been done in guardrooms by 
 C.O.'s who managed to obtain the materials. The prisoners' 
 " court martial friend " may see him freely, and may be 
 with him to advise and help in any way at his trial. This 
 is conducted very deliberately and under strict rules. There 
 was in CO. cases no need of witnesses, but the prisoner 
 could make a full statement of his position, which was 
 taken down verbally. Some of these are collected in a 
 later chapter. The Commanding Officer, to begin with, used 
 to give short periods of detention, which he hoped would put 
 sense into these curious youths' heads. But a District Court 
 Martial could always be demanded by the prisoner. As 
 drill was a part of detention, the C.O.'s were perpetually 
 committing further acts of disobedience behind prison walls, 
 bringing liability for further punishment, until they were 
 taken to civil prisons. 
 
 The good intentions of the Government and of Parlia- 
 ment had, broadly and with exceptions, been frustrated 
 by the Tribunals. But the Army cared neither for one 
 nor the other. Their job was, they held, to force the men 
 to give in. They were not going to be humbugged. They 
 were organized to prevail by force. Was the weaker going 
 to defeat them on their own ground ? Many colonels and 
 sergeants did not think much further than this. Thinking 
 was an awful bore, as if a fellow had not enough to do 
 without this puzzling business. The operation of this 
 instinctive application of brutality, till the civil power 
 intervened, is the subject of this lamentable chapter. 
 
 2. In a military prison in Harwich Circular Redoubt 
 were confined daily for certain hours in irons in a dark cell 
 a squad of men on a diet of bread and water, in April 1916. 
 They had been forcibly put into the non-combatant corps, 
 but were in revolt against all mihtary service, whether 
 
112 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 directly combatant or not. This was, however, only the 
 preliminary to sending the men to the fighting area, where 
 they could be shot for an example. This was being done 
 in face of the definite pledges of Ministers and of words 
 in the Act which stated that men could not be shot for 
 refusing to become soldiers on conscientious grounds. It 
 was held that this immunity did not extend to acts of 
 disobedience after the first refusal. So said Mr. W. Long 
 in reply to Mr. Snowden. These acts were, of course, a 
 continuation of the one refusal. Then ensued a race 
 between the Government, who wished no such scandal to 
 occur, and the military, with their purpose to make an 
 example. If it had not feeen for the organized watchfulness 
 of the No-Conscription Fellowship and the Friends* Service 
 Committee these men would have been taken to France, 
 their friends not knowing till too late. But the story was 
 told in every barrack to intimidate others. Every man 
 in the guardrooms had to face the prospect of death. That 
 was what the military wanted. The first batch, seventeen 
 in number, were sent on May 7th. On May 9th Mr. Asquith 
 told Mr. Arnold Rowntree that he did not know they had 
 gone, and told Mr. Snowden that if they had, they would 
 not be shot. The Churches and the better newspapers 
 began to be uneasy, and Lord Hugh Cecil uttered a speech 
 full of wisdom and warning. The Friends* Service Committee 
 and the No-Conscription Fellowship had located the men, 
 and were actively at work. 
 
 On May 9th or loth Professor Gilbert Murray, on 
 returning from France, found in London a telegram from 
 Rendel Wyatt's parents at Cambridge saying that a group 
 of men had been taken to France with intent that they 
 should be shot, and asking for his help towards rescue. 
 He went off, soiled with travel as he was, to the House, and 
 saw his brother-in-law, Mr. Geoffrey Howard, who recom- 
 mended an interview with Lord Derby, the Secretary for 
 War. That gentleman, seen in the Lobby, repHed that 
 no doubt the men would be condemned to be shot, and 
 would be shot, and quite right too ! He gave the impression 
 that he knew all about the plan. Geoffrey Howard, not 
 apparently surprised at the result, then managed to ^et 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 113 
 
 for his brother-in-law five minutes with Mr. Asquith, busy 
 as he was. " Abominable ! " muttered the Prime Minister. 
 After a moment's thought he wrote straight off a letter to 
 the Commander-in-Chief forbidding the executions without 
 the knowledge of the Cabinet. This probably held up the 
 military from immediate action. After four weeks they 
 came to the compromise we shall hear of. But if there 
 had not existed this way to the ear of Mr. Asquith, 
 what might not have been done ? 
 
 The authorities allowed a party of journalists to visit 
 a non-combatant battalion in France and to write remark- 
 ably similar paragraphs about its beautiful surroundings, 
 hoping to give the impression that these were our seventeen 
 friends, all of whom had, in fact, refused non-combatant 
 service. They were separated from one another, and put 
 into different companies. On May 24th Mr. Tennant parried 
 Mr. Snowden's questions by irrelevant allusions to the 
 above non-combatant corps. On May 29th sixteen men 
 from Richmond Castle, Yorkshire, and eight from Kinmel 
 Park, Abergele, were sent to France via Southampton. 
 On May 30th nine men were sent by the same route from 
 Seaford, Sussex, handcuffed. Not all the men of these 
 batches appear to have been conscientious objectors. The 
 same day the Government assured our friendly members of 
 Parliament that these men would not be sent abroad. On 
 June 1st Mr. Tennant read, in response to Mr. Rowntree, a 
 telegram he had sent to Kinmel Park and to Richmond, 
 forbidding the men to be sent. Letters had been sent to 
 the other camps. The Commanders at Kinmel Park and 
 Richmond replied that the men had already gone. Nor 
 did it prevent another batch from Kinmel Park being sent 
 next day to whose case the telegram might be said to be 
 irrelevant. As they were taken away the band played the 
 '* Dead March *' to cheer them up. Mr. Tennant continued 
 that it was not easy to rescue them, though it was very 
 desirable. " These men left for France free men, and those 
 who commit themselves there will get imprisonment and 
 will be transferred home to civil prisons. . . . What 
 difference can it make if these men are kept in France or 
 are brought back ? " Was this ignorance or worse ? Free 
 
 8 
 
114 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 men do not go " under escort/* as the Kinmel Commander 
 described it, or in handcuffs Hke the men from Seaford. 
 Mr. T. E. Harvey then revealed in a supplementary question 
 something of what had happened. " Is the right, hon. 
 gentleman aware that a question was put down by private 
 notice and was withdrawn at the express desire of the War 
 Office authorities, conveyed to myself and my hon. friend 
 (Mr. Rowntree) through a Cabinet Minister, and on the 
 absolute understanding that those men should be stopped 
 from going to France, and when I placed before the Cabinet 
 Minister the probability that the telegram might be sent 
 to the wrong place I also got the assurance that steps should 
 be taken to bring them back ; is he aware that I communi- 
 cated with a Parliamentary private secretary about the 
 matter during the course of that day ; and is he also aware 
 that if a telegram had been sent to '* 
 
 The Speaker here intervened and stopped Mr. Harvey. 
 
 What had happened had been that somebody had sent 
 the telegrams to the original camps instead of to South- 
 ampton. Why ? It looked as though the military were for 
 out-witting the Government and making an example. Mr. 
 Tennant said that it was desirable but not easy to rescue 
 these men. Who, then, were the real executive of the 
 country ? 
 
 From these cowardly shirkers, proved not to be genuine 
 by impartial Tribunals, or awarded non-combatant service 
 in the Army, came only letters of courage and even of thank- 
 fulness for the honour of bearing the ultimate testimony. 
 Meanwhile four of these — Stanton, Bromberger, Brewster 
 and Foister — were known to be undergoing Field Punishment 
 No. I. Under this a man may be kept in fetters or handcuffs 
 or both, and secured to prevent escape. For two hours a 
 day he may be " attached to a fixed object.'* That means 
 that he may be tied to a wheel or gun carriage or a horizontal 
 rope exposed to the sun, to snow, and to the torments of 
 flies. Crucifixion was the current name for it. This went 
 on for three days out of four for a period of twenty-eight 
 days, the maximum length of the sentence. For the rest 
 of the day the conditions were those of imprisonment with 
 hard labour. It is bad enough to hear of this as a standard 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 115 
 
 punishment for soldiers : and it throws light on ordinary 
 military slavery.' 
 
 On June 15th, four men — Marten, Scullard, Foister and 
 Ring — were paraded in front of the regiment at Boulogne 
 and sentence of death was read out. Then a pause, that 
 no suffering might be spared, and then commutation to 
 ten years* penal servitude was announced. Mr. Barnes, 
 later a member of the War Council, raised the question in 
 the House the day the news reached England, which was 
 a week after the event. Mr. Tennant, Under-Secretary for 
 War, knew nothing about it, and disbelieved it. Mean- 
 while a letter from Howard C. Marten came describing the 
 proceeding. He added : *' Through all I have been supported 
 by a sense of the deepest peace, and humbly conscious of 
 my own unworthiness to bear my small share of testimony 
 to the teachings of our dear Lord, and thankful for the 
 blessing of His Holy Spirit. Naturally, I think long and 
 often of all the dear ones, and sincerely hope that before 
 being confined to prison I may be given the opportunity 
 of seeing one or more of you, but as yet I know nothing of 
 the future.'* 
 
 The following Monday, June 26th, Mr. Tennant admitted 
 that thirty-four death sentences had been pronounced and 
 commuted to penal servitude for ten years. It must have 
 been a black Monday for the helpless Minister. 
 
 The names of the men sent to France are in the following 
 list. All but the last seven were actually sentenced to 
 death ; these accidentally received less harsh sentences 
 through being court martialled elsewhere. 
 
 Howard C. Marten, Pinner ; Harry W. Scullard, Sutton ; 
 John R. Ring, Barnet ; Jack Foister, Cambridge ; Cornelius 
 Barritt, Pinner ; Harry E. Stanton, Luton ; Geoffrey E. 
 Hicks, Burgess Hill ; Adam Priestley, Stafford ; Oscar G. 
 Ricketts, Pet worth ; Bernard M. Bonner, Luton ; Harold 
 F. Brewster, Merton ; William E. Law, Darlington ; H. G. 
 Law, Darlington ; L. Renton, Leeds ; C. A. Senior, Leeds ; 
 C. R. Jackson, Leeds ; S. Hall, Leeds ; C. Hall, Leeds ; 
 C. Cartwright, Leeds ; E. S. Spencer, Leeds ; J. W. Rout- 
 
 » " Crucifixion " is now abolished in the Army, at any rate under the 
 rules. 
 
116 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 ledge, Leeds ; E. C. Cryer, Cleveland ; Alfred Myers, 
 Cleveland ; Robert A. Lown, Stansford, Ely ; John H. 
 Brocklesby, Conisborough ; A. Martlewe, York ; Norman 
 Gaudie, East Bolton, Sunderland ; Alfred W. Taylor, 
 Edmonton ; Wilfred Thos. Frear, Edmonton ; H. Stuart 
 Beavis, Edmonton ; E. H. Walker, Edmonton ; A. F. 
 Walling, Edmonton ; Frederick J. Murfin, Tottenham ; 
 P. B. Jordan, Little Milton, near WaUingford ; Rendel H, 
 Wyatt, Cambridge ; J. B. Lief, St. Pancras ; H. J. Willson, 
 St. Albans ; A. Helsby, St. Helens ; Oliver Rowlands, 
 Prescot, Lanes ; F. C. Bromberger, London ; F. Shackleton, 
 Pinner. 
 
 In addition to these forty-one men, there were other 
 smaller groups, mentioned later, including the New 
 Zealanders, sent to France, nineteen in all. This makes 
 sixty men sent to where it would have been possible 
 to shoot them, had not the Government, under pressure, 
 intervened and the anti-conscription organizations been 
 constantly watchful and ingeniously active. 
 
 A month before, when the doom of death was being 
 held over the men in all the barracks, Roland Philcox wrote 
 from Shoreham Camp : — 
 
 ** My five comrades have again reconsidered their posi- 
 tions in the light of the latest information, and all have 
 decided to remain faithful even to the gates of death. For 
 my part I am not depressed by my prospects. I should 
 consider it an honour to die for our cause. I have been a 
 soldier in the real fight for freedom all my thinking life, 
 and although, judged by the perfect law, I am an unprofit- 
 able servant, I have sometimes been faithful, and I hope 
 I shall not fail at the finish.'* 
 
 3. Howard C. Marten has written a careful manuscript 
 account of his experiences in this adventure ; and I am 
 kindly allowed to use it. It seems best to print consecutively 
 some long but abbreviated extracts from it ; for it was the 
 central act of the struggle with military violence at this 
 period, and may stand as the type |0f many other men's 
 experiences. It is valuable, not^because it is extraordinary, 
 but because, except for the final scene, it was ordinary — at 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 117 
 
 this stage of the persecution. I have also a shorter manu- 
 script of jottings by Cornelius Barritt, covering the same 
 experience, and usefully supplementary, though not written 
 for quotation. 
 
 For disobedience the party had been sentenced to 
 detention in an old circular redoubt built by French 
 prisoners in the Napoleonic wars. Howard Marten writes :— 
 
 " At the Harwich Redoubt we refused to drill, and five 
 of us then had our hands secured in irons behind our backs, 
 being made to stand with our faces to the wall. A friendly 
 cat came along and persistently rubbed itself against our 
 legs in turn. I overheard the companion on my right remark 
 in a low tone, * Why, pussy, you're the only Christian in 
 this place.* A sergeant of enormous girth, with a voice 
 to match, warned us that refusal to drill would entail dire 
 consequences. 
 
 " Next day we were ordered three days' cells, with bread 
 and water. There was no stool of any kind, and except 
 at night my overcoat and blankets were taken outside. 
 The best device I could adopt was to take off my tunic and 
 sit on it. The only article in the least resembling furniture 
 was a small sheet of iron let into the wall, which served as 
 a table. I was permitted to have my Bible, and read and 
 re-read the Gospel of John and several of the Epistles. 
 Often I paced up and down with my eyes closed, picturing 
 a rural landscape or a busy highway. Three times daily 
 I received my biscuit and water, which amounted to about 
 eight biscuits a day. I drank but sparingly, only moistening 
 my lips from time to time. I got no exercise, only being 
 allowed outside each morning to wash. 
 
 " During our first Sunday we were released before mid- 
 day, and in the afternoon held a Friends' Meeting in one of 
 the dormitories. We must have presented a quaint spectacle, 
 arrayed in our khaki uniforms and seated in a circle on 
 kit-bags, mattresses and overcoats. Such times of worship 
 and fellowship were occasions of deep spiritual experiences." 
 
 The stupid plan of making these men into soldiers caused 
 constant difficulties in their minds. How far should they 
 refuse work ? When did it begin to be soldiering ? When 
 was refusal irrational ? 
 
118 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 " It was now time to consider our general position, and 
 after careful thought it was felt that we might agree to 
 do purely domestic work in the Redoubt, but that we must 
 refuse to do any drill or outside work. The latter we had 
 tried on one occasion, but finding that it consisted in carting 
 stones from the beach in order to make a roadway through 
 a military camp, we immediately decided to have no more 
 to do with" work so obviously military in its character. 
 Accordingly, we scrubbed and scoured the rooms of the 
 Redoubt incessantly, and were not daunted at carting the 
 refuse or the coal, but our spirits were near rebellion when 
 we were asked, with threats and abuse, to go down on our 
 knees and scrub the stone flags surrounding the courtyard, 
 a job for which mop and pail would have been quite adequate. 
 Pieces of sacking or mats on which to kneel were denied 
 us with lurid language, and thus, in no cheerful mood, 
 we pegged away at this senseless work. . . . Many a foul 
 corner that had not seen soap and water for a long while 
 was unearthed for our benefit. In the centre of the court- 
 yard was a deep well, and the sergeant conceived the 
 brilliant idea of setting us to empty it with a pail and a 
 long iron chain. We extracted dozens of buckets of dirty 
 reddish water from the depths. We might have been 
 emptying the well as long as we stayed, but the pail was 
 lost in the water below. We also had to clear away old 
 and disused pots, jars and boxes from the kitchen of the 
 officers' mess. This might mean a hasty mouthful of tea 
 or an extra biscuit, and I well remember hugging a marmalade 
 jar and scraping the sides with a grimy finger in order to 
 get a tantalizing taste of its former appetizing contents. 
 
 " . . . It was impossible to grow fat upon the diet, and 
 not always easy to laugh over it. We, doing indoor work, 
 felt famished, and our sympathy went out to the unhappy 
 prisoners who, on this miserable food, were expected to do 
 a day's heavy manual labour, with drill morning and evening, 
 the latter period being done with full marching kit. . . . 
 Each night, for an hour or two after we retired, the 
 dormitories echoed with volleys of foul language." 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 119 
 
 The party were then returned to the barracks at 
 Felixstowe. 
 
 *' We were there told that early on the following day we 
 were to be sent to France, and that, once there, disobedience 
 would meet with death by shooting. This officer also said 
 that after our removal across the Channel our * friends in 
 Parliament ' and elsewhere would be unable to do anything 
 for us. Each one of us was asked whether he was prepared 
 to obey orders, and was asked to sign the active-service 
 pay-book. We refused to comply. During the afternoon 
 we in the guardroom held a meeting for worship after 
 the manner of Friends, and never, perhaps, had we experi- 
 enced a time when the need of Divine help and guidance was 
 more felt." 
 
 They were taken by a roundabout way which led through 
 the suburbs of London. One of the ordinary N.C.C. men 
 on the train threw out a letter here. It reached its des- 
 tination, and gave to the watchful organizations the first 
 knowledge that the men were being taken to France. After 
 a long weary journey they were put on board at Southampton. 
 Secrecy was evidently part of the scheme ; hence an early 
 start in the dark. 
 
 " We were handed our few personal belongings which 
 had been taken from us at Felixstowe. These were returned, 
 apparently on the ground that once on a troopship bound 
 for France we should be * deemed ' free men in the military 
 sense, i.e. all our previous * crimes ' would be overlooked. 
 Good cheer soon appeared in the form of bully-beef, biscuits 
 and tea, the first food we had tasted after our early breakfast 
 at 3 a.m. Never shall I forget, on emerging from our cabin 
 later, (we were allowed the run of the vessel), the spectacle 
 of a huddled mass of humanity occupying every available 
 corner of the transport ; and a heartrending sight it was. 
 The circumstances of our own position were forgotten for 
 the moment before the manifestation of the appalling 
 tragedy then being enacted on the battlefields of 
 Flanders." 
 
 Space compels the omission of much that happened to 
 them for refusing to drill or to work at munitions, after 
 they had landed and been separated from one another. 
 
120 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 " One good fellow brought me some bread, cheese and 
 onion, contributions from different men, and when dinner- 
 time arrived I had no lack of friends. Under such circum- 
 stances to win the confidence of these men gave one a 
 tremendous sense of uplift. Most of them, while sympathetic, 
 strongly urged me to give up the struggle, expressing genuine 
 concern at the punishments which they prophesied would 
 surely be visited upon me if I persisted in my refusal to 
 obey orders. Two men, previously among the most hostile, 
 took me along to get dinner, and we had quite an enjoyable 
 hour together. The greater number of the men in the 
 shop were engaged at the time in moulding steel rails. A 
 man took me and held my hands on to one end of a long 
 iron bar which supported a chaldron of the molten metal 
 ready to be poured into the moulds. Another man held the 
 opposite end, so that when the man at my end let go his 
 hold I was compelled to retain my grip of the bar, other- 
 wise, by relaxing my hold, I should have inflicted serious 
 injury on the men standing round.'* 
 
 Cornelius Barritt received, with several others, a sentence 
 of twenty-eight days* Field Punishment No. i. They were 
 taken to a military prison at Harfleur, an encampment 
 surrounded by two entanglements of barbed wire. Here our 
 friends, along with a hundred other prisoners, were tied up 
 for two hours three evenings out of four. Their arms were 
 stretched out and tied to a horizontal fence above their 
 heads, then feet and knees were roped close together. 
 
 It was decided to send the men to Boulogne, where, as 
 C. Barritt explains, they would be in the field zone, and so 
 liable to the punishment of death. 
 
 ** Anyone familiar with the French railways cannot have 
 failed to observe the trucks, minus any form of windows, 
 with a sliding door at the side, and bearing the legend : 
 * 40 hommes — 8 chevaux.' The sliding door of one of these 
 structures had been drawn aside, and one by one we, with 
 our escort, filed into its gloomy recesses. For a time three 
 candles struggled with the darkness, but these soon gave 
 out in despair, and we were left without any means of 
 finding our way about. Laden with its cargo of kit-bags. 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 121 
 
 boxes of provisions, the rifles and accoutrement of the 
 escort, and about 25 ' hommes,' that van did not make an 
 ideal sleeping chamber. We reclined as best we might, 
 an inextricable mass of human beings, twisted into all 
 sorts of odd shapes and angles, and tossed hither and thither 
 by the uncertain motions of the train, which kept stopping 
 and restarting at frequent intervals. We alighted at Rouen, 
 which appeared to be almost entirely in the hands of the 
 British military authorities. A vast shed adjoined the 
 platform, and there hundreds upon hundreds of men were 
 waiting the order that was to send them either to the trenches 
 or, may be, on a brief leave to ' Blighty.' To me it was 
 another of those striking tableaux, the first of which I have 
 already pictured in the scene on the troopship crossing to 
 France. How like to helpless children they seemed, tired 
 and weary in the grip of a relentless force from whose clutches 
 they knew of no way of escape." 
 
 At Boulogne they were taken to the Field Punishment 
 Barracks, and disobeyed an order to drill. 
 
 '' We were placed in handcuffs and locked in the cells, 
 and tied up for two hours in the afternoon. We were tied 
 up by the wrists to horizontal ropes about 5 feet from 
 the ground, with our arms outstretched and feet tied 
 together. Our cells were roughly constructed from planks 
 of wood, the wall of the prison forming the back. Then 
 we were confined to cells for three days on * punishment 
 diet ' (four biscuits a day and water). We were also hand- 
 cuffed with our arms behind us and then placed in the cells, 
 to the recesses of which little daylight penetrated. Being 
 now confined to cells, we were exempted from the nightly 
 tying up, but during the whole of the first of the three days 
 we remained in handcuffs (except during the short time we 
 were being interviewed by the ofiicers), although on retiring 
 for the night the handcuffs were fastened with our hands in 
 front instead of behind us. After a short time had elapsed 
 an order was evidently given for the removal of the irons, 
 as a corporal came to wake us up and remove them. We 
 had practically no exercise during the time we occupied 
 the cells. 
 
 " During the week-end I [Howard Marten] was alone in 
 
122 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 the first of the three cells [as a ringleader, C. Barritt explains], 
 the remaining eleven being next door, and they naturally 
 found their quarters rather cramped. By means of a small 
 aperture in the partition of rough planks, we were able to 
 speak to one another and also to exchange books. On the 
 Sunday morning we were allowed out to do some washing, 
 and after dinner all the prisoners, including ourselves, were 
 drawn up in the courtyard to hear the promulgation of the 
 death sentence passed a few days earlier on a soldier who 
 had been found guilty of disobedience. Later in the day 
 we held a Friends' Meeting, in which I participated, assisted 
 by the chink in the cell partition. . . . 
 
 " Foister, Ring and Scullard having been selected, ' as 
 ringleaders ' [says C. Barritt], by the whim of the sergeant, 
 to keep me company, we heard it rumoured that the four 
 of us would be tried at an early date by Field General Court 
 Martial, so that our trial was apparently to be made a test 
 case. I immediately applied for leave to telegraph to 
 London in order, if possible, to be legally represented at 
 the trial, but a few hours after my application the draft 
 of the wire I had written was returned, informing me that 
 the Base Commandant had refused to saction its despatch. 
 Thus the principal witness for the prosecution had the 
 power to censor the defendant's telegram ! On the morning 
 of June 2nd I and my three comrades, together with two 
 other prisoners, were marched away under escort with 
 rifles and fixed bayonets. During the time I was reading my 
 defence the court was very still and I was given an attentive 
 hearing. During the hearing of my case it seemed to me 
 that some of those participating appeared to feel their 
 position uncomfortable. While waiting outside the court, 
 one of our number overheard an officer remark to a com- 
 panion that ' it would be monstrous to shoot these men.' 
 Owing to a technical mistake our cases had to be retried. 
 Accordingly, on June 7th, a second court martial, this 
 time convened by the proper officer, heard our cases, and the 
 whole tedious ceremony was performed all over again, no 
 detail being omitted. 
 
 *' Every three nights out of four we witnessed the tying 
 up of one of the prisoners undergoing No. i Field Punish- 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 123 
 
 ment, and were filled with unspeakable disgust at the 
 foolishness and cruelty which made such a thing possible. 
 At this time we had a visit from the Rev. F. B. Meyer and 
 Hubert Peet, held in the presence of officers, and inspired 
 by a real concern for our welfare. Cornelius Barritt was 
 allowed to shake hands with Hubert Peet, but not to 
 speak to him." Mr. Meyer was not shown their cattle-pen 
 cell. 
 
 This visit was the result of the action of the No-Con- 
 scription Fellowship and the Friends* Service Committee, 
 who took immediate steps to establish contact with their 
 comrades in France. The ingenious and successful way in 
 which these organizations dealt with this — the most critical 
 moment of the mihtary persecution — convinced the Govern- 
 ment that it was impossible to mete out any treatment 
 which escaped publicity, whilst the knowledge that their 
 interests were always being watched over gave great help 
 to the objectors. 
 
 " As time wore on we often experienced little kindnesses 
 from one or another, a friendly word or an item of news 
 from one of the military police, or, maybe, an occasional 
 extra biscuit, piece of bread-and-butter, or fragment of 
 cheese, hurriedly pushed between the bars of our cage by 
 a sympathetic hand. . . . Punishments such as half an 
 hour's extra drill were inflicted for the most trivial offences, 
 and often during the period of the mid-day meal I have seen 
 men compelled to march or run round and round the yard 
 for thirty minutes before being allowed to have their dinner. 
 Most of the prisoners, in addition to the rigours of im- 
 prisonment, were obliged to do a heavy day's work at 
 the docks or elsewhere ; and it passed our comprehension 
 how the poor fellows managed it on the miserable food 
 provided. 
 
 *' Rats were not infrequent visitors. They would sit on 
 the edge of a fire bucket to drink the water and occasionally 
 run up one's back during a meal. Often the days spent in 
 the cells seemed endless ; we played guessing games, held 
 impromptu debates, and did similar things to pass away 
 the time. Even during the daytime we slept a good deal, 
 and, in the wooden cage, one felt a strange resemblance to 
 
124 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 an animal in captivity, pacing up and down before meals 
 and after ' feeding time * lying down to rest. There were 
 now eleven of us in the one cell (for a time there had been 
 twelve, till Evans was sent to hospital with dysentery), 
 and the adjoining cell was occupied by twelve more C.O/s 
 who had been sent down from the guardroom at the Henri- 
 ville Camp near by. The conditions of living twelve in a 
 cell can be better imagined than described. We could just 
 lie six a side with our feet almost touching ; but it was a 
 problem to find room for the bucket placed in the cell for 
 ' sanitary * purposes. The cells measured ii feet 9 inches 
 by II feet 3 inches. 
 
 " On the evening of Thursday, June 15th, the four of 
 us who had been court martialled were taken by an escort 
 of military police to the Henriville Camp in order to hear 
 our sentences read out. It was evidently intended to be 
 an impressive function, as a large square consisting of the 
 N.C.C. and labour battalions was drawn up on the parade 
 ground. These men occupied three sides of the square, 
 with a miscellaneous collection of spectators in the back- 
 ground, while we, with our escort, were placed on the 
 remaining side. After a hum of conversation and comment 
 had been suppressed by the N.C.O.'s, I was marched out a 
 few paces in advance of my companions towards the centre 
 of the square. An officer, who, by the way, had been a 
 member of the first court martial to try my case, read a 
 long statement of my crimes, and then announced the 
 sentence of the court : — 
 
 ' To suffer death by being shot.* 
 
 " I have often been asked what my sensations were at 
 that moment and have found it difficult to recollect very 
 clearly. I think I may say that for the time being I had 
 lost the sense of ' personality,* and, standing there on the 
 parade ground, I had a sense of representing something 
 outside my own self, supported by a stronger strength than 
 frail humanity. However, in a few moments it was evident 
 that the whole had not been said, and the officer went on 
 to tell (after a pause) that ' this sentence had been confirmed 
 by the Commander-in-Chief (another long pause), but 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 125 
 
 afterwards commuted by him to one of penal servitude for 
 ten years.' ' 
 
 *' Each of my three comrades then heard a similar pro- 
 nouncement, after which we were taken back to the Field 
 Punishment Barracks ; personally, I must confess, with 
 views of Dartmoor or Portland, cells, bolts, bars and gangs 
 of stonebreakers. A row of eager faces were waiting to 
 greet us in our cells when we returned ; but their owners 
 refused to credit our account for some while. At length 
 we succeeded in convincing them that our story was no 
 exaggeration. Subsequently, our remaining friends received 
 similar sentences." 
 
 Cornelius Barritt describes a memorable visit on June 
 i8th from J. Rowntree Gillett, a Quaker chaplain, just 
 as they were turning in. Next morning they had a Fellow- 
 ship Meeting with him, sitting in a circle on haversacks. 
 Then, after a good personal talk, the Quaker chaplain went 
 on to Rouen, whence Howard Marten writes : — 
 
 " One evening we had just been locked in our cells for 
 the night when the doors were reopened and we were told 
 to go outside into the corridor. Thence we went along 
 to the tiny room where the N.C.O. on duty slept, and there, 
 to our amazement, we beheld our friend Rowntree Gillett. 
 After a moment or two of speechless surprise, we learnt 
 that he had obtained a permit from the War Office to visit 
 the C.O.'s in France as ' Quaker chaplain ' ; that he had 
 already seen our comrades at Boulogne, and that Rouen 
 had only been included in his passport at the eleventh hour 
 as the result of a curious chain of circumstances which 
 had led to the knowledge of our whereabouts. Owing to 
 misdirections and language difficulties, R. G. had experi- 
 enced some trouble in finding us after his arrival at Rouen ; 
 hence the late hour of his visit, which only gave us about 
 twenty minutes together. We sang a few hymns together, 
 and R. G. also read a few passages. The joy and help this 
 short meeting gave us can be better imagined than described. 
 Next morning I was allowed to see our Friend personally, 
 and we spent the greater part of the morning walking up 
 
 » So Howard Marten. Cornelius Barritt thinks the confirmation^came 
 after the commutation. 
 
126 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 and down the paths of the camp and talking incessantly. 
 The sight of civilian clothing in the midst of all that array 
 of khaki — the materializing of the invisible chain of fellow- 
 ship which had bound us to friends in England — and the 
 unburdening of all that had been pent up within oneself 
 during the preceding weeks was an unspeakable relief. It 
 is not easy to convey to others all the wonder and 
 reality of this visitation. It was the tangible assurance of 
 Heavenly Guidance. During the afternoon Wyatt was 
 afforded the same opportunity of talking with R. G. as had 
 been given to me during the morning. 
 
 " At about 5 p.m. we found ourselves on board a trans- 
 port bound for * Blighty.' In gaol at Winchester we felt 
 the sudden relaxation of tension and the removal of a strain 
 that had been constantly with us for the two preceding 
 months." 
 
 They had known, indeed, all that time that they were a 
 flock of sheep arranged for slaughter and kept in pens for 
 that purpose. 
 
 4. Analogous to this deportation was that of a group 
 of fourteen young conscientious objectors from New Zealand 
 whose sufferings were more prolonged, and worse while they 
 lasted, than those of the Englishmen in the parallel case. 
 They were deported in the night from the home prisons 
 on the plea that they were to be counted as members of the 
 Expeditionary Force, in spite of their refusal to be soldiers. 
 Probably the authorities there did not want the unpopularity 
 of persecuting them at home, and it was apparently an 
 added pleasure to remove them out of the knowledge of their 
 families without warning, and to allow no letter from them. 
 Sir James Allen, when catechized, said they were sent to 
 give them another " chance " of joining up. One group 
 had to be carried bodily on to the transport, and one man 
 just managed to leave word behind to his parents that 
 they were determined to stand out to the end. 
 
 The men's names were : — 
 
 John Baxter, Archibald McC. L. Baxter, Alexander 
 Baxter, William Little, Daniel Maguire, Mark Briggs, Fred 
 Adin, L. Penwright, Harry Patton, Albert E. Sanderson, 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 127 
 
 Garth C. Ballantyne, David R. Gray, L. J. Kirwan, Thomas 
 P. Harland. 
 
 They were confined for three weeks, with short occasional 
 intervals, in a small cabin with porthole closed, and given 
 no basins for sea-sickness, as indeed very few soldiers were. 
 Nearly all the men were sick. Refusing to wear khaki, 
 they were stripped on the top of a hatch before a crowd 
 of soldiers. Between Cape Colony and England they were 
 subjected to brutal treatment on refusing to put on khaki. 
 Their own clothes were thrown overboard ; they were then 
 severely treated with the hose pipe, clothed in khaki, and 
 when they put it off, left naked on deck in face of a crowd 
 of passengers of both sexes. They wore nothing but a towel 
 round them all the way till, three days before reaching 
 Plymouth, they managed to get singlets and pants, and 
 landed in these. Three had been left for a time in hospital 
 at the Cape, due to an epidemic of measles on board. The 
 measles ward ventilated into their " chink." Throughout 
 their incarceration it was more difficult for our English 
 organizations to get into touch with them than it was with 
 men from English districts. Finally it was achieved. 
 
 At last they were discovered by their friends in England 
 at Sling Camp, Salisbury Plain, where they lay in irons 
 for several weeks, and went about in singlets and pants, 
 refusing khaki and having nothing else. Then one was 
 sent to France by himself. For a long time they had no 
 knowledge that our English friends were trying, against 
 military opposition, to get into touch with them and to 
 encourage them in their lonely case. The Labour Party 
 in New Zealand, through Mr. H. E. Holland and others, 
 bestirred themselves to the rescue the moment they had left. 
 Then more were sent to France — in handcuffs. Those in 
 France were the three Baxters, Little, Maguire, Briggs, 
 Patton, Ballantyne, Kirwan and Harland. 
 
 The experiences of three of these men — Mark Briggs, 
 Archie Baxter and Garth Ballantyne — are told at length 
 in their own words in a book called Armageddon or Calvary, 
 by H. E. Holland, M.P., formerly editor of the Maoriland 
 Worker, at Wellington, New Zealand, and pubhshed by the 
 author at 207, Happy Valley Road, Brooklyn, New Zealand 
 
128 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 for 2s. They form a pitiful record of the lot of very deter- 
 mined men, who were prepared to suffer anything, in the grip 
 of a vast machine of organized violence. 
 
 None of them would wear khaki. Day by day the khaki 
 was put on them, and by them taken off. To prevent this, 
 they were kept handcuffed all the time, with their hands 
 generally behind them, in the painful solid handcuffs called 
 *' figure of eight." When the handcuffs were taken off for 
 a meal they used their hands to remove the khaki once 
 more, which again was forcibly put on. Periods of starva- 
 tion, voluntary and involuntary, alternated with periods 
 under the doctor and in hospital. Their attitude was 
 defiant all the time, and Mark Briggs's case was complicated 
 by his refusal to walk anywhere under a military order, 
 so that he had to be dragged along the ground or carried. 
 Their line of testimony puzzled and worried the military 
 extremely. They met a few colonels and generals and 
 doctors of kindly and liberal mind, who understood the reason 
 of their apparent eccentricity and admired their courage, 
 but who were not able to do for them all they would have 
 liked, when they were once in the Army. Below these, 
 there was a range of increasing bullying, profanity and 
 cruelty till we reach the sergeant of military police, who, 
 under orders from officers at Ypres, had Mark Briggs laid 
 on his back, weak from his cell diet, with a cable wire round 
 his chest. Three soldiers were harnessed to the wire, and 
 they dragged their victim for a mile up a footpath of planks 
 with battens nailed across at short intervals. This was 
 called the duck-walk, and was made to spare people from 
 walking through the mud. The buttons were torn off his 
 clothes, which were all pulled off, so that his bare back 
 was next to the planks and battens, making on the lower 
 part of the back a great flesh wound a foot long and nine 
 inches wide, which became full of dirt. When they came 
 to a shell crater, which they did three times, they threw 
 him in and dragged him through the water. When out 
 on the bank on the other side, they picked him up and 
 threw him head over heels back into the water, telling him 
 to drown himself. They then asked him at intervals to 
 give in and walk. He was absolutely exhausted and shook 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 129 
 
 all over, but he refused to give in so long as he drew breath. 
 He found that it was impossible to get up and walk back, 
 so two soldiers had to half lift him along, with his feet 
 dragging on the ground. He once asked to be put down 
 because of his unendurable sufferings under this treatment, 
 but the police in charge refused, in expressions fortified by 
 profanity. It naturally required prolonged hospital treat- 
 ment and terrible pain to recover from this. The man 
 responsible was publicly " counted out " by the soldiers, 
 who were intensely indignant, and who threatened his life 
 with hand grenades. 
 
 The later parts of these narratives tell of removals from 
 one hospital to another, and a final return to England. In 
 the end the wrecks were sent home to New Zealand. One 
 man records that his weight fell from eleven stone to eight. 
 There were numerous instances of " crucifixion " and of 
 solitary confinement, and of bread and water diet. They 
 were threatened at times with immediate death on dis- 
 obeying an order. They were kicked along the ground. 
 
 5. Alec Baxter, William Little and Garth Ballantyne 
 received a sentence of five years' hard labour for disobeying 
 an order. These long sentences, however, were given to 
 terrify the others ; and were all changed to two years on 
 arrival at the prison ; for it was not legal to keep a man 
 abroad with longer sentence than that. These men went 
 to a military prison camp, on the exposed low-lying swampy 
 shore near Dunkirk. It was Prison No. 10, and though 
 the smallest, held about four hundred men. The inmates 
 were not criminals, but had broken discipline in some form. 
 It seems worth while to describe a military prison, not 
 because its hardships specially fell upon conscientious 
 objectors, but because they were, on the contrary, the doom 
 of ordinary soldiers. No doubt the reply of the Army would 
 be that discipline is essential to success in war, and must 
 be maintained, if necessary, by terror. If this- be so — and 
 probably the military know their own business — so much 
 the worse for military discipline, and therefore so much the 
 worse for war. 
 
 The prisoners in this camp occupied bell tents, about 
 
 9 
 
130 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 sixteen men to each. Two long low corrugated iron sheds, 
 with small windows high up in the wall, were the punishment 
 cells. The whole was surrounded by two high barbed-wire 
 fences, with sentries walking between them. The prisoners 
 received a bullying reception in order to cow them down, 
 and thirty of them had to have a bath in two small tubs of 
 lukewarm water. It was December, but all their woollen 
 underclothing was taken away from them. The three then 
 refused to obey an order, and were put into solitary confine- 
 ment, with bread and water, wearing figure of eight hand- 
 cuffs for about twelve hours a day. Their food was 8 ounces 
 of dry bread at seven in the morning, with water, and the 
 same at five in the evening. The cells were 7 feet square, 
 and the iron walls were dripping with frost. Ballantyne 
 writes (quoted from Armageddon or Calvary) : — 
 
 " During the first morning I sat down on the floor to rest 
 my legs, but I rapidly became so cold and stiff that without 
 the help of my hands I had the greatest difficulty in getting 
 on my feet again. This was a lesson to me, and during 
 the remainder of my punishment I walked from corner to 
 corner of my cell, three short strides each way, for the full 
 twelve hours each day. My arms and shoulders ached 
 almost intolerably, and became so numbed with cold that 
 when the handcuffs were removed they hung powerless at 
 my sides. For weeks and weeks afterwards I felt the effect 
 of this punishment in my arms." 
 
 *' This much was the authorized punishment, but during 
 the time that a prisoner was in the cells he was in the hands 
 of the warder in charge, who administered by kicks and 
 blows such punishments as he deemed necessary for the 
 ' maintenance of good order and discipline in the cells.' 
 Generally, when a prisoner was sent to the cells for punish- 
 ment he was first taken into a cell, stripped naked, some- 
 times handcuffed ; then the warder would proceed to 
 administer a sound thrashing, using both his hands and feet, 
 one warder during his turn in charge of the cells going so 
 far as to use a heavy leather belt. Then, when the prisoner 
 was beginning to get groggy, buckets of freezing cold water 
 would be thrown over him to revive him, and finally he 
 would be given a bucket and cloth and be told to dry up 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 131 
 
 his cell before he would be given back his clothes. Often 
 the bumps and thuds of the poor prisoner against the iron 
 walls and his yells and cries for mercy could be heard all 
 over the compound. 
 
 " The next form of punishment we experienced was 
 shot drill. This is an old form of punishment, abolished 
 years ago in the Navy as being inhuman. It is still good 
 enough, however, for our up-to-date military prisons. The 
 shot in this case consisted of a round bag of about 9 inches 
 in diameter, filled with sand, and supposed to weigh 28 pounds, 
 although when the sand became wet it was usually heavier. 
 To do the drill the prisoner stands with the shot between 
 his feet. The warder stands with a whistle, and in time 
 to his blasts the prisoner first bends down, picks up the 
 shot, and balances it on the palms of his hands in front of 
 himself ; then, on the next whistle, he takes three quick 
 steps forward, on the following whistle placing it down 
 between his feet again and standing up straight ; then 
 down, up, three paces forward, down ; and so on for perhaps 
 an hour, with only one or two short rests of a few minutes. 
 Each movement has to be made distinctly and sharply, 
 and the warder's whistle is generally just a bit ahead each 
 time, so that the prisoner has to go his hardest in order 
 to keep up. It is, in fact, just an ingenious device to tax 
 absolutely the man's strength to the utmost. The effect, I 
 found, was to make me horribly giddy and to produce terrible 
 pains in my back and forearms. This punishment was 
 often given in conjunction with No. i Field Punishment. 
 
 " The prisoner sentenced to No. i Field Punishment 
 was put with his back to a post and his hands handcuffed 
 behind the post, and he was held practically immovable 
 by three straps, one around his chest, another around his 
 knees, and the other around his ankles. I have seen men 
 kept thus in driving snow and sleet for two hours, and when 
 released they could scarcely stand. They would then almost 
 immediately be put on to shot drill * to loosen their joints.* " 
 
 The three men concluded after consultation that they 
 would agree to work, seeing that the work consisted in 
 protecting against air raids. They were then liberated 
 from the punishment cells. They then found that the 
 
132 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 ordinary rations were : Breakfast, i pint of thin gruel 
 without milk or sugar and often without salt, 8 ounces of 
 bread, 2 ounces of dripping, 2 ounces of cheese ; dinner, 
 8 ounces of bread and 4 ounces of bully-beef ; tea, 8 ounces 
 of bread, i pint of soup in which — if one were lucky — there 
 might be a piece of fat meat or a potato. This was for 
 men doing hard manual labour in bitter cold. When the 
 prisoners could get near the cookhouse of some other camp, 
 they would sneak over to the swill-tubs and dive into them, 
 pushing the stuff they picked out down their throats so 
 as to get it eaten before the warder saw them. 
 
 Washing in the morning consisted of a long routine in 
 which the men had to be in the open air with nothing on 
 but shirt and trousers for half an hour, in the bleak Channel 
 wind before the winter's dawn, often with snow on the 
 ground. The water was generally frozen ; they had to 
 shave with public razors — very dull — freezing water, common 
 soap and no glass. If not clean and tidy on inspection 
 they were apt to be rejected, stripped and scrubbed with 
 an ordinary scrubbing brush till the blood ran from them. 
 They worked in all weathers, seven days to the week. They 
 had to place their socks between their blankets at night to 
 keep them from freezing stiff. Drinking ice water produced 
 constant diarrhoea ; boils and chapped hands were common, 
 and skin diseases. The clothing supposed to be clean was 
 so full of lice ** that almost every man was crawling alive." 
 The Chaplain carried on service once a fortnight, at seven 
 in the morning so as not to interrupt work. The men sung 
 lustily ; but " God save the King " was usually " a duet 
 for the Chaplain and the sergeant-major." 
 
 In an Appendix to Armageddon or Calvary, there is an 
 extract from an account which appeared in the Australian 
 Worker of August 28, 1919, signed by No. 3861 Private 
 P. H. Sutton, 49th Battalion, A.I.F. This soldier says, with 
 regard to military prisons : — 
 
 " I have seen men die from the scandalous treatment 
 they received, and I can also give the names of two men 
 who purposely destroyed their own eyesight to escape the 
 horrible torture which was driving them insane." 
 
 Naturally, bad temper, deceitfulness and quarrelling 
 were rife, and the case of any men of somewhat inferior 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 183 
 
 intellect was terrible. One of these poor fellows had tried 
 to escape from the Army by putting his hand on the rail 
 in front of the wheel of a slowly moving truck ; but the 
 doctors had repaired his wrist, and he was sent to prison 
 for the act. ** There he was the butt of every warder and 
 the joke of almost every prisoner. I had befriended him a 
 little, and he used to come to me with such questions as to 
 what would happen to him if he were to eat sand, ' would 
 it kill him or only make him ill ? * I hardly had the heart 
 to dissuade him from ending his misery." It will be 
 remembered that this is an ordinary mihtary prison, and 
 the treatment not pecuhar to C.O.'s. 
 
 Finally the three men decided that they had borne their 
 extreme testimony long enough. They had stood threats 
 of being shot for disobedience, and they were now willing 
 to become stretcher bearers at the front. They only decided 
 on this after they heard that no more C.O.'s were being 
 sent from New Zealand. As soon as this was done, over 
 twenty letters which had come for Ballantyne from his 
 mother — ^by every mail during the year past — were handed 
 to him. Such was the cruelty of the regime necessary 
 for war ! On release, Alec Baxter collapsed with rheumatic 
 fever and was sent to England to a hospital. Little was 
 wounded on the second day of his stretcher bearing, and 
 died of his wounds ; Ballantyne stayed at his ambulance 
 work till the end. 
 
 One man came out of the hospital at Sling Camp, where 
 he had had dysentery for a long time, a mere bag of bones, 
 and in that condition gave in, and was allowed to write 
 home. Gray consented to do gardening work at Sling 
 Camp. Concerning the treatment of others : — Kirwan and 
 Archie Baxter were " crucified,*' or tied to poles at the road- 
 side, in view of passers-by, in cold weather, through a bitter 
 snowstorm. Baxter and others were knocked down again 
 and again by blows on the jaw. 
 
 6. A third instance of an attempt to get rid of con- 
 scientious objectors by shipping them across the sea occurred 
 in the case of twenty-five Canadians who, after a particularly 
 cruel incarceration in Canada, were shipped to England. 
 On their arrival here they were " beaten and kicked around 
 
184 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 a field by soldiers.'* 0. K. Pimlott gives an account in more 
 detail of one incident. 
 
 Whilst he (Pimlott) was in hospital from scabies one 
 of the men named Sidney was knocked about with boxing 
 gloves for two or three hours every morning, and the same 
 in the afternoon, for three days in succession. Sometimes 
 the soldiers used their fists and sometimes sticks. Two 
 men pounded him the first day, five on the second, and 
 on the third day ten men stood around the walls of a small 
 room, with boxing gloves, and kept him whirling about in 
 the middle with a bleeding nose. On the fourth day Pimlott 
 came out of hospital, and both received similar treatment, 
 under the authority of officers. The men fell down dizzy, 
 and were restored with cold water and with kicks and by 
 being pushed into a deep trench. Both men lost conscious- 
 ness for a time. They were then put up at a target, shot 
 at with blank cartridge and struck with the gun, and again 
 lost consciousness. Then they were sent to Wandsworth 
 Military Prison. Here the whole company refused to drill, 
 and underwent almost continual punishment for about one 
 hundred days. This was of the usual type : three days 
 bread and water, alternating with three days of slightly better 
 food ; close confinement in an absolutely bare cell ; and 
 no communication with the outside. Under this many of 
 the men were " beginning to crack up." Finally the stupid 
 attempt was given up, and the men returned to Canada, 
 where our information concerning them ceases. They wrote 
 that their spirits remained " in quietness and confidence." 
 Miss Joan Fry, one of the Quaker chaplains, but unable 
 to visit civil prisons because she was a woman, devoted 
 herself instead to visiting military camps. After going 
 from official to ofiicial, she at last got leave to visit one of 
 these Canadians who was a Friend. With joy she presented 
 herself again at the barracks with her permit. The officer 
 brought her back word that the man did not wish to see her, 
 and she departed, puzzled and baffled. She found after- 
 wards, when he had returned home, that he had only been 
 asked if he would see the Chaplain, and had declined, thinking 
 it was the ordinary Anglican ofiicial. Such was the cruel 
 meanness practised by the mihtary. 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 135 
 
 7. Nor were these cases the only ones in which the 
 military defied the Government. At the end of March 
 1917 three men were sent to France : C. H. Pett, C. J. 
 Wright and J. Bunce. On hearing of this, C. G. Ammon, 
 the Parliamentary Secretary of the No-Conscription Fellow- 
 ship, wrote to General Childs at the War Office, and 
 he telegraphed to France ordering the immediate return 
 of the men. More difficult to remedy was the case of 
 A. Catherall, who was sent to France on December 6, iQiyi 
 where he had to undergo great cruelties for disobeying 
 orders. He was confined in an iron-sheeted, concrete- 
 floored cell, about four yards by two, and sentenced to 
 fifteen days' No. i diet ; that is, bread and water for three 
 days, and compound diet for three days, alternately. He 
 was handcuffed and leg-ironed night and day. Instead of 
 the regulation fourteen ounces of bread each day, he found 
 on complaining to an orderly that he was only receiving 
 eight ounces — in cast-iron biscuits which broke his teeth. His 
 handcuffs were only removed for about five minutes a day. 
 An order came that he was to be roped as tightly as possible 
 to a post for two hours, wearing irons also. This was 
 repeated several times, even after his sentence was over. 
 Then came further disobedience, further punishment and 
 hard labour. Once he was removed to another room to 
 hear the death sentence pronounced on a murderer, " to 
 show me what the Army can do." Ultimately, after very 
 strenuous Parliamentary effort, he was returned to a civil 
 prison in England on February 18, 1918. Mr. Macpherson 
 defended his being sent to France, ignoring Mr. Asquith's 
 pledge of June 29, 1916. 
 
 In June 1917 five men from the Manchester Regiment- 
 Garland, Middleton, Price, Keighley and Davis — -were sent 
 in the same irregular way. Mr. Charles Trevelyan brought 
 up these cases in Parliament. The men were finally brought 
 back. 
 
 In the spring of 1917 Ernest V. Millwood and Charles Allen 
 of Hackney were sent across. Millwood was an only son, 
 to be exempted, according to Mr. Asquith. He was sent up 
 to near the firing line at Courcelles, and was there given five 
 years' penal servitude, being finally liberated in April 1919. 
 
136 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 8. The elaborate concoction of these death sentences 
 was but the most conspicuous incident in the military 
 terrorism of these early months. 
 
 Some Lancashire men from Darwen were taken to Preston 
 Barracks, forcibly stripped, marched around the great 
 , barracks square practically naked and frog-marched — that 
 is, the right arm and the left leg were held up and the man 
 pushed along on his left arm and right leg, a terrible expe- 
 rience. Other men were emptied out of their clothes as out 
 of a sack, head on the ground ; one, at Preston, forcibly 
 dressed in khaki, was kicked round the room till his groans 
 could be heard outside. D. S. Parkes, at Winchester, was 
 several times told to prepare for death, a rifle was loaded 
 and presented at him, and order to fire was given. At 
 Bettisfield Camp three men were marched across the camp, 
 one entirely the others nearly naked. Mr. Snowden de- 
 scribed the treatment at Preston Barracks as being beaten 
 with sticks, handcuffed, kicked across the barracks yard, 
 indecently assaulted when undressed, and subjected to 
 filthy language.^ 
 
 One man was handcuffed to a bar with his arms above 
 his head for forty minutes, " standing on tiptoe to relieve 
 the pressure on my wrists." 
 
 The first idea of the military was, of course, violence. 
 When a conscientious objector refused to put on uniform 
 — usually the first order he received — he was apt to be 
 forced into it. From Hounslow Barracks came a letter 
 signed Templeman, Larkman, Jones, Jones, Ebeling, For- 
 rester, Moat. It said : — " To-day our clothes have been 
 wrenched off our bodies and a uniform forced on. When we 
 removed it on principle, they took us from the cells to the 
 detention room, and left us with only an undershirt for four 
 and a half hours, with no heating. We were made to stand 
 thus half naked before officers in front of the door and in 
 view of the public highway." This is mentioned not because 
 it was an isolated case, but because it was typical of many, 
 and represents the way some military officers reacted to the 
 first challenge of the conscientious objector. 
 
 At Cardiff a large group of men had to lie on the floor 
 
 ' Hansard, May 17, 19 16. 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 187 
 
 all night without supper, and with no meals all next day. 
 They were asked at intervals to obey an order, and refused. 
 In the evening bread and cheese was given, the policy of 
 starving abandoned, and blankets provided. They taught 
 the soldiers the " Red Flag/' I happened to meet this group 
 later at Kinmel Park, looking draggled and unshaven as all 
 C.O.'s did. One, Dorian Herbert, held up a gold crucifix. 
 Thereby I knew they were C.O.'s and began to greet them 
 sympathetically, but was forbidden to speak to them ; so 
 I had to address their guards, in words loud enough for them 
 all to hear. We had great joy together. 
 
 A letter from F. Beaumont from the guardroom at 
 Pontefract is so typical that it may be quoted from the 
 Tribunal, May nth, pp. 2 and 3 : — 
 
 '* April 4, 1916. 
 " Dear Comrades, 
 
 " Still alive and fighting. Have been forcibly examined, 
 but have refused any payment or to sign any papers, and 
 have refused to don the uniform about half a dozen times. 
 Consequently, I am still in civilians ; but they are going 
 to use force in the end. They have tried all means to induce 
 me to wear the uniform — threats, demands, requests, en- 
 treaties, and, worst of all, have impressed upon me the 
 absolute insignificance of one individual in a modern army. 
 The officer told me that, having been handed over by the 
 country to the Army authorities, they could do just as they 
 liked with me. It is not until then that one realizes the 
 worst of conscription. When I refused to be examined 
 they told me it would be of no avail, since they could tame 
 lions in the Army. I replied that they could perhaps make 
 lions tame, but they could never make lambs fierce ! They 
 have offered to forgive my past offences if I will start and 
 be a soldier from this moment, and thus save themselves 
 a great deal of trouble and myself a good deal of suffering, 
 they say. I expect I shall get about two years in a mili- 
 tary prison, probably as an example. . . . Numerous kindly 
 intentioned officers have endeavoured to persuade me to 
 accept the inevitable, and give up acting the goat. But 
 when a man is prepared to give his life for his ideals, surely 
 veiled threats or suffering will not alter his decision." 
 
138 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 At the camp of the 3rd Cheshires at Birkenhead an out- 
 burst of violence occurred in such a public place, and was 
 so widely reported, that the War Office intervened and issued 
 the circular referred to below forbidding such conduct. 
 Birkenhead Park was the drill ground, and Mrs. Beards- 
 worth was among the public spectators when her husband, 
 along with Mr. Dukes, was thrown over a seven-foot hurdle, 
 pushed up an eight-foot sloping plank, and thrown into 
 water, suffered elaborate and continued kicking of his ankles 
 and punching of his head. The ankle-kicking and knocking 
 about were also perpetrated on Mr. George Benson. The 
 whole brutal treatment lasted about two hours, during which 
 Mr. Beardsworth was dragged about on the ground, had his 
 hair pulled out, and suffered whatever else military tyranny 
 suggested. 
 
 Because of the publicity given to this case, the soldiers 
 who had actually perpetrated the violence were court 
 martialled. But Messrs. Dukes and Beardsworth refused 
 to give evidence against the soldiers, for they regarded 
 their officers as the real culprits. The facts were not denied, 
 though the word ** brutality " was objected to, and the effect 
 upon the Government was achieved. 
 
 A. Robinson writes ^ an account of how he was frog- 
 marched down to parade with his equipment tied on his back. 
 Afterwards, for refusing to work, he had a pick and shovel 
 tied round his neck and a pack put on his back. He was 
 then handcuffed, his feet tied together, and a cord tied from 
 his ankles to his hands and pulled tight till his legs bent. 
 He was left Hke this for two hours. Next morning he was 
 hit about the head, knocked down, and beaten with a stick 
 until he was black and blue. A military poHcemen sat 
 heavily on his chest. Later he was knocked down, and 
 men stood and pressed on his chest with one foot ; when 
 his hands were tied to the handle of an oat crusher, one of 
 the poHce hit his knuckles till his hand was swollen. Similar 
 treatment was accorded to another man from Pilling, at the 
 same camp. 
 
 James Devlin of Burnley, though a conscientious objector, 
 consented to join up under family pressure, but afterwards 
 
 I Tribunal, October 5, 19 16. 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 189 
 
 obeyed his better self and resisted when already a soldier. 
 His lot was hard, being in detention barracks at Gosport. He 
 had solitary confinement for fourteen weeks, with only half an 
 hour's exercise per week. His food for thirteen weeks was 
 bread and water, with a little occasional variation. The 
 rule that this diet should only be given for three days at 
 a time was ignored. The doctor said he knew he was 
 breaking rules, but would do it nevertheless. Mr. Devlin 
 was left twenty-four hours with no sanitary clearance, and 
 uncleaned utensils were given him on purpose. He was too 
 prostrate to conduct his case on his second court martial, 
 and he left the place a mere wreck. 
 
 The case of Maurice Andrews, in Hereford Detention 
 Barracks, is of the same type. He is a Jew, Russian born. 
 He was stripped of his civil clothes, left eight days in a 
 cell in singlet and pants, his hands strapped behind his 
 back for four hours daily, then handcuffs used instead ; but 
 when they found that he could then unloose his clothes, the 
 strap torture was resumed. Along with this was the usual 
 starvation. A soldier remarked that unless they made 
 detention so terrible that a man would do anything rather 
 than endure it they would never keep discipline in the Army. 
 It is probable that if the Act had been carried out, and 
 exemption given as it should have been under it, there would 
 have been some mob violence and perhaps lynchings of the 
 exempted " shirker." Organized mobs twice attacked meet- 
 ings at the Brotherhood Church, Southgate Road, in North 
 London, with peculiar violence, not shrinking from what 
 was nearly murder, with iron bars as weapons. The riot 
 finally culminated in an attempt to bum the church. This 
 was a fully organized effort. A series of noonday Peace 
 Meetings held weekly at the Friends* Meeting House, 
 Devonshire House, Bishopsgate, were regularly invaded and 
 interrupted by organized opponents. There were also two 
 savage attempts at arson, one successful. In November 
 1916 Canadian soldiers, otherwise famous for lawlessness, 
 tarred the roof of a hut at Seaford in Sussex where ninety 
 C.O.'s slept, intending to burn it over them ; but they were 
 stopped by an armed party of the Royal Sussex Regiment. 
 On June 16, 1918, soon after midnight, the wooden house 
 
140 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 where twenty-five C.O/s were sleeping at Ditton Priors, 
 Shropshire, a quarrying centre, was burnt to the ground in 
 twenty-five minutes, and all the clothes and property in it 
 were burnt, worth £225. Joseph Sturge, a well-known Friend 
 from Birmingham, went over to investigate, and was satisfied 
 that it was an intentional burning. 
 
 By 1918, however, in most places, the feeling both in 
 and out of the Army had come round to one of kindness 
 to men seen to be honest and brave. The true offenders 
 against the clause in D.O.R.A. about damaging discipline 
 were, in fact, the Tribunals, who had placed amongst the 
 conscripts these courageous irreconcilables. 
 
 9. The writer of the following was a young solicitor's 
 clerk in Manchester. The letter, written on the yellow 
 covering of a cigarette packet, was smuggled out to his 
 family by a friendly soldier at considerable risk. Mr. 
 Brightmore, adjudged to be a humbug and a shirker by 
 Local and Appeal Tribunals, and similarly rejected by the 
 Central Tribunal in its still more discriminating wisdom, 
 had already proved his courage and honesty by eight months 
 in prison. He was not an Absolutist, but was willing to 
 take the Home Office scheme (see Chap. VI). 
 
 '* The Pit, Shore Camp, Cleethorpes. 
 " Sunday, June 24, 1917. 
 
 " My dear , 
 
 " This is the best stuff I can find to write what may 
 be my last letter. Everything has been taken off me, and I 
 should not have this pencil but for chance. I was bullied 
 horribly when I was tried, and sentenced to twenty-eight 
 days* detention in solitary confinement — to be given raw 
 rations and to cook my food myself. This does not sound bad, 
 but I have found the confinement was in a pit which started 
 at the surface at 3 feet by 2, and tapered off to 2 feet 6 inches 
 by 15 inches. Water was struck, but they continued until 
 it was 10 feet deep. The bottom is full of water, and I 
 have to stand on two strips of wood all day long just above 
 the water line. There is no room to walk about, and 
 sitting is impossible. The sun beats down, and through 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 141 
 
 the long day there are only the walls of clay to look at. 
 Already I am half mad. 
 
 " I have not heard from you since I came out of prison, 
 but I know there are many letters waiting for me. I cannot, 
 therefore, tell what may happen when I get to France, 
 whether the death sentence is being exacted. ... I hunger- 
 struck for two days in the hole here, but found I was getting 
 too weak to resist, and my brain, too, seemed to be giving 
 under the strain. 
 
 ** I wish I could see your letters. I could be reassured 
 or know your wishes. As it is, I feel sentenced to death, 
 knowing that within a few days I shall be in France and 
 shot. The fact that men are being sent to France at all 
 is proof positive to me that the military authorities have 
 captured the machine, and are able to do as they like 
 with us. 
 
 '* What have our friends been doing ? It is nothing 
 but cold-blooded murder to send men out into the trenches 
 to be shot like dogs for disobedience. I am not afraid to 
 die, but this suspense, this ignorance linked up with the 
 torture of this pit, have plunged me into misery, despair, 
 madness, almost insanity. [Here follow references to 
 private matters.] The hardest thing is leaving you three 
 dear ones behind, and the suffering and anxiety I am 
 bringing upon you. All these weary months of imprison- 
 ment we have lived on hopefully. Now the cup is being 
 dashed from our hands, and in liberty's name. . . . Good- 
 bye. 
 
 " James Brightmore." 
 
 The friendly soldier adds : — 
 
 " They would not listen to him. They cursed him and 
 told him he was a soldier and they would do just as they 
 wished. It is no use Brightmore making any complaints, 
 because they have orders to take no notice. This torture 
 is turning the man's brain." 
 
 He estimates the depth of the hole as 12 feet. " In 
 fact, they were going deeper, when they found water." He 
 adds : "He has a blanket or two, and an oil sheet on the 
 
142 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 top," which sounds as though he was kept there both night 
 and day. 
 
 The above account was printed in a letter in the Man- 
 chester Guardian on June 30th, with severe editorial comment. 
 Forty minutes after the paper arrived at the camp, Bright- 
 more was taken out after eleven days' confinement, the 
 hole hastily filled up, and further attempts were made to 
 conceal the incident. Mr. MacPherson, in the House of 
 Commons, was supplied with shamelessly misleading infor- 
 mation ; for a visit from a superior military officer resulted 
 in the dismissal from the Army of the Major who was 
 responsible. 
 
 Brightmore made a further statement on July 8th, 
 which was also communicated to the Manchester Guardian, 
 as follows : — 
 
 " A hole was in course of construction when I arrived, 
 June i8th, which was already about 4 feet deep. . . . For 
 four days intermittently the pit was deepened a little at 
 a time, from 7 feet on Monday night to 10 before the week 
 was out. On the Tuesday water was struck, but instruc- 
 tions were given that the hole must go deeper still. For 
 four days I was up to the ankles in mud and water, but 
 on the Friday two strips of wood were let into the wall 
 of the pit for me to stand on. They were not more than 
 3 inches wide and 10 or 11 inches apart. One of them, 
 owing to the clay giving way, sank into the water after 
 twenty-four hours." 
 
 He was told on all hands, and quite believed, during 
 these days of physical suffering, that his five friends from 
 the same camp taken to France had been shot, and that 
 he was going to the same fate with the next draft. 
 
 " It rained very heavily one day, and I was taken into 
 a marquee. I slept the night there, and was again taken 
 there next day." (Then the men responsible for this act 
 of kindness were reprimanded for putting him under cover 
 without orders.) " Next night, about 10.15, 1 was roused from 
 my blankets and taken out to sleep on the sodden ground." » 
 
 « I am quoting from my own letters to the Manchester Guardian, and 
 have seen the originals of the correspondence ; v. also Hansard, July 18 
 and 23, 1917. 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 143 
 
 The Major, who was dismissed, made various public 
 speeches afterwards, in protest against his dismissal. He 
 had, indeed, acted in (apparently unconscious) disobedience 
 to a War Office Circular of September 19, 1916, directed to 
 stop all outrages and insist on the ordinary regulations 
 being observed by the military. The General in command 
 shared in his dismissal. 
 
 Concerning Jack Gray at Hornsea Camp, the first inti- 
 mation that came out was in a letter from James Crawshaw, 
 dated June 23, 1917. 
 
 " On the Monday morning. May 7, 1917, the breaking-in 
 processes were begun on Gray by the bombing officer, who 
 used his powers of persuasion by means of more or less 
 gentle ankle-tapping to bring him to attention. Then, on 
 Gray's refusal to salute, he foamed at the mouth, and gave 
 vent to terrible language. Subsequently he threw a live Mills 
 bomb at his feet, after removing the pin and failing to persuade 
 Gray to throw it when ordered. Gray stood perfectly calm 
 and still when the bomb was hissing at his feet, and the 
 officer who threw it had to run for cover. The officer then 
 
 wanted to shake hands with Gray, saying, * Your guts 
 
 are in the right place, anyhow,' but Gray declined. 
 
 ** After dinner there was a repetition. Tuesday morning. 
 May 8th, Gray was introduced to the physical training 
 
 staff and Lieutenant . Here abuse and persuasion 
 
 were blended, and on Gray's refusing to obey, his tunic 
 was removed, shirt neck opened, puttee tied round his 
 waist in lieu of a belt. Orders were then given, all of which 
 he refused to obey, and was knocked into the various 
 positions each time. The sergeant burst his mouth with 
 a heavy blow. He was threatened with a ducking in the 
 pond. Next day there was a repetition, and he had to 
 endure a very long stand in the position referred to, facing 
 a bitterly cold wind (the camp is a very exposed one), 
 interluded with threats hurled at him by the company 
 sergeant-major, who had a valise filled with stones, which 
 Gray was to be made to carry as a pack under forced 
 marching. Under these accumulated threats Gray broke 
 down for the first time, the ordeal being beyond physical 
 
144 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 endurance. Many other and very varied acts of brutality 
 were committed which can all be proved by eyewitnesses, 
 such as the use of soft soap rubbed over the head and face 
 by N.C.O/s and others, who manifested unmitigated delight 
 in exercising their brutality. 
 
 " One day his arms were trussed up his back by force, 
 he was tied in that position with a rope, and a man then 
 pulled him round the field by the rope, walking, running, 
 etc., alternately. On another day he was stripped naked, 
 a rope tightly fastened round his abdomen, and he was then 
 pushed forcibly and entirely immersed in a filthy pond in 
 the camp grounds eight or nine times in succession and dragged 
 out each time by the rope. The pond contained sewage. 
 He says the effect of the tightening of the rope after the 
 second immersion cannot be described, and was still more 
 intolerable when, after the last immersion, they put upon 
 his wet and muddy body a sack with a hole through for 
 the head and one for each arm. 
 
 " The foregoing is only a part of the illegal and brutal 
 acts perpetrated upon John Gray, in such a manner that 
 eight of the men ordered to carry out orders refused to 
 do so, and thereby rendered themselves liable to a most 
 serious charge and trial by court martial. ..." So far 
 Mr. Crawshaw's letter. 
 
 Gray finally gave in, hardly knowing what he did. The 
 wonder was that he stood so much — a brave man beaten 
 in body and mind. His persecutors have earned the fiercest 
 curse that ever fell from the lips of Jesus, the woe upon 
 those who made one of these little ones to stumble. Under 
 pressure from Mr. T. P. Whitaker, the member for the 
 division, a military enquiry was held and lasted four days. 
 The officers were censured, and Gray transferred to another 
 unit. No one was allowed to see the report. 
 
 10. Mr. C. H. Norman had an experience in Wandsworth 
 Military Detention Barracks which also resulted in the 
 dismissal of his tormentor, Lieutenant-Colonel Reginald 
 Brooke. At his court martial Mr. Norman went into the 
 witness box and gave evidence as follows : — 
 
 " I was put into a strait-jacket on two occasions for 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 145 
 
 over twenty hours/' he said, " and during that time I became 
 unconscious. I was in hospital for seven days, and was 
 brought out to parade. I decHned, and was put on a bread 
 and water diet. Then I made a hunger, thirst, and sleep 
 strike for forty-eight hours. For two nights I walked about 
 my cell, and then found I could not go on. So I went on with 
 the hunger and thirst strike, and was forcibly fed on two 
 occasions. The process was this — I was laid in a strait- 
 jacket on the bed on the first occasion, with three or four 
 attendants, although I offered no resistance of any sort or 
 kind. A tube was put in my nose, and the food was pumped 
 down through the nose for fifteen minutes. After that I 
 was kept for an hour and a half in a strait-jacket. The 
 Commandant came round and looked at me, and was most 
 abusive and insulting. I noticed that Colonel Brooke was 
 usually most abusive and insulting when I was in a strait- 
 jacket. 
 
 " I declined any food, and the next day there was the 
 same process, except that it was done through the mouth, 
 and the feed tube which was used was too large for my 
 throat. The result was that I had twenty minutes of the 
 utmost agony, and naturally that had very grave effects 
 upon my general health and nervous condition. In the 
 meantime I had got out of communication with my friends 
 as to what was going on,i and I decided that I would not — 
 in fact, I could not — go on, in view of the treatment I was 
 undergoing, with that sort of thing. For several days I 
 was spitting blood, and still had internal pains, as the result 
 of this operation. It was unnecessary to do it this way, 
 because if the food had been administered in the ordinary 
 way I should have taken it. It was done as a punishment. 
 It was a form of torture. 
 
 " It was perfectly impossible for any man with self- 
 respect, or who calls himself a gentleman, to obey the orders 
 of the Commandant. He called me a swine, a beast, and a 
 coward, and I have not uttered a discourteous or uncivil 
 word to anyone, notwithstanding the treatment I have had. 
 I have been spat at by the Commanding Ofhcer three times. 
 The Commandant's excuse for the strait -jacket was that 
 
 « The N.C.F. was, however, aware of it and was acting. 
 
 10 
 
146 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 I had threatened suicide. I did not say that. I said I 
 gathered from the treatment that I should be driven to 
 suicide. I was put into a strait -jacket fifteen minutes after 
 I was taken into the place, and it was deliberately done, 
 in my opinion, to break my health. I was only given a bowl 
 of milk to drink, and I fainted during the night. The 
 strait -jacket, which was too small, led to a great increase 
 of the ordinary pain." 
 
 Colonel Brooke was the sort of man to whom, whether 
 in Prussia or elsewhere. Militarism is congenial. He was 
 delighted to hear of the treatment of Rendel Wyatt, a 
 Cambridge graduate, who was put in irons in a dark cell 
 and sent to France, and "hoped the whole lot of the con- 
 scientious objectors would be treated in the same way " ; 
 he said he cared nothing for Asquith or Parliament, but 
 would " do just as he liked with these men." " I shall 
 continue to act in my barracks according to my orders, 
 without any regard for what you or any of the so-called 
 ' public ' may think. I do not care one atom for public 
 opinion." Let us hope he has learnt better now. 
 
 These records of outrage are merely typical. They are 
 cases which became well known more through accident than 
 otherwise. But abroad there were other sufferers, such as 
 W. G, Tyrell, who suffered Field Punishment No. i at 
 Bapaume for a month, nearly every time within the range 
 of shell fire, so that the guard was at times afraid to stay 
 near him. At Boulogne Field Punishment Detention Bar- 
 racks the daily diet consisted of 6 ounces of beef and three 
 biscuits, with a quart of tea without milk or sugar. A 
 prisoner writes : "In the morning we were so hungry that 
 we usually ate the whole day's rations, and in the evening 
 it was a case of searching round dustbins for potato peelings 
 and such-like scraps. The hunger was the worst of it. I 
 asked to see the doctor ; he gave me two pills, which I 
 thought made me worse. I reported next morning, and 
 was given one pill, the doctor saying that he did not want 
 to see me any more. I was given half an hour's extra work 
 that day for daring to ask to see the doctor." ^ 
 
 ^ See Tribunal, August i6, 191 7. 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 147 
 
 II. The purpose of this chapter has been to narrate the 
 facts as a historian should, not as its main purpose to excite 
 sympathy for the sufferers. The sufferings themselves only 
 compare, even at their worst, with the horrors endured 
 by a certain proportion of the fighting men, and the 
 risk of such horrors was taken by all soldiers. Nor is it 
 fitting that the testimony should be borne in such a way 
 as to avoid sacrifice. The trouble is that these sufferings, 
 such as they were, were inflicted, not only contrary to the 
 law, not only wastefully from the point of view of victory and 
 the conservation of national resources, not only by Englishmen 
 upon Englishmen, but in flat violation of that I)ivine faculty 
 which is, in the last resort, the only guide to the steps of 
 man. It was an attempt to stifle that sense of duty on 
 which alone a sound State can be built and ordered. 
 
 Most of these military proceedings were, to the aston- 
 ishment of colonels and sergeants, quickly known to 
 the No-Conscription Fellowship, whose organization was of 
 inestimable value at this crisis. Mr. Snowden and others in 
 the House, and the Manchester Guardian alone among the 
 great daily newspapers, did not flinch from exposing these 
 deeds, and compelled the Government to act. Not that 
 it would be fair to say that only fear of public opinion caused 
 this. There was a real difference between the civil and the 
 military attitude. " I only wish they would let me shoot 
 one of these fellows," (the men sent to France), said an 
 officer at Kinmel Park to a CO. " No, that would be a 
 soldier's death," replied a colleague. Contrast Mr. Tennant, 
 Under-Secretary for War, in the House, on May 20, 1916 : — 
 ** I would like to say on my own behalf that, while the 
 conscientious objector has not made my path easier, and 
 has not eased the wheels of the chariot of war, and is not 
 likely to do so, I am afraid I cannot, for my part, withhold 
 my — I do not want to use too strong a word — but certainly 
 my respect for persons who on religious grounds will undergo 
 privation and even persecution rather than do violence to 
 their conscience. I would make that admission at once, 
 and I hope the House will realize that that is my view." 
 
 It was plain that the military were not the people to 
 deal with these men, even when " deemed to be soldiers." 
 
148 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 And the Army, on its side, was embarrassed by them. Hun- 
 dreds of rebels against their orders, quickly becoming 
 thousands, were earning the respect and admiration, not 
 always unconfessed, of the conscript soldiers. This would 
 never do. Howard Marten, for instance, writes : — 
 
 " During the journey I received an admission from one 
 of the escort that if he had previously realized the sincerity 
 of our views he would have shown us more consideration, 
 confidentially informing me that he had had a good pot of 
 tea brewing that morning and expressing his regret that he 
 had not shared it with us. On learning that I was a smoker, 
 he showered cigarettes upon me, and one could not but be 
 touched by these simple words and acts of kindness. Such 
 experiences, as time went on, were not infrequent, and 
 eventually we came to look upon them as a natural sequence 
 to the attitude of quiet cheerfulness and confidence which 
 it was our invariable endeavour to preserve with the escorts 
 and military police who had to watch our steps." 
 
 So on May 25, 1916, Army Order X was issued, under 
 which men passed from their court martial into civil prisons. 
 This was to apply to all men who asserted a conscientious 
 objection, even if the Tribunal had disallowed it.* This 
 was hailed as the remedy for military torture. In the end 
 it became so. But, like everything that appeared to ease 
 the lot of the victims of the Tribunals, it was given with 
 grudging hand. It was not retrospective at first. Every 
 technical difficulty was put in some quarters in the way of 
 its execution. In the end, however, by the usual means 
 of pressure, it was universally put into force, and the final 
 stage in the Government's methods was reached, the long 
 incarceration in civil prisons. Brutality was mostly stopped 
 
 »ARMY ORDER X. 
 " Offences Against Discipline. 
 
 " I. With reference to paragraph 583 (XI) of the King's Regulations, 
 where an offence against discipline has been committed, and the accused 
 soldier represents that the offence was the result of conscientious objection 
 to military service, imprisonment and not detention should be awarded. 
 
 " 2, A soldier who is sentenced to imprisonment for an offence against 
 discipline, which was represented by the soldier at his trial to have been the 
 result of a conscientious objection to military service, will be committed 
 to the nearest public civil prison, as if his offence was included in paragraph 
 607 (I) of the King's Regulations ; the provisions of sub-paragraph IV of 
 that paragraph shall not apply to a soldier so sentenced to imprisonment." 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 149 
 
 in England by a drastic letter from the War Office, dated 
 September 19, igi6. 
 The letter ran : — 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " I am commanded by the Army Council to inform 
 you that it appears from reports which have been received 
 in this Department that in certain instances attempts have 
 been made by Commanding Officers to compel conscientious 
 objectors to perform their military duties by ignoring acts 
 of grave insubordination and ensuring compliance by physical 
 means. 
 
 " I am, therefore, to request that you will be good 
 enough to take steps to ensure that such a procedure, if it 
 is taking place, immediately ceases, and that Commanding 
 Officers be informed that acts of insubordination committed 
 by conscientious objectors should be dealt with strictly 
 in accordance with the law. The men concerned should 
 immediately be placed in arrest and remanded for trial by 
 court martial, unless a minor punishment is awarded, or 
 the soldier concerned elects to accept the award of his 
 Commanding Officer. 
 
 " It has also been reported that Commanding Officers 
 have been awarding sentences of detention without giving 
 the soldier concerned the opportunity of exercising his right 
 to be tried by a court martial under the provisions of 
 Section 46 (8) of the Army Act. If this should prove to 
 have been the case, the Army Council will seriously consider 
 whether the officer concerned, who has been guilty of a grave 
 dereliction of duty and disregard of the law, can be per- 
 mitted to retain his command. 
 
 " It should be clearly pointed out to all concerned that 
 the treatment of the conscientious objector who is resisting 
 lawful military commands should be exactly similar to 
 that accorded to any other soldier who is guilty of acts of 
 insubordination, that it is entirely subversive of discipline 
 if a soldier who commits an act of insubordination is not 
 immediately placed in close confinement, that any special 
 treatment in the way of coercion other than by the methods 
 of punishment laid down in the Army Act and King's Regu- 
 
150 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 lations is strictly prohibited, and that very serious notice 
 will be taken of any irregularities in this respect which may 
 come to light.*' 
 
 (This was officially signed.) 
 
 The earlier sentences of two years were shortened to 
 112 days, in practice about three months, for good conduct 
 marks deducted a possible one-sixth of the sentence. The 
 expectation was that after this experience most of the men 
 would give in. When it was found that this, like other 
 misunderstandings of the pacifist make-up, was falsified — 
 the remission was dropped ; two years was given in all 
 cases, with the same sentence to follow till death, or the 
 imminence of death, or a general amnesty, occurred. It 
 lasted, as we shall see, for three years. 
 
 12. After the military methods of torture had been 
 abandoned in England they were still continued in Egypt, 
 to which place popular opinion was not expected to reach. 
 J. B. Saunders was arrested in May 1916. He at first gave 
 in and joined the Army, but the conviction that he had 
 done wrong grew upon him and he did not return to the 
 Army from furlough in October. He was court martialled 
 and given one year's detention. After three months in 
 Barlinnie Military Detention Barracks, he was sent secretly 
 to France, shipped under a false name and regiment, court 
 martialled for refusing to carry his equipment, and after 
 seven days* detention was sent to Egypt. He reached 
 Alexandria on April 14, 1917. He was court martialled 
 and sentenced to six months* hard labour, and sent to 
 Gabarree prison. He wrote in August to his wife at Hales- 
 worth in Suffolk, from Mustapha Camp, Alexandria : — 
 
 " I was kicked out of Gabarree prison on Saturday, 
 August nth, and since then I have been in this camp. I 
 want you to understand once and for all that I am doing 
 nothing. / will not submit to conscription. Therefore I 
 am in the same position I was in on that memorable Thursday 
 when I left home, and I am confidently waiting for the 
 military to reimprison me on another false charge. Please 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 151 
 
 understand I will never give in. The authorities here now 
 admit that I am a CO., and I am offered N.C. work. This 
 I refuse absolutely, for two reasons. I was sent out here 
 in irons by the most despicable methods anyone can con- 
 ceive. I was put into handcuffs and chained to another 
 soldier. When the handcuffs were taken off on board ship, 
 I was locked in the cells until the ship was well out to sea 
 and I was also in the cells below ship across the Mediter- 
 ranean. I was escorted by Sergeant Williams and Corporal 
 Findlay, of the 103rd Training Reserve, Portobello, I was 
 told at Barlinnie that I was to be flattened out. I was 
 told by a friendly N.C.O. on board to bolt as soon as I 
 arrived at Alexandria. I was told at Gabarree that I was 
 to be finished off. 
 
 " You remember I said I would face the music. You 
 may believe what I say that I am not afraid of anything 
 the military can do. I have been in chains and handcuffs, 
 crucified to a tree in this broiling sun nearly every morning 
 and evening, for five months have had bread and water 
 and solitary confinement. I refused to do any work what- 
 ever, so I leave you to guess what five months alone in a 
 cell, doing nothing, is like. Seven times I went down with 
 dysentery, and seven times I managed to get on my feet 
 and face the music. I fainted, and had to be driven away 
 in a barrow. This tropical sun and chaining up nearly drove 
 me mad. I stuck it, and got finally bowled out, and was 
 sent to 19th General Schools Hospital for seventeen days. 
 I was offered RA.M.C. work. I refused it, and asked to be 
 sent back to prison to do full six months. I left hospital 
 nextday, and was doing seven days' No. i Punishment diet, 
 chained up in the sun, etc., when suddenly I had the chains 
 taken off and I was released. They have discovered at 
 last that they cannot break me. They failed at Barlinnie, 
 and I intend them to fail here. I am determined to sacrifice 
 all rather than give in. Many times I thought I should 
 hang in the sun and die. I pleaded with the sentry to 
 shoot me. I cannot tell you the misery of it. . , . I'll 
 die fifty times rather than endorse the wicked thing. I 
 have several friends here. If I am to be flattened out, they 
 can do it in jail. They can have my body ; my mind I 
 
152 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 will destroy rather than allow the military cult to take it. 
 I was flooded for weeks in my cell with water, two buckets 
 of creosol were thrown in, and I was gassed. I was naked 
 for several days and nights in chains. I had to lie on the 
 concrete floor. However, I believe the doctor stopped 
 these horrible proceedings. To chain a man up in the 
 tropical sun is illegal. ... If my letters suddenly cease, I 
 shall be in prison in Gabarree. Don't misunderstand me. 
 I am determined to do nothing out here." 
 
 13. A set of fourteen men were students at the Mis- 
 sionary Training College of the Seventh-Day Adventists, a 
 sect whose tenet is that they must observe the Jewish 
 Sabbath from dusk on Friday to dusk on Saturday. For 
 about eighteen months they worked in a non-combatant 
 corps in France and were excused work during their Sabbath. 
 Then some military genius decided that this testimony 
 should be outraged, and they were ordered to work on the 
 Sabbath Day. For refusing, they were sentenced to six 
 months' hard labour. On November 23, 1917, they entered 
 the prison. " In the most offensive and blasphemous 
 language we were told that this particular prison was the 
 worst place in France, that they were able to break men's 
 hearts there, and that after a few days we should be glad 
 enough to work seven days a week. As soon as we ceased 
 work, five or six sergeants armed with sticks and revolvers 
 rushed at us and knocked us down in turn with their fists. 
 As each man rose from the ground this treatment was 
 repeated. The attack was renewed with sticks and we were 
 brutally kicked whilst we were on the ground. Two now 
 drew their revolvers, but were prevented from firing by 
 the others. We made no resistance. We were rushed to 
 the punishment cells, the sticks being freely used on the 
 way, and several sergeants ran in amongst us, deliberately 
 tripping us and throwing us heavily on the ground. We 
 were put in irons in the cells, our wrists being gripped 
 securely one upon the other behind the back in irons called 
 * figure of eight.' In some cases the irons were too small 
 and caused excruciating pain on being screwed up. When 
 helpless, we were again punched severely about the face 
 
THE METHODS OF THE MILITARY 158 
 
 and body, and each man was isolated in a small cell 
 7 feet by 4 J feet, having concrete floor and iron walls. 
 Here we were left in extreme cold." 
 
 After this they were punished alone individually. One 
 man was selected as ringleader because he was the tallest. 
 The smallest pair of '* figure of eights '* were screwed upon 
 his wrists. To get them on him the flesh was ripped and 
 cut in several places and the circulation cut off. " I was 
 pinned against the cell by one sergeant whilst the others 
 in a rage struck me continually about the head and in the 
 stomach. One man lifted me up bodily, and with his 
 knee threw me backwards to the other side, causing the 
 irons to cut me and sending acute pains through all my 
 nerves. I dropped to the floor, was picked up, collapsed 
 again, and was then kicked several times in the middle 
 of the back. Finally I became unconscious. I had made 
 no opposition by word or deed. Next morning I was again 
 violently knocked about till I fell to the ground. I felt 
 pains and bruises everywhere, my eye was blackened, one 
 was completely closed, my jaw seemed locked on one side 
 and my nerves were out of control." He was threatened 
 with shooting. The terrible process w^as carried on again 
 the next day until the Sabbath was over, when he was 
 given six ounces of bread — the first food for twenty-four 
 hours. I am thankful to be free to spare my readers what 
 I consider the more horrible tortures inflicted on the ordinary 
 soldier prisoners. They may be found in the Tribunal for 
 April 4, 1918. 
 
 It will be remembered that men who had accepted, or 
 who had volunteered, service in the non-combatant corps 
 or the Royal Army Medical Corps on conscientious grounds, 
 had in 1917 been forcibly transferred to combatant units. 
 As a result of the agitation which had been raised, the men 
 had been re transferred. But in the summer of 1918 about 
 fifty RA.M.C. men, at what was thought to be the safe 
 distance of Cairo and Alexandria, were thrown ftto a military 
 prison for refusing on conscientious grounds to accept transfer 
 into combatant units. A typical case was that of Norman 
 Stafford, a volunteer before the days of conscription, who 
 had done three years of useful and dangerous service in 
 
154 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCP^ 
 
 England, Salonica and Egypt. He was sent to Gabarree 
 prison, Alexandria, for two years* hard labour, in August 
 1918. He writes : "I was taken in to see the Governor, 
 who, like the gentleman he is, gave me the best cursing I 
 have ever had in my life, and when he could no longer find 
 breath for foul words, ordered me No. 2 Punishment diet 
 and a cell." Bronchial pneumonia followed, and then 
 malaria, and, to save dying in prison, he petitioned for a 
 release and was sent back to his regiment to be discharged. 
 Other deaths took place in prison. Finally, thirteen men 
 were, in May 19 19, ordered home to complete their sen- 
 tences in English prisons. The War Office pledges— that 
 they would be retransferred or released — were thus broken, 
 and that in the case of men who had done years of dangerous 
 voluntary service. 
 
 To recount more stories like this is, I hope, unnecessary. 
 Another equally bad story of the cruelties perpetrated on 
 seven N.C.C. men in France who refused to collect shells, 
 and refused to work in a military prison, may be found 
 in the Tribunal for October 17, 1918. 
 
 The conscientious objectors had, in England at any 
 rate, converted the Army to friendliness. Courtesy and 
 indulgence became the rule. As the war became more 
 wearying and less comprehensible, as doubts of its cor- 
 respondence with its advertised purpose arose, the soldiers' 
 and officers' attitudes towards these quietly dignified 
 sufferers softened. Many a bit of rations and many cigarettes 
 changed hands. The colonels, weary of the repeated courts 
 martial, tried friendly arguments. The soldiers felt that 
 all of them together were the victims of a cruel regime. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 
 
 The machinery of military compulsion was now organ- 
 ized. It will be well to outline the counter organizations 
 of the men of peace. 
 
 I. The Society of Friends. 
 
 I. At the beginning of the war the Society of Friends 
 was the only body ready organized for action. 
 
 At the Meeting for Sufferings in November 1914 a 
 Declaration on the War was made and sent round to all 
 Meetings of Friends. It began by quoting the testimony 
 issued in 1804 and in 1854 stating that " all war is utterly 
 incompatible with the plain precepts of our Divine Lord 
 and Lawgiver, and with the whole spirit and tenor of His 
 Gospel, and that no plea of necessity or of policy, however 
 urgent or peculiar, can avail to release either individuals 
 or nations from the paramount allegiance which they owe 
 unto Him who said * Love your enemies.' To carry out 
 such a profession consistently is indeed a high attainment, 
 but it should be the aim of every Christian." The 
 Declaration proceeded : — " Whilst reaffirming this state- 
 ment of our faith we cannot shelter ourselves behind any 
 traditional tenet. We are in the presence of living issues. 
 To-day many of our fellow-countrymen are impelled to 
 enHst by a sense of chivalry towards the weak and by 
 devotion to high national ideals. To-day again the members 
 of our Society, especially the younger men, are entering 
 upon a time of testing. We can well understand the appeal 
 to noble instincts which makes men desire to risk their 
 lives for their country. To turn from this call may seem 
 
 155 
 
156 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 to be a lower choice. In many cases it means braving the 
 scorn of those who only interpret it as cowardice. To not 
 a few it involves the loss of employment. The highest sacri- 
 fice is to contribute our lives to the cause of love in helping 
 our country to a more Christlike idea of service. Those who 
 hear the call to this service, and who respond to it, will be 
 helping their nation in the great spiritual conflicts which 
 it must wage. 
 
 " Already arrangements are being made by Friends to 
 give opportunities in the stricken districts of Europe for 
 the alleviation of disease, misery and starvation. We see 
 danger to principle in' undertaking any service auxiliary 
 to warfare which involves becoming part of the military 
 machine. 
 
 " The determined stand made by our members and others 
 in Australia and New Zealand against their military laws, 
 involving opprobrium, hardship and personal suffering, 
 constitutes an urgent call to us to stand firmly and loyally 
 to our principles." 
 
 Then follows a quotation from the Society's official 
 Book of Christian Practice : — 
 
 ''It is a solemn thing to stand forth to the nation as 
 the advocates of inviolable peace ; and our testimony loses 
 its efficacy in proportion to the want of consistency in any 
 among us.'* 
 
 Quite apart from any danger of conscription, and with 
 no view of escaping an Act not then thought of, the Society 
 saw that its proper service was to save life, as it had done 
 in previous wars. The story comes into this record because 
 it affected the position of many hundreds of conscientious 
 objectors when conscription rose over the horizon. The 
 relief work was carried on by three large committees : — ■ 
 
 The Friends' Ambulance Unit Committee. 
 The War Victims' Relief Committee. 
 The Emergency Committee for the Relief of Germans 
 Austrians, Hungarians and Turks in Distress. 
 
 In addition, extensive Peace Propaganda were carried 
 on by the Peace Committee of the Meeting for Sufferings, 
 the Northern Friends' Peace Board, and by local Friends 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 157 
 
 in many places. Three hundred meetings protesting against 
 the war were reported in the first five months. As mentioned 
 later, the Friends' Service Committee, composed largely of 
 men of military age, was appointed by the Yearly Meeting 
 to help and advise all who desired to take up special work. 
 It became the Society's organ for acting against conscrip- 
 tion in all possible ways. 
 
 2. The Ambulance work was the first to be organized. 
 It had an unofficial origin, and during its earlier history it 
 was not *' recognized " by the Meeting for Sufferings — 'the 
 quaint seventeenth-century name of the Society's Executive. 
 Some Friends thought its work was too closely connected 
 with the Army to be quite free from military colour. In 
 time this cautious official attitude of the Meeting was aban- 
 doned. The Unit reported to the Yearly Meeting, but it 
 was not controlled or appointed by it. Sir George Newman 
 was its chairman throughout. No doubt the Unit did 
 provide a useful opening for men whose sense of national 
 duty was strong, and who would gladly devote themselves 
 to caring for wounded soldiers, even though such men might 
 be and were thereby restored to the fighting forces, and 
 though the Unit's voluntary work did spare the national 
 funds available for war. These men thought that they 
 were not responsible for ultimate results, and were satisfied 
 not themselves to prosecute war. The membership was 
 not in the early days confined entirely to Friends. After 
 conscription came in, the Government insisted that it should 
 be, except for men allowed by their Tribunals to enter. 
 Not all the Unit men were conscientious objectors. Some 
 few went over to the Army ; and a few, after conscription 
 came in, did not feel it right to escape so much more easily 
 than their comrades, came back, and were thrown into 
 prison. 
 
 The Ambulance Unit was formed by Philip J. Baker, 
 Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and his friends, as 
 soon as war began. They organized a training centre in 
 the old barn and buildings at Jordans Farm, the well-known 
 Quaker centre near Beaconsfield. The British military 
 authorities did not welcome this unofficial and unprofessional 
 
158 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 assistance. They were rather embarrassed in those early 
 days by fugitive missions of mercy enthusiastically begun 
 for a time by society ladies, and they were slow to dis- 
 criminate between these and the beginning of a growing 
 band of trained and unusually capable young men, to whom, 
 later, nurses were added, who might be relied on to last 
 out. The French were more perceptive, and at first not 
 so well supplied. They welcomed a body of men who paid 
 their own expenses ; and therefore the Friends' Ambulance 
 Unit worked at the beginning for the French armies. After- 
 wards the British Army officials wished they had been less 
 professionally stiff. The first band of Friends went over 
 to Dunkirk, not knowing exactly on what service they were 
 to enter. On their way they had to rescue the crew of a 
 torpedoed ship and to put back. So they landed without 
 having had any sleep for twenty-two hours, mostly spent 
 on the water, and very tired. They found a dreadful need 
 ready to their hands. The large warehouses of the port 
 were being used as temporary stations for the wounded, on 
 their way to be shipped to hospitals at Havre. The poor 
 men were tightly packed in straw on the floor — parched 
 with thirst, racked with helpless pain, with wounds many 
 days old and gangrening. A hideous stench choked the 
 place. The Hving and dying lay in one rotting and scream- 
 ing mass. With no orders from anybody the young men, 
 unrested and unfed, began what relief they could — ^in the 
 way of water and cleanliness and the binding up of freshly 
 torn wounds. All night and into the next day they worked. 
 In time the Unit got into its stride. Hospitals were 
 set up, hundreds of motor ambulances brought over, and 
 dressing-stations manned at the front. The steady toil 
 began, monotonous and rather dangerous, hard and dull, 
 much like the work of ordinary soldiers in the medical units. 
 The first expedition consisted of 43 men and eight cars. 
 At the end there were 600 men working abroad, and £138,000 
 was spent. The Unit ran a dozen hospitals, made 27,000 
 inoculations against typhoid in Belgium, fed and clothed 
 refugees, and began lace-making and other industries. It 
 distributed milk and purified water, and managed three 
 recreation huts at Dunkirk. It carried 33,000 men home 
 
THE ORGx\NIZATION OF PEACE 159 
 
 in its two hospital ships ; the motor convoys carried over 
 260,000 sick and wounded ; and the four ambulance trains, 
 ever moving behind the British lines, conveyed over half 
 a million patients. It was all done voluntarily without 
 pay. It was necessarily in constant co-operation with the 
 military authorities, and under their orders. Its officers 
 were given commissions for the sake of convenience. It 
 represented that wing of the peace army which was content 
 to serve the nation, and to join their fellows in sacrifice, 
 without minding all the incidental consequences of so much 
 co-operation with the Army, or feeling called to devote 
 themselves to direct opposition to conscription in general. 
 Its history does not come further into this book, but may 
 be read at length in the History of the Friends* Ambulance 
 Unit, by Meaburn Tatham and James E. Miles, published 
 at a guinea by the Swarthmore Press. ' It describes a magni- 
 ficent piece of steady grind for four long years and more. 
 Its members did not have to go before a Tribunal, but were 
 exempted conditionally on remaining in the Unit. 
 
 A considerable group of Friends also worked with the 
 British Ambulance Unit for Italy, under Mr. George M. 
 Trevelyan, though it had no official connection with Friends. 
 
 3. The War Victims' Relief Committee is still in exist- 
 ence, and its scope now covers many countries. Some day 
 the record of its achievements will be given completely. 
 They do not concern this book directly, because service 
 there did not exempt a man from the verdict of a Tribunal. 
 The Government, with an eye to military ends only, came 
 to value the Friends' Ambulance work, but thought less of 
 restored French villages, pure water supply, and maternity 
 hospitals. The men on this work had to appear at intervals, 
 personally or by deputy, to obtain renewed exemption. If 
 they were willing to accept alternative service, the Tribunals 
 generally allowed this form of it. In extent it is the greatest 
 of the works of peace and will be long remembered. The 
 *' Peace " has only increased the calls upon it, as Central 
 Europe is overrun by famine. As I write, it is, among other 
 tasks, feeding a milUon children in Eastern Europe. 
 
 * Now George Allen and Unwin. 
 
160 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 The Emergency Committee — I think its long name was 
 chosen so that it might never be used, and the fact that 
 it had a mission to those who were technically aliens be not 
 too obtrusively stated — did not employ many men of mihtary 
 age. Its work was among Englishwomen married to expelled 
 or interned Germans, and to alien enemies in internment 
 camps. This work, of course, also carried no right of 
 exemption. An account of it has been published under the 
 title of St. Stephen's House (Friends' Bookshop, 5s.). 
 
 4. At the Friends' Yearly Meeting held at the end of 
 May 1915, a large gathering was held of men of enlistment 
 age, to try to see their corporate duty, and, if necessary, 
 to form an organization to carry it out. They made a 
 statement to the Yearly Meeting. They spoke of the new 
 vision that had come to them to consecrate the whole of 
 their lives to the will of God, who is Love, and that this 
 Love should work through them in active service. 
 
 " Christ demands of us that we adhere without swerving 
 to the methods of love, and therefore if a seeming conflict 
 should arise between His service and those of the State, it 
 is to Christ that our supreme loyalty must be given, what- 
 ever be the consequences. We would, however, remember 
 that whatever is our highest loyalty to God and to humanity 
 is at the same time the highest loyalty that we can render 
 to our nation." 
 
 They proposed that those who felt that they were doing 
 their best service should continue in it, and that others 
 should have facilities for training for changed work. This 
 was, of course, before conscription came. The Yearly Meet- 
 ing accepted their views with joy, and asked them to 
 nominate a committee to carry them out. This Committee 
 was appointed by the Yearly Meeting, and known for five 
 years as the Friends* Service Committee. Its members were 
 admitted to the Meeting for Sufferings. The Committee 
 became the active arm of the Society in all business that 
 concerned conscription. * 
 
 • The early members of the Committee were :— - 
 
 Horace G. Alexander, Harrison Barrow, A. Barratt Brown. Roderic K. 
 Clark, J. Herbert Crosland, Robert Davis, Hugh Gibbins, Richard B. Graham, 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 161 
 
 These were men of standing and service in the world ; 
 two-thirds of them had University degrees. Seven of them 
 in due time were carried off to prison, and women took 
 up their work. After the Yearly Meeting of 1916, Henri- 
 etta Thomas ^ and Edith M. Ellis began regular work in 
 the office of the Men's Service Committee. The office came 
 to require the voluntary or paid work of nine persons. 
 Altogether nineteen men went at various times from the 
 office to prison. When the issue of alternative service 
 arose (Chapter VI) most of the Committee were against it, 
 but full personal liberty was, of course, allowed. 
 
 5. In July 19 15 National Registration was ordered. 
 The Service Committee recommended signature, but with 
 the addition : — 
 
 " Whilst registering as a citizen in conformity with the 
 demand of the Government, I cannot conscientiously take 
 part in military service, in any employment necessitating 
 the taking of the mihtary oath, nor in the production of 
 materials the object of which is the taking of human hfe." 
 
 A Joint Advisory Council of the three bodies, the No- 
 Conscription Fellowship, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, 
 and the Friends' Service Committee, for unity of action, 
 was created in July I9i5,and had an active career till the 
 war was over, and afterwards. It was known as the J.A.C. 
 
 Stephen Hobhouse. Wilfrid E. Littleboy, Robert J. Long, Robert O. Mennell, 
 Harold J. Morland, Hubert W. Peet ; and for a short time, Arnold S. 
 Rowntree. J. St. George Heath (till his death), J. T. Walton Newbold. C. 
 Ernest Elcock, Charles I. Evans, H, Wilson Harris, Geoffrey Hoyland. 
 
 To these were afterwards added : — 
 
 Edwin H. Bigland, T. Corder Catchpool, John Percy F. Fletcher, J. 
 Rowntree Gillett, J. Edward Hodgkin, Arthur Watts, Alexander C. Wilson, 
 Roger Clark, Henry Harris, W. J, Chamberlain, A. Frank Ward. 
 
 After amalgamation with the Women's Service Committee first 
 appointed by the Meeting for Sufferings in June 19 15, there were added : 
 Edith M. Ellis, Mary Fox, Joan M. Fry, Elizabeth Fox Howard, Eileen 
 Barratt Brown, Esther B. Clothier, Hannah M. Clark, Marion E. Elhs, 
 Lucy Gardner, Marion W. Matthews, Janet E. L. Payne, Lydia S. Smith, 
 Adelaide M. Stacey, Amy E. Sturge, Henrietta M, Thomas, Theodora W, 
 Wilson. 
 
 The men's and women's committees worked together from the early 
 summer of 1916. 
 
 » Henrietta Thomas afterwards died through overwork, thus offering 
 up her life in labours on this Committee and on the Emergency Committee. 
 
 11 
 
162 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 Meantime the Service Committee sent a questionnaire to 
 5,000 Friends and Attenders of Meeting, made a detailed 
 catalogue of all Friends of military age, and helped each 
 as they had need.^ 
 
 The three volumes of Minutes of the Committee testify 
 to the manifold detail and the great variety of the services 
 rendered. This Committee was behind all the unceasing 
 efforts which the Society made in direct reference to the 
 persecution, while the Peace Committee devoted itself to 
 Peace propaganda in general. 
 
 In November 19 15 the Meeting for Sufferings appointed 
 a Committee to join the Service Committee in considering 
 the threat of conscription. This body decided to do nothing 
 to compromise with it, to suggest no exemption clauses nor 
 offer alternative service.* 
 
 As Friends were being dismissed from their employment 
 for not attesting under the Derby scheme, a Labour Exchange 
 was begun, and was needed till long after the war was over. 
 
 6, By January the conflict with the Bill was in full blast. 
 Letters were written and deputations were organized in all 
 iiseful directions. Leaflets were issued. The Joint Advisory 
 Council met daily. The Yearly Meeting was summoned by 
 the Meeting for Sufferings for January 28-30, 1916, in a 
 special session. Conscription had just become law. 
 
 The Yearly Meeting's Minute included the paragraph : — 
 
 " War in our view involves a surrender of the Christian 
 ideal and a denial of human brotherhood ; it is an evil for 
 the destruction of which the world is longing ; but freedom 
 from the scourge of war will only be brought about through 
 the faithfulness of individuals to their inmost convictions 
 under the guidance of the Spirit of Christ. We regard the 
 central conception of the Act as imperilling the liberty of 
 the individual conscience — which is the main hope of human 
 progress — and entrenching more deeply that Militarism 
 from which we all desire the world to be freed." 
 
 I See a fine letter in the Friend, October i, 19 15, by Hubert W. Peet, 
 secretary, and Robert O. Mennell, treasurer. 
 
 « See letter in the Friend, November 26th, by Horace G. Alexander and 
 Roger Clark. 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 163 
 
 During this Yearly Meeting a gathering of about 450 
 men of military age was held, and reported that " the 
 strongest body of opinion was in favour of refusal to under- 
 take * alternative ' service, as helping to fasten conscription 
 permanently upon the country. It is not by compromise 
 with an evil thing, but by a passion of goodwill, that the 
 war spirit must be met/' At the same time there were letters 
 in the Friend advocating the acceptance of any public service 
 in itself harmless. 
 
 The regular Yearly Meeting of 1916, assembled at the 
 end of May, had its imprisoned members constantly in mind. 
 One of the Minutes ran as follows : — 
 
 Minute 136 : " Throughout our Yearly Meeting we have 
 had continually in mind the fact that some of our members 
 are in prison or are otherwise suffering for loyalty to con- 
 science in respect to the Peace Testimony which has been 
 ours from the earliest days of the Society. God has honoured 
 us by accounting these our dear Friends worthy to suffer 
 shame for His name. We assure them of our loving remem- 
 brance, and pray that they may know Divine support in 
 this their hour of trial." 
 
 To one accustomed to the atmosphere of Tribunals and 
 courts martial, where poor humanity found itself in the 
 relentless grip of the mechanism of war, this grave reference 
 of the case to man's supreme duty and to the Divine endow- 
 ment of his spirit, came as a great reinforcement. With 
 this power behind them, no wonder young Friends could 
 hold out. Much lonelier were the Socialists, often without 
 backing from religious faith or family sympathy. 
 
 A Financial Committee was appointed to raise a fund 
 for the dependents of Friends in prison. This Committee 
 easily raised what was needed. The balance was used at 
 the end for the training and education of the released men. 
 
 7. It was not unnatural that the Government, in the 
 course of its attack upon liberty and upon the opponents 
 of war, should eventually find itself engaged in an official 
 attack upon the Society of Friends. In contrast to the 
 unseen sufferings and sordid hardships hidden behind prison 
 
164 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 walls, this had a dramatic value. When Regulation 27C 
 under the Defence of the Realm Act was promulgated, the 
 Society of Friends announced that they would disobey it. 
 The Regulation ordered that no pamphlet or similar publi- 
 cation dealing with the war or the making of peace should 
 be issued without being first passed by the Censor. It 
 was felt in the Meeting for Sufferings, in December 1917, 
 that to submit to this would be to give up the whole 
 case for liberty of speech. As the point has constitutional 
 importance, the carefully drawn Minute the Meeting passed 
 is here given : — 
 
 " The Executive body of the Society of Friends, after 
 serious consideration, desires to place on record its con- 
 viction that the portion of the recent regulations requiring 
 the submission to the Censor of all leaflets dealing with the 
 present war and the making of peace is a grave danger to 
 the national welfare. The duty of every good citizen to 
 express his thoughts on the affairs of his country is hereby 
 endangered, and further, we believe that Christianity requires 
 the toleration of opinions not our own, lest we should un- 
 wittingly hinder the workings of the Spirit of God. 
 
 " Beyond this there is a deeper issue involved. It is for 
 Christians a paramount duty to be free to obey, and to act 
 and speak in accord with the law of God, a law higher than 
 that of any State, and no Government official can release 
 men from this duty. 
 
 " We realize the rarity of the occasions on which a body 
 of citizens find their sense of duty to be in conflict with 
 the law, and it is with a sense of the gravity of the decision 
 that the Society of Friends must on this occasion act con- 
 trary to the regulation, and continue to issue literature on 
 war and peace without submitting it to the Censor. It is 
 convinced that in thus standing for spiritual liberty it is 
 acting in the best interest of the nation.*' 
 
 This Minute received the official endorsement of the 
 following Yearly Meeting. 
 
 The Government and the Press were frankly informed 
 of this action. Friends' Committees continued to issue 
 pamphlets on behalf of the Society. One of these, calle4 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 165 
 
 A Challenge to Militarism, a leaflet not more extreme nor 
 more obnoxious to the Government than other writings, 
 and consisting of information about the men in prison, was 
 the one selected for attack. In February 1918 two ladies 
 were arrested for distributing it at the doors of a Labour 
 Congress at the Central Hall. They were shortly released 
 and the summonses were deferred. When, on April i8th, 
 their trial came on, Harrison Barrow, as acting chairman, 
 and Edith M. Ellis, as secretary of the Service Committee, 
 gave evidence to the effect that that Committee was 
 responsible. The case against the ladies was dropped until 
 proceedings should be taken against the authors. The 
 responsible author, as in Friends' official papers generally, 
 was the Service Committee itself, and it acted as the agent 
 of the Yearly Meeting. It would never do to arraign the 
 twenty thousand members of the Society of Friends, who 
 were ultimately responsible. Many of the members of the 
 Committee were already in gaol. The persons prosecuted 
 were the Chairman and the Acting Secretaries of the Service 
 Committee, two of whom had given evidence in the trial 
 of the ladies. The personality of these three Friends showed 
 with great clearness that the most valuable elements in 
 the citizenship of this country were impugned by the persons 
 conducting national affairs. Harrison Barrow, the chair- 
 man, is one of the most useful and distinguished citizens 
 of Birmingham, who in 19 14 had withdrawn from a pros- 
 pective Lord Mayoralty on account of his attitude to the 
 war. Miss Edith M. Ellis is the daughter of the late Right 
 Hon. John Edward Ellis, M.P., for a while Under-Secretary 
 for India. Arthur Watts of Manchester represented the 
 active public service of younger Friends, and had fought 
 military training in Australia. The issue was whether a 
 Christian body owed allegiance to what it believed to be 
 its highest duty when it conflicted with the law of the State. 
 The court interrupted Harrison Barrow's defence by ad- 
 journing till next day. May 24. The Yearly Meeting 
 happened to be in session at Bishopsgate at the time, and 
 passed a Minute in support of the defendants. John Henry 
 Barlow, the presiding officer or " Clerk " of the Yearly Meeting, 
 was present as a witness to read the Minute. This he was not 
 
166 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 allowed to do, but Harrison Barrow, who was defending the 
 case, was able to read it for him. The prosecution worried 
 a good deal about the question of authorship, which was 
 clear. When the Aldernaan retired to consider the verdict, 
 and the court was abandoned to the usual buzz of conver- 
 sation, John Henry Barlow's clear and conamanding voice 
 was heard asking for Friends in court to devote themselves 
 to silent prayer. The Guildhall court suddenly became a 
 Friends' Meeting. This is the moment which I hope, some 
 day, some artist will preserve in a great picture. A few 
 words of vocal prayer that we might follow Christ all the 
 way were heard. The usher's habitual cry, " Silence in 
 the court," on the Alderman's return, brought out the 
 incongruity of the whole situation. Harrison Barrow and 
 Arthur Watts were sentenced to six months' imprisonment 
 and Edith M. Ellis to £ioo fine and fifty guineas costs, and 
 in default to three months' imprisonment. An appeal was 
 lodged, and the prisoners admitted to bail. Meantime, at the 
 hour of the trial, the Yearly Meeting at Devonshire House 
 had adjourned its business, and sat rapt in reverent and 
 prayerful silence, while the trial was in progress not far away. 
 The appeal was heard at the Guildhall on July 3rd, in 
 Quarter Sessions. The Bench endeavoured to shut out the 
 public, and were plainly hostile to Harrison Barrow's defence 
 all through. But the ability and gentle dignity of the 
 defendant were equal to the occasion. John Henry Barlow 
 read the Yearly Meeting's Minute, confirming its previous 
 decision not to submit to this regulation. It was easy to 
 show that other critics of the Government had been privi- 
 leged — both the Liberal and the Labour parties had made 
 their criticisms uncensored, and so had Lord Grey of Fallodon. 
 No weight was allowed to this plea. Finally, Sir Alfred 
 Newton and his colleagues listened attentively to Harrison 
 Barrow's personal statement. Edith Ellis followed, and 
 the court was visibly impressed as, with the timbre of her 
 woman's voice, she told in calm words of her immutable 
 conviction. Arthur Watts spoke with something of the 
 fire of youth in fealty to the service of liberty and peace. 
 But Sir Arthur Newton " could hardly contain his indig- 
 nation " at the way in which the defendants ** deliberately 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 167 
 
 flouted the authorities and gloried in it.'* The appeal was 
 dismissed with costs, and all the defendants went to prison. 
 Edith Ellis refused to pay her fine. She spent three months 
 in prison, which, to one delicately nurtured, turned out to 
 be a serious strain on her health then and afterwards. 
 The same was true in a less degree of Harrison Barrow. 
 
 At the close of the sitting rose a barrister, engaged by 
 a few Friends who approved of the war, to say that they 
 were law-abiding subjects, whose views were not to be 
 identified with those of the defendants. The critical moments 
 of human affairs are often marred by incidents which spoil 
 their artistic completeness. This act, however, showed that 
 the Quaker testimony was not held merely as a tradition, 
 but had been considered afresh, not without some divergence 
 of view. 
 
 8 One more Quaker organization must be described — 
 the Chaplains* Committee. Prison rules allow visits by 
 chaplains to prisoners of their own denomination. The 
 subject arose first at the Meeting for Sufferings in May 1916, 
 on the initiative of the Service Committee. A Committee 
 was appointed and an office was taken. For the greater 
 part of the history of the Committee, it was managed by 
 Mrs. Percy Bigland. 
 
 The treatment of the men in the Harwich Redoubt, who 
 were afterwards sent to France, made it important at once 
 to obtain leave to send chaplains to detention barracks also. 
 The Chaplains' Department at the War Office could do 
 nothing in this way, since the Friends were not seeking 
 a paid post for a minister of the Society. Application was 
 made to the Adjutant-General at the War Office, and after 
 three visits permits for the detention barracks were finally 
 granted. This gave the holder liberty to visit detention 
 barracks anywhere, until the time came when conscientious 
 objectors were removed to civil prisons. Then the permits 
 were withdrawn. They were held by a large number of 
 Friends, and as women were not excluded, Joan M. Fry 
 and Mabel Thompson of York gave valuable service here. 
 The presence of women chaplains in detention barracks w^s 
 quite new, 
 
168 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 The Society of Friends has no professional ministers. 
 So it naust be understood that the " chaplains ** were 
 amateurs, and held a title they would prefer to use in 
 quotation marks. 
 
 It was an odd outcome of the chaplains' work that the 
 largest Friends' Meeting in London was held in Wormwood 
 Scrubs prison once a fortnight. There were 190 prisoners 
 present on many occasions and two or three times there 
 were over 200. Two chaplains were present, and several 
 of the prisoners " spoke in the ministry." 
 
 The Quaker prisoners in all gaols were presented with 
 vol. ii. of the Book of Discipline, the newly edited portion 
 on Christian Practice. This was permitted because it was 
 regarded as a denominational book, analogous to some 
 elementary Anglican works of devotion which were ordinarily 
 put into the cells. A Weymouth New Testament was also 
 given to each man to stimulate his interest in Scripture 
 reading. The authorities, I found, regarded it as a sort 
 of Quaker Bible. Each man had also a Fellowship Hymn 
 Book, which, again, found its useful way to the cells as a 
 denominational book. 
 
 The prison authorities did not always realize how exten- 
 sively the Quaker religion covers the whole of life. A letter 
 arrived once from the Prison Commissioners to inform the 
 Chaplains' Committee that " on a recent occasion at Worm- 
 wood Scrubs prison, in the presence of two Quaker chaplains 
 — Mr. Harris and Mr. Bigland — prisoners arose and addressed 
 the meeting on other than spiritual matters, until the officers 
 in charge interfered." The Commissioners pointed out that 
 if it should occur again the meetings would have to cease. 
 It certainly is rather difficult for a Friend to discriminate 
 at all clearly between the spiritual and its application. 
 
 Both the Chaplains' Office and the chaplains individually 
 received and replied to an enormous correspondence. They 
 were generally allowed in a great variety of ways to be 
 instruments of welfare to the prisoners. The Committee 
 had ultimately sixty-two chaplains in forty-seven gaols. 
 
 A Quaker centre was maintained at the Princetown 
 work centre, and Friends' Meetings and lectures and social 
 ^?!,therings were held there from 19 17 onwards. The building 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 169 
 
 was also used as a cafe and as a lodging for the friends of 
 prisoners. 
 
 At Christmas 1917, Christmas cards, which the prison 
 rules allow, were sent round by the Chaplains' Committee. 
 Concerning this, Alwyne A. Walmsley, now a teacher at 
 Penketh School, who had been for some months in Worm- 
 wood Scrubs, wrote : — 
 
 " Please express to the other Quaker chaplains my 
 utmost thanks for the cheerful remembrance, the only 
 outward indication at all that we had to show that it was 
 not merely Sunday, which brightened our cells and made 
 us the envy of the others. It is impossible for one to express 
 the deep appreciation which we always felt of the chaplains 
 coming down week after week . . . and sitting there from 
 hour to hour listening to what I am afraid was not inter- 
 esting to you. But to us these visits are the one touch we 
 had with the outside world. I looked forward to Christmas 
 for weeks ... as a day spent in solitary reflection and 
 communion . . . and I was not disappointed. It was one 
 of those bright sunny frosty days which show Scrubs at 
 its best. . . . Then chapel, with an excellent sermon from 
 the assistant Prison Chaplain. His sermons are magni- 
 ficent and wonderfully broad-minded . . . and finally at four 
 o'clock we were shut in our cells for the night . . . with 
 one's books propped up against the wall m front of one, 
 and best of all, a keen appetite both for them and for one's 
 tea. Both on Christmas eve and on Christmas morning 
 the N.C.F. came and sang outside the wall — an entertain- 
 ment which one greatly appreciated. ^ My time at Scrubs 
 was in a peculiar sense a happy period ; the only punishment 
 is the want of self-expression and the feeling of the utter 
 stupidity and wastefulness of the whole process." » 
 
 9. Friends carried on their regular propaganda of Peace 
 
 » Choirs were organized by the N.C.F. to sing outside the prisons from 
 time to time. 
 
 » The list of Civil Gaols and their Chaplains was as follows. The names 
 following the first were often substitutes. This was not the case, however, 
 in the large London prisons, nor in Scotland, nor in Liverpool, nor some 
 other places. The line cannot exactly be drawn, nor need it be. 
 Ayr, Glasgow (Barlinnie ' 
 
 ShibSgt^Greeno^ck. \^' BarcIaylMurdoch and Richard H. Fieia. 
 Perthji 
 
170 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 by two Committees, the Peace Committee of the Meeting 
 for Sufferings with Horace G. Alexander, and afterwards 
 Edward Backhouse, as its secretary ; and the Northern 
 Friends' Peace Board, whose secretary was Robert J. Long, 
 
 Bedford . . . 
 Birmingham . 
 Bristol . . . 
 Brixton 
 Canterbury- 
 Carlisle and Dumfries 
 Carnarvon 
 Derby .... 
 Dorchester 
 Dublin . . . 
 Dundee 
 Durham . 
 Exeter 
 Gloucester 
 Holloway (Women) 
 
 William Machin. 
 
 William A. Albright, Henry LI. Wilson. 
 
 Charles J. Waterfall. 
 
 John Marsh Pitt. Albert Cotterell. 
 
 A. J. Wood. 
 
 Ernest Hutchinson. 
 
 Alex. C. Wilson, Ernest Driffield. 
 
 Thomas Davidson. 
 
 W. A. Clayton, Hy. Lloyd Wilson. 
 
 A. Webb. 
 
 J. A. Braithwaite. 
 
 J. Edward Hodgkin. 
 
 William Brown. 
 
 Arthur Sisson. 
 
 Margaret Ford Smith, Lucretia K. Clark, A. 
 
 Ruth Fry. 
 W. Dent Priestman, Frank Jefieries, Mark Lawson. 
 Frank Colhnson, G. A. Fox, Albert J. Crosfield. 
 Gerald K. Hibbert. 
 William B. Appleton. 
 W. J. Smith. 
 
 J. Herbert Crosland, George M. Benington. 
 J. G. Alexander, Alfred Horsnaill, A. Kemp 
 
 Brown, Harold J. Morland. 
 John W. Graham, Shipley N. Brayshaw, Henry 
 
 Garnett. 
 J. A. Halliday, Herbert Corder. 
 J. E. Hall. 
 H. L. Burrows. 
 D. Casanetto. 
 Henry B, Armitage. 
 Henry T. Gillett. 
 Maurice Whitlow, Percy Bigland, W. A. Albright, 
 
 Alexander Fryer. 
 W. C. Goodbody. 
 
 Charles Woodham, R. A. Penney, W. J. Horton. 
 Percy W. Davies, Dilworth Abbatt. 
 Roger Clark, 
 
 Charles Gillett, W. A, Albright. 
 W. A. Albright. 
 Robert Davis 
 Robert A. Penney, Alfred Kemp Brown, J. Marsh 
 
 Pitt, Arthur Trapnell, J. Thompson Ehott, 
 
 F. B. Sainly. 
 Edward Clibborn, Charles Woodham, W. A., 
 
 Albright, Silvanus Smith, Henry Harris, 
 
 Hubert Cooke. 
 Charles Gillett. W. A. Albright. 
 Percy Bigland, W. A. Albright, Henry Harris, 
 
 John Marsh Pitt, WilHam Littleboy. 
 At Knutsford Work Centre, J. Herbert Crosland and Shipley N. Brayshaw 
 were chaplains, and Robert IDavis at Wakefield during the experiment of 
 September 191 8, To Dartmoor short visits were paid by many Friends, 
 
 Hull . 
 
 Ipswich 
 
 Leeds . 
 
 Leicester 
 
 Lincoln 
 
 Liverpool 
 
 Maidstone 
 
 Manchester 
 
 Newcastle-on-Tyne 
 
 Northallerton 
 
 Northampton 
 
 Norwich . 
 
 Nottingham 
 
 Oxford . . 
 
 Pentonville 
 
 Plymouth 
 Portsmouth . 
 Preston 
 Shepton Mallet 
 Shrewsbury . 
 Stafford . . 
 Wakefield 
 Wandsworth . 
 
 Winchester 
 
 Worcester 
 Wormwood Scrubs 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 171 
 
 with office at Leeds. Two important conferences of sup- 
 porters of Peace outside the Society were arranged by these 
 Committees. The Meeting for Sufferings, under suggestions 
 month by month from its Peace Committee, was tireless in 
 its efforts in every direction in which it seemed possible to 
 influence opinion. To the Government, to the Press, and 
 to the general body of the Society, appeals, letters and 
 Minutes were sent, dealing with the issue of the moment, 
 whether it was an opportunity for making peace, or the 
 need for holding meetings and issuing literature, or the case 
 of the imprisoned men. 
 
 The Yearly Meeting at all its gatherings issued weighty 
 Minutes and Manifestoes. The Message to Men and Women 
 of Every Nation who seek to Follow Christ, issued in 1917, 
 had a circulation of nearly a million copies. It was trans- 
 lated into Welsh and Esperanto, into French, German and 
 Danish, and was in circulation in India and Zanzibar ; and 
 it was published in whole or in part in about fifty Enghsh 
 newspapers. A request for a reply was sent with it, and 
 large bundles of replies were received, of which 70 per cent, 
 were sympathetic. Controversial replies appeared in The 
 Times and elsewhere, and were answered. A meeting, to 
 which were invited some of those who had rephed favour- 
 ably, was held at Devonshire House, and a movement for 
 an international Christian meeting was initiated. Circum- 
 stances, however, proved too difficult for this to be carried 
 out. Besides this effort for international Christian contact, 
 the definite point of the Message was to urge that the time 
 had come to stop the war. 
 
 II. The No-Conscription Fellowship. 
 
 10. We come now at length to the largest and most 
 comprehensive of the organizations for the defence of con- 
 science — the No-Conscription Fellowship. The organizations 
 so far mentioned have been on a religious basis. The N.C.F. 
 was not. It had few limitations of belief or standpoint, 
 except uncompromising hostility to conscription and a firm 
 refusal to serve. Full membership was confined to men who 
 would come under the Act. The Labour Leader, the organ 
 
It2 CONSCJlItTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 of the Independent Labour Party, published in Manchester, 
 contained in the autumn of 1914 a letter signed by its editor, 
 A. Fenner Brockway, and written at his wife's suggestion, 
 asking for the enrolment in a Fellowship of all men who 
 would refuse conscription should it come. Names poured 
 in in unexpected numbers. Mrs. Brockway did most of 
 the secretarial work at first. Early in 19 15 it was clear 
 that the Manchester editor had begun a national movement 
 of large dimensions and that a London centre and a secre- 
 tariat were necessary. Aylmer Rose became the first 
 organising secretary and took charge of the office till his 
 arrest. 
 
 The No-Conscription Fellowship might be described as 
 the Headquarters Staff of the movement. From the early 
 days of 1915 until long after the Armistice its offices were 
 a centre of throbbing activity and restless agitation. It 
 carried on what was in effect an illegal organization in open 
 defiance of the authorities. It engaged in battles of wit 
 with both military and civil departments of State, and often 
 won. It looked after the sufferers at home and abroad, 
 and safeguarded them from the worst effects of the war 
 mind. It signally defeated the obvious intention of the 
 Army to shoot resisters. It stirred a mass of intellectual 
 opinion remarkable for its genius and standing. It roused 
 Trade Unionism from a sleepy acquiescence in persecution 
 to earnest protest. It broke down long-standing traditions 
 in Army and prison, until those in authority hardly knew 
 what they were doing. Above all, it insisted throughout 
 in carrying on a challenging campaign for pacifism no less 
 vigorous than its stand for liberty. 
 
 The constitution of this unique organization deserves 
 some attention. A more remarkable illustration of the 
 union of opposites it would be difficult to conceive. Every 
 kind of rehgious, ethical and political thought was em- 
 bodied in the N.C.F. Yet united action and personal loyalty 
 were maintained to the end. 
 
 The most active part of the membership was composed 
 of Socialists and Quakers, though there were outstand- 
 ing exceptions who ranged from Mid- Victorian Whigs 
 to adherents of the religious sect called " The Pillar of 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 173 
 
 Fire." The grounds of objection by these groups sometimes 
 overlapped, but often they were sharply differentiated. Never- 
 theless splendid unity was maintained. All sections were 
 profoundly influenced by association in a common suffering. 
 
 Of the two main schools of thought — the religious and 
 the political — there were, roughly, three purely political or 
 moral objectors to one purely religious objector ; and of 
 this preponderance of political objectors the majority were 
 men who had been influenced by the teachings of the Inde- 
 pendent Labour Party. Large numbers of these were 
 instinctive rebels against conscription from the first. They 
 were not much concerned with formulas nor with fine shades 
 of feeling, but they joined the N.C.F. because it was resisting 
 conscription and fitted in with their instinctive objection 
 to any warlike measures, especially when these proceeded 
 from a capitalist Government. The I.L.P., led by Keir 
 Hardie, had always been anti-militarist. Unlike some other 
 British types of Socialism and nearly all Continental types, 
 it consistently rejected the citizen army idea, and had always 
 looked towards a general strike as the most effective weapon 
 against war. When International SociaUsm failed so lament- 
 ably as it did in the early days of 1914, the I.L.P. did the 
 next best thing, and took an active part in organizing at 
 home the resistance which had not materialized over the 
 wider area. 
 
 Three of the original Committee were officially associated 
 with the Fellowship from beginning to end. There was 
 Fenner Brockway, the hon. secretary all the time and 
 acting-chairman for several months ; CHfford Allen, chair- 
 man throughout its hfe, who mapped out the organization 
 and activities of the Fellowship before he retired to prison. 
 His vision and judgment always made for unity, and helped 
 to shape the movement on broad lines. Then there was 
 C. H. Norman, a leader of forlorn hopes if ever there was 
 one, a critic of critics, but a tremendous help in those days 
 when criticism was essential. These three are inseparable 
 from the history of the movement. 
 
 II. With the opening of the London office the Fellow- 
 ship passed from a collection of individuals to an organiza- 
 
174 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 tion closely in touch with its members. Circular letters of 
 advice were placed in the hands of all members. At a later 
 stage these letters became more frequent and created a 
 united front on questions of poHcy. The N.C.F. was often 
 accused of creating conscience. This was untrue. But it 
 did make the best of its material, and when men were agreed 
 on resistance it did everything possible to enable them to 
 act together. The discussion in those early days was often 
 acute. To judge by the voting in the Minute Books the 
 National Committee might be aptly designated as the Com- 
 mittee of " Sixes and Sevens." Decisions were taken on 
 very narrow majorities, but as a rule the lead given by 
 the Committee was loyally followed, and the efficient resist- 
 ance which afterwards took place was largely due to fighting 
 out differences as a prelude to a united policy. 
 
 The basis of membership of the No-Conscription Fellow- 
 ship was adopted at the first conference, and was the subject 
 of extensive discussion, as was bound to be the case with 
 any form of words whose object is to express in a single 
 formula the widest diversity of view. It becomes parti- 
 cularly difficult when these diversities are dearly maintained 
 with a conviction which was the fife and soul of the organi- 
 zation. The following Statement of Faith was adopted : — 
 
 " The No-Conscription Fellowship is an organization of 
 men likely to be called upon to undertake military service 
 in the event of conscription, who will refuse from conscien- 
 tious motives to bear arms, because they consider human 
 life to be sacred, and cannot, therefore, assume the respon- 
 sibility of inflicting death. They deny the right of Govern- 
 ments to say, ' You shall bear arms,' and will oppose every 
 effort to introduce compulsory military service into Great 
 Britain. Should such efforts be successful, they will, what- 
 ever the consequences may be, obey their conscientious 
 convictions rather than the commands of Governments." 
 
 This Statement of Faith was extended in the autumn 
 of 1915 by a clause relating to alternative service, which 
 read : — 
 
 " The members of the Fellowship refuse to engage in 
 any employment which necessitates taking the military oath. 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 175 
 
 Whilst leaving the decision open to the individual judgment 
 of each member, the Fellowship will support members who 
 conscientiously resist compulsory alternatives to military 
 service involving a change of occupation/' 
 
 The main statement never, except in the early stages, 
 exactly reflected the feeling of all the members of the N.C.F. 
 Many members signed, intending to prove their sincerity 
 by the act of resistance rather than by giving deep thought 
 to the implications of the phraseology ; others signed with 
 mental reservations ; while others associated themselves 
 with the Fellowship without formally signing the basis at 
 all. There was, of course, a considerable section of the 
 membership which stood inviolably by the statement, and 
 to whom the doctrine of the sanctity of human life was 
 fundamental. But it must not be taken for granted that 
 this was always the view of the majority of the Fellowship. 
 Any sitting loose towards the Statement of Faith must not 
 be put down to carelessness or dishonesty. It was just 
 simply that to many people resistance to conscription was 
 the thing that mattered ; forms of words mattered Uttle. 
 Not all working men, who formed a large part of the 
 membership, have the same regard for formulas and phrases 
 as some others have. 
 
 Compulsory Registration was enforced by the State in 
 August 1915. The Fellowship suggested that its members 
 and Friends should register, but add the note given on 
 p. 161. From then onwards the main efforts of the Fellow- 
 ship were devoted to preparing for the resistance w^hich 
 had now become inevitable. Thousands of members were 
 enrolled, grouped in branches and federated in districts. 
 Machinery was devised something of which can be detected 
 in the Sinn Fein movement. It is certain that the N.C.F. 
 learnt much from the Suffragists, and some of its women 
 were among the most faithful adherents of the Fellowship. 
 
 The machinery of resistance was so devised that it 
 became impossible to suppress the organization without the 
 arrest of many hundreds of people. Lines of communication 
 were laid so that instructions could be circulated throughout 
 the country with the utmost expedition and secrecy. All 
 
176 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 responsible officials — national and local — were provided with 
 "shadows" and so enabled to pass on their duties at a 
 moment's notice if they were arrested. This shadow arrange- 
 ment was an almost perfect instrument for carrying on the 
 work of the Fellowship, and the organization never broke 
 down. If only the authorities had suspected the bona fides 
 of the very respectable group of people who framed fanciful 
 pseudonyms and arranged secret means of communication 
 at the Midland Hotel, Manchester, of all places ! 
 
 12. The first Conference of the Fellowship was held at the 
 Memorial Hall, London, on November 27, 19 15. The Derby 
 campaign was going on, and all knew that the testing time 
 was coming. The atmosphere was electric. At the public 
 session Clifford Allen spoke as President of the newly 
 formed Fellowship. Most of his address — historically of 
 high importance — ^is printed here. After preliminary matter, 
 he proceeded : — 
 
 " As soon as the danger of conscription became imminent, 
 and the Fellowship something more than an informal gather- 
 ing, it was necessary for those responsible to consider what 
 should be the basis upon which the organization should be 
 built. The conscription controversy has been waged by 
 many people who, by reason of age or sex, would never be 
 subjected to the provisions of a Conscription Act. The chief 
 characteristic of this Fellowship is that full membership is 
 strictly confined to those men who would be subject to the 
 provisions of any such Act ; and that being so, the impor- 
 tance of the organization in the controversy becomes far 
 greater than would be the case if we were merely a society 
 to debate the academic principles of conscription. 
 
 *' Having decided that we must have some common basis 
 of belief, we had to look round in order to discover which 
 one of the objections to conscription was that which met 
 with general approval amongst our members, and so should 
 form the basis of our organization. Upon examination we 
 discovered the following objections to conscription. There 
 were firstly the groups of people who strongly advocated 
 war, but who differed as to whether the best way of carry- 
 ing on war was the voluntary or the conscript system. These 
 people also held that the contribution of our country to the 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 177 
 
 Allied cause in this war should be a contribution of money 
 and munitions. In addition to this argument we dis- 
 covered others that were being advanced : arguments that 
 conscription would be the gravest possible interference 
 with individual liberty in this country of free traditions ; 
 that conscription would be a menace of the most serious 
 character to the development of our Trade Union Move- 
 ment ; that, indeed, the imposition of conscription might 
 be construed as the first step towards its inevitable con- 
 clusion, the domination of the military caste and the military 
 spirit in Britain. We examined all those views, and, after 
 careful discussion, we unanimously rejected the whole of 
 the first group, which may be described as merely military 
 or strategic. So far as the second group of opinions was 
 concerned, those dealing with the infringement of individual 
 liberty, and with the danger to the Trade Union Movement, 
 it was immediately apparent that each of us held very 
 firmly one or all of those opinions — that, in fact, our objection 
 to conscription was intensified just in so far as we held 
 vigorously one or all of those views. But that was not 
 all. We discovered a fact, which is the most important 
 characteristic of our organization, that not only did we 
 individually hold such views as I have expressed, but that 
 there was one objection to conscription which we shared 
 with intense fervour, and that was a behef in the sanctity 
 of human life. The members of the No-Conscription Fellow- 
 ship base their fundamental objection to conscription on 
 this ground ; that whatever else a State may or may not 
 do, whatever infringement of individual liberty a State 
 may or may not effect, there is one interference with indi- 
 vidual judgment that no State in the world has any sanction 
 to enforce — that is, to tamper with the unfettered free 
 right of every man to decide for himself the issue of life 
 and death. We contend that the individual conscience 
 alone must decide whether a man will sacrifice his own life 
 or inflict death upon other people in time of war, and that 
 however far the State may impose its commands upon the 
 will of the community, the right of private judgment in 
 this particular must be left to the individual, since human 
 personahty is a thing which must be held as sacred. Upon 
 
 12 
 
178 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 that we have built up our organization. It is because we 
 hold that view so intensely, whilst believing in the other 
 arguments that I have indicated, that nothing would ever 
 induce us to betray our deep religious and moral conviction 
 by accepting conscription. . . . 
 
 " We are sometimes described as shirkers. I want to say 
 very emphatically that the members of the No-Conscription 
 Fellowship believed in national service long before many 
 who are now advocating it. We may differ as to our inter- 
 pretation of that service, we may differ as to its degree, but 
 at the present moment we are only cut off from that par- 
 ticular service which our State demands from us because 
 it is a contribution to the carrying on of war. We, though 
 believing in varying ways in national service, cannot as an 
 organization accept service which conflicts with our pro- 
 found belief in the brotherhood of man, and in international 
 solidarity. 
 
 ** We have decided so far carefully to eschew any kind 
 of public propaganda ; we decided that it was not our 
 business to go out into the highways and hedges to increase 
 our membership by means of propaganda ; that it was 
 indeed for each individual man to decide, having seen our 
 Statement of Faith, whether or no he desired to take the 
 consequences of that belief. But that does not mean that 
 our organization has been idle. . . Night and day, members 
 of your National Committee have been working behind the 
 scenes. Day after day we have been laying the intentions 
 of this organization before those who are in authority ; 
 and I want to submit to you that our real triumph lies 
 here : that the mere existence and the maintained activity 
 of a body pledged to resist conscription, should it become 
 law, has had more to do with the hindering of its imposition 
 than any other influence at work in our country. ... It 
 is perfectly true that at the present moment we have 
 not got in this country what you might describe as legal 
 conscription ; but let no one mistake that there is now in 
 existence an almost more wicked form of conscription, and 
 that is economic conscription, the conscription of victimi- 
 zation under which thousands of men are suffering at the 
 present moment. I have no doubt that you will endorse 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 179 
 
 my view when I say that there is nothing more deplorable 
 that has happened during this war than the way in which 
 employers have kicked men with 30s. a week down the office 
 stairs in order to serve their country. 
 
 " We are going to oppose this system. But there are two 
 kinds of opposition which can be offered to any measure in 
 Parliament or outside. You can oppose a Bill in the House 
 of Commons, and by agitation in the country up to the 
 time that that Bill becomes the law of the land : you can 
 also resist the operations of that Act, should it go upon the 
 Statute Book. I want it to be clearly known here, speaking 
 on behalf of the Fellowship, that it is the latter of those 
 two kinds of opposition that we intend to offer. The late 
 Attorney-General has set a precedent with regard to resist- 
 ance to a Bill which may become an Act. 
 
 Speaking with a full sense of responsibility, I want the 
 Government and the public to know that our opposition is 
 not going to be a mere political game. As an organization 
 we have attempted by our abstention from propaganda 
 to avoid interfering with the will of the majority in the 
 State, so far as the prosecution of the war is concerned ; 
 but we want to make it perfectly clear that if now the 
 majority in the State through their Government, (if 
 indeed there is a majority), decides to impose a system 
 which violates men's deepest rehgious convictions, we are 
 not going to play at opposition. . . . There are various 
 kinds of opposition which a Government can engender in 
 a community. It can engender political opposition and 
 social opposition : but the most dangerous form of resist- 
 ance which a Government can arouse is that which results 
 from religious persecution. . . . 
 
 '* I beUeve we are going to succeed in preventing the 
 imposition of conscription. But supposing we fail in pre- 
 venting that system becoming law, I wish to make this 
 point by way of clearing up a misconception which some- 
 times exists as to the character of a shirker. If, despite our 
 present determined opposition, and notwithstanding our 
 determined opposition in the future, conscription becomes 
 
180 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 the law of the land, we are willing to undergo the penalties 
 that the State may inflict — yes, and even death itself — 
 rather than go back upon our convictions. Let it be clearly 
 understood that the members of our organization have not 
 formed the Fellowship in order to shelter themselves 
 from suffering. It may be that the only way whereby 
 we can ever convince public opinion that one class of so- 
 called shirkers is wiUing to suffer will be through the process 
 of compulsory service. Those of us who have joined the 
 organization, those of us who have come to this decision, 
 which may entail such results, are young men ; and we 
 have not come to it without a mental and spiritual struggle. 
 We have endeavoured, so far as possible, to clear our minds 
 of mere cant and hysterical thinking ; and having done 
 that, we have braced ourselves to an unqualified decision. 
 From my own personal experience, I know that that mental 
 struggle has not been an easy process. I repeat we are all 
 young men ; and life is a very precious thing to such 
 men. We cherish life because of the opportunities for 
 adventure and achievement which it offers to a man who 
 is young. We cherish life because of the call which it offers 
 to national and international service, and as we come to our 
 decision here in this Conference, we do it casting our eyes 
 over many years of opportunity which lie spread out before 
 us. I believe there is no man amongst us who has any lust 
 for martyrdom for martyrdom's sake ; and it is well that those 
 who praise or condemn our determination should remember 
 the struggle through which we have gone to arrive at it. 
 
 " But once our minds have been made up, I suggest to 
 you that there has come to us a certain joy, because we 
 are able nt)W to put to the practical test the words which 
 we have used so often in the past, and the principles which 
 we have merely proclaimed and debated. I hold that it 
 is a privilege that the young men of our generation should 
 have such an opportunity of bearing witness to the faith 
 that is in them. It is an experience which I believe must 
 refine and temper not only our judgment at present, but 
 our judgment throughout the rest of our lives. And yet 
 no man has joined the Fellowship in order to advertise his 
 willingness to §uffer. Perhaps the yoke which is hardest 
 
THE ORGANIJZATION OP PEACE I8l 
 
 to bear is our inability at the present moment to undertake 
 the generally accepted form of service, since it appears to 
 us to be the one contrary to our deepest convictions ; that 
 we have to stand, as it were, idly by while the rest of the 
 world is busying itself with service. Sometimes I feel it 
 would be a sheer luxury to be able to undertake the vilest 
 kind of work in order that I might assuage that feeling, 
 but directly I have examined the problem I see it is imme- 
 diately answered. Just in proportion as we cannot render 
 that particular service which the nation at the present 
 moment asks, since it is part of the process of war, we seize 
 upon new forms of service in order to take its place. There 
 is no organization whose members are more active and 
 busied in national service than the No-Conscription Fellow- 
 ship at the present moment. It may be that, judged by 
 the narrow, practical standpoint, we shall appear, because 
 of the imposition of conscription, to have failed ; but I do 
 not believe you can judge our success or our failure by so 
 narrow a judgment. May not we say with perfect truth 
 that just in proportion as we men have to suffer for the 
 cause of peace we shall advance that very cause which we 
 have at heart at the present moment ; and just in so far 
 as we cause the Government to persecute those who believe 
 in peace, so we may be doing the greatest service, which 
 has been performed since the war broke out, to stimulate 
 the national conscience in that direction. Probably far 
 more powerful propaganda than countless meetings, or 
 countless declarations, will be the testimony of men who 
 are willing to suffer rather than sacrifice their convictions 
 in this matter of peace. 
 
 " I do not know how you view it, but this hope some- 
 times occurs to my mind. If you examine the war at the 
 present moment, it is the most wonderful instance that 
 I have ever known of a State being willing to undertake one 
 achievement at a time. In the old days, before the war 
 broke out, many of us were urging the national conscience, 
 so that the nation might be wilhng to do one thing at a 
 time. Then it was to remove poverty and cheapness from 
 national life. We failed. And now what a change is to 
 be noted. The hoardings of our streets are covered with 
 
182 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 posters calling upon men to take up national service for one 
 purpose. Rich and poor in varying degrees are casting in 
 their lives and their money for the service of the community ; 
 and why ? — for the work of destruction. The decision we 
 must secure, the moral that we have got to point to in the 
 future is this : that as now the community is realizing the 
 possibihty of one accomplishment at a time, so it shall admit 
 this again in the future. But upon the next occasion, the 
 objective shall not be the work of destruction ; the purpose 
 of national service shall not be the mere degrading of 
 humanity. Rather, it must be that such service in those 
 days may make human life as valuable as it is now cheap, 
 and may bring into human existence as much joy as there 
 is now grief burdening the hearts of men. 
 
 " Comrades, I want to move, on behalf of the National 
 Committee, a resolution reaffirming our intention, and I 
 submit to you that you should stand in silence and thus 
 signify your agreement. It is : — 
 
 " * That we, the delegates and members of the No- 
 Conscription Fellowship, assembled in National Conference, 
 fully conscious of the attempt that may be made to impose 
 conscription on this country, recognizing that such a system 
 must destroy the sanctity of human life, betray the free 
 traditions of our country and hinder its social and industrial 
 emancipation, though realizing the grave consequences to 
 ourselves that may follow our decision, hereby solemnly and 
 sincerely reaffirm our intention to resist conscription, what- 
 ever the penalties may be.' " 
 
 The resolution was then adopted, the delegates standing 
 in silence. I 
 
 » List of Members of the National Committee of the N.C.F. 
 
 * Original Members. 
 ♦Clifford Allen, Edward Grubb, *A. Fenner Brockway, W. J. Chamber- 
 lain, W. H. Ayles, A. Barratt Brown, Henry Davies, *J. H. Hudson, J., 
 Marshall, Francis Meynell, J. F. P. Fletcher, *C. H. Norman, James Maxton, 
 Morgan Jones (now M.P.), Ernest E. Hunter, *Rev. Leyton Richards, 
 Catherine E. Marshall, Hon. Bertrand Russell, James Crawshaw, Dr. Alfred 
 Salter, Ada Salter, Joan M. Fry, Sutherland Campbell, Percy Redfern, 
 Theodora Wilson Wilson, B. J. Boothroyd, Neil Maclean, M.P., Alexander 
 C. Wilson, Mrs. Lees, Tom Snowden, J. Austin, Marion Daunt, Violet Tillard, 
 Mrs. Goodwin, Rev. G. S. Woods, C. Scrymgeour, Hugh Gibbins, Nora 
 Gibbins, J. Theodore Harris, Isaac Goss, A. W. Brunt, Henry Bolton, H. P. 
 Bell, H. T. Turland. John Winning. 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 188 
 
 13. When the first Military Service Bill was introduced, 
 the organization put forth its utmost efforts. Hundreds of 
 meetings were organized. Deputations were sent to the 
 House of Commons, and the Political Committee of the 
 Fellowship watched every stage of the Bill, bringing con- 
 stant pressure to bear upon Parliament. But all this cost 
 money, the chief source of which was among the Society 
 of Friends. They gave personal service, careful guidance, 
 and money without stint. 
 
 At the Friends' Yearly Meeting in 1915 an interview 
 took place between some young Friends, Clifford Allen and 
 Fenner Brockway, at the Daily Citizen offices, where it was 
 agreed that the task of co-ordinating the scattered groups 
 of resisters was a specific piece of work which the N.C.F, 
 could best undertake. The Friends joined a committee to 
 organize a staff and office for the growing Fellowship. At 
 a later period it was found necessary for the Headquarters 
 organization to be under the direct control of the N.C.F. 
 It was then that Edward Grubb and some young Friends, 
 A. Barratt Brown and J. P. Fletcher, were added to the 
 National Committee in order to make it fully representative. 
 From then onward the affection between the N.C.F. and 
 the Society of Friends broadened and deepened until the 
 two widely differing organizations became inseparable in 
 the fight against conscription, whilst the war lasted. A 
 Joint Advisory Committee, consisting of representatives of 
 both Societies, and later of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, 
 has already been mentioned, and held an influential place. 
 Edward Grubb accepted the treasurership and held that 
 responsible place till the end. He was invaluable to the 
 movement, for which his discretion and experience were 
 always available, though he never aimed at controlling the 
 policy of the younger leaders. It was no light matter for a 
 man well over sixty to take official position in a movement 
 so full of adventure and peril, and he was rewarded with 
 the affectionate regard of the whole membership. 
 
 14. Outside of what the N.C.F. did directly, it was always 
 doing things with which its ,name was never associated. 
 In many cases it actually did the work and cheerfully allowed 
 
184 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 any credit to go to other people. To get things done was 
 its object, and wherever it could obtain publicity for its 
 views it did so with a will. An immense amount of labour 
 had to be performed by the Fellowship without any public 
 recognition. It wrote material for books and pamphlets 
 which other people, who sympathized with the cause but 
 had not access to the facts, were willing to father. Its Par- 
 liamentary Department framed countless questions, briefed 
 speakers, and kept alive a continual campaign in the House 
 of Commons ; it organized mammoth petitions which were 
 conveyed to the Press and public without a hint of their 
 source and origin ; it amazed the Prime Minister by its 
 exact knowledge of conditions at the front, which was far 
 fuller than his own information. But perhaps its most 
 distinctive work lay in the successful way it bound together 
 and helped thousands of young men who were often entire 
 strangers to each other, many of whom were isolated and 
 inarticulate, and whose sufferings and difficulties would 
 have been almost unbearable had they been left to weather 
 the storm alone in a hostile nation. Conscription was a 
 new experience in English life, and yet in three years the 
 Fellowship, quite apart from other work here recorded, had 
 mastered for its members military law, prison regulations, 
 and the intricacies of the Tribunal system. 
 
 All the time the Fellowship was in ceaseless conflict 
 with the authorities. The head offices were constantly 
 raided. Papers and books were indiscriminately seized, and 
 every possible method of disturbance was practised ; but 
 the organization went steadily on. For days on end the 
 police would be visiting the building on one pretext or 
 another. To frustrate such efforts the work was conducted 
 by different committees of the Fellowship, nominally inde- 
 pendent of each other, and at one time its activities were 
 being directed from no less than six different headquarters 
 offices. This plan proved successful, especially owing to 
 the fact that the necessary records of these offices were 
 kept in many copies and were secreted in different parts of 
 the country. 
 
 During the guardroom and prison stage the Fellowship 
 was able to establish contact everywhere. One prison 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 185 
 
 communicated with another ; news travelled ; no illegal 
 act of officer, governor or warder could be hidden for many 
 hours from the head office. Stone walls and iron bars were 
 broken down, and to the bewilderment of the authorities 
 the friends of the C.O.'s knew more about the prisoners 
 than their gaolers. 
 
 Miss Catherine E. Marshall was the genius of these 
 activities. Coming to the 1915 Conference as fraternal 
 delegate from the Women's International League, she threw 
 herself heart and soul into the work, and despite criticism 
 from some of her friends, worked unceasingly until her 
 health collapsed for a time under the strain. She came 
 with a wide and varied political experience, and a know- 
 ledge of people and affairs acquired during her great 
 work for the Suffrage Movement. In the important negotia- 
 tions with those in authority which became inevitable 
 she was indispensable. Being possessed of a passionate 
 belief in the righteousness of the cause, and being a 
 firm Absolutist, she was doubly armed in her contact 
 with authority ; and this, added to an amazing ingenuity 
 and great political wisdom, produced a combination which 
 was of the highest value to the movement, whilst her 
 instinct of tolerance made her the friend of all sections, 
 sensitive as they were. 
 
 With her one remembers Violet Tillard, who at one time 
 or another undertook almost every secretarial office in this 
 network. She built up the Maintenance Organization. For 
 refusing to divulge the names of the printers of the News 
 Sheet, she was sent to prison under D.O.R.A. for sixty-one 
 days. Always willing, always calm and unselfish, her faith- 
 fulness remains one of the most precious memories of those 
 anxious days. In February 1922 she died of typhus while 
 on famine rehef work with Friends in Russia — a fitting close 
 to a life of courageous and effective service. It would 
 be good for the world that her name should become 
 memorable. 
 
 The Records Department was behind most of the public 
 agitation undertaken by the Fellowship. Therein was 
 recorded a complete history of each man from his appear- 
 ance before the Tribunal to his last known prison or camp. 
 
186 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 The thoroughness of this department was always clearly 
 recognized by the authorities. 
 
 Every known CO. had a card, and stage by stage this 
 card was marked up with the man's movements or with 
 important episodes in his prison or camp career. Every 
 entry was duplicated in case of accident to the first card 
 index. These duplicate entries were also used for the geo- 
 graphical index, which showed at a glance all the removals 
 day by day. A special court martial list was also kept 
 from which could be seen how many first, second, third or 
 further courts martial had taken place. 
 
 A periodical bulletin was issued, giving the exact number 
 of men arrested up to date and full statistics as to their 
 whereabouts and category. To this were attached the 
 names of the men actually arrested during the period under 
 review, together with their destination. By this means 
 friends and relations were enabled to keep in close touch. 
 There was hardly a spot so remote that visitors did not 
 penetrate to it during the struggle. 
 
 From the data supplied by the department numerous 
 books, pamphlets and articles were written, and from the 
 voluminous correspondence which flowed in daily many 
 Parliamentary speeches were prepared. The department 
 afterwards became the Conscientious Objectors' Information 
 Bureau (C.O.I.B.), and was under the control of the J.A.C. 
 It was thought safer to separate the Bureau from the general 
 affairs of the N.C.F., otherwise its valuable records were 
 liable to be seized by the police any day. It was from 
 May 1916 to June 1918 under the able and zealous manage- 
 ment of Miss W. G. Kinder and later on of Miss Morgan 
 Jones. They are of the women to whom the cause is deeply 
 indebted. 
 
 Closely linked with the Records Department was the 
 work of Visitation, which made systematic contact with 
 prisoners everywhere. ** Court martial friends " ^ and visi- 
 tors were appointed, and every opportunity was taken to 
 
 » Courts martial are nominally public courts, and the prisoner may be 
 assisted by a " prisoner's friend." Hugh Richardson of Newcastle, being 
 at leisure, devoted much time to attending and encouraging prisoners at 
 these critical and lonely times. 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 187 
 
 visit the men and to keep them in heart, particularly lonely 
 inarticulate people. During the weary years of imprison- 
 ment and internment a fellowship was created which took 
 the edge off persecution and suffering, and made men feel 
 that theirs was not merely an individual protest, but that 
 they were part of a great movement. The work of the 
 Quaker chaplains also contributed very greatly to this. 
 For many months the Visitation Department picketed 
 Wormwood Scrubs and gleaned first-hand information as 
 to the movements of newly arrested prisoners. Ways were 
 found of carrying on correspondence with the men inside. 
 Important decisions were conveyed to them, and the results 
 of referenda and discussions within reached those responsible 
 for the organization outside. Towards the end organization 
 inside was as perfect as things can be in this imperfect world. 
 Newspapers and periodicals found their way into prison, 
 and more than one governor almost despaired of maintaining 
 discipline. The organization had become too clever for 
 the gaolers. 
 
 The work of the Political Department was many sided. 
 It organized deputations to Ministers ; it held informal 
 consultations with Government departments, and many 
 times gained important concessions thereby. It kept going 
 an unceasing campaign both in the Upper and Lower Houses. 
 One of its first tasks was the organization through the Joint 
 Advisory Council of the deputation to Sir John Simon 
 on the introduction of the Conscription Bill, from which 
 developed the National Council against Conscription. An 
 important achievement was Army Order X, ordering that 
 conscientious objectors should serve their time in civil prisons. 
 
 Side by side with this, the publication was secured of 
 articles giving expression to peace principles. Only those 
 who were actually engaged in the work of this department 
 can have any idea of the publicity for which it was respon- 
 sible. This was chiefly due at the beginning to the labours 
 of Hubert W. Peet, and when he went to prison, to those 
 of Lydia S. Smith. 
 
 Over a million copies of leaflets and pamphlets were 
 issued by the Literature Department. From March 1916 
 the Tribunal was published weekly. 
 
188 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 15. It was at the great Conventions that the genius of 
 the Fellowship was most adequately expressed, and no 
 account would be complete without a picture of the two 
 outstanding gatherings which marked the beginning and 
 end of the fight. Both were held in Devonshire House, 
 the historic headquarters of the Society of Friends, and 
 those who were present will preserve an unfading memory 
 of a large amphitheatre packed with young men — in 1916 
 dedicating themselves to service, in 1919 back from prison 
 and internment, preparing themselves again for the ordinary 
 routine of life. The final Convention will be described in 
 its place. 
 
 The one at the gathering of the conflict was held on 
 April 8 and 9, 1916, when two thousand young men of 
 military age, the great majority of whom were " deemed to 
 be enlisted '* under the Military Service Act, gathered 
 together to embark upon a great adventure, the end of 
 which was shrouded in the dark unknown. 
 
 Devonshire House crowded with young men, earnest of 
 face and tense of spirit, was indeed a moving sight. They 
 seemed to embody a power that was irresistible. They 
 met with the knowledge that the world held them in con- 
 tempt and that persecution hung over them, but no one 
 who was present could doubt that the spirit which animated 
 them would one day conquer the world. 
 
 The Convention was held under difficulties. Every 
 possible attempt had been made by the Press to produce 
 mob violence and to prevent freedom of speech, yet the 
 meeting was held in perfect safety. It represented 198 
 branches. The Manchester Guardian comment conveys 
 some indication of what was achieved. 
 
 " The No-Conscription Fellowship managed, after all, to 
 hold yesterday its protest against the attacks on the con- 
 scientious objector, in perfect peace. If the opposition had 
 penetrated into the Friends' Meeting House, a riot would 
 have been certain. There would have been a repetition 
 on a bigger scale of the discreditable scenes at Mr. Roden 
 Buxton's lectures in the same place. The two entrances to 
 the place are guarded by strong iron gates, through which 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 189 
 
 sympathizers with tickets were admitted one at a time. By 
 this strategy it was possible to hold without disturbance the 
 most formidable anti-compulsionist demonstration London 
 has seen. The crowd outside the gate got tired of making 
 a noise, and melted. Three sailors — sailors can climb any- 
 thing — shinned over the barriers, but went astray in the 
 dark, twisting passages of the hall. They were taken in 
 hand by peace-loving stewards, and there was a friendly 
 argument ending with handshakes all round. ' With great 
 self-control the conscientious objectors denied themselves 
 the luxury of applause, so as not to guide the invaders to 
 their meeting place. As the sailors had nothing to steer by, 
 their boarding operation was a failure. In its intense 
 whole-heartedness the protest recalled one of those high- 
 pulsed suffrage demonstrations of old days.'* 
 
 The most important gathering was that on the Saturday 
 afternoon, when the vast audience rose as one man at the 
 conclusion of Clifford Allen's presidential address and adopted 
 the following moving and impressive pledge : — 
 
 " We, representing thousands of men who cannot partici- 
 pate in warfare, and are subject to the terms of the Military 
 Service Act, unite in comradeship with those of our number 
 who are already suffering for conscience' sake in prison or 
 the hands of the military. We appreciate the spirit of 
 sacrifice which actuates those who are suffering on the 
 battlefield, and in that spirit we renew our determination, 
 whatever the penalties awaiting us, to undertake no service 
 which for us is wrong. We are confident that thus we 
 are advancing the cause of peace and so rendering such 
 service to our fellow-men in all nations as will contribute to 
 the healing of the wounds inflicted by war." 
 
 The impressiveness of this moment was deepened by 
 the contrast between what was happening outside and the 
 scene within. As Clifford Allen neared the conclusion of 
 his speech the noise of angry cries came through the open 
 windows. The noise increased, and at one point it seemed 
 
 » In fact, with a cup of tea. 
 
190 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 doubtful whether the conclusion of the speech would be 
 reached. It was after the pledge had been taken and when 
 following the solemn silence the audience broke out into 
 rolling and irrepressible applause that Edward Grubb sug- 
 gested that, in order not to provoke those outside the 
 building, no more cheering should take place. His sugges- 
 tion was adopted, and when Philip Snowden rose to speak, 
 instead of being greeted by cheers, the whole audience stood 
 and for several minutes silently waved handkerchiefs and 
 papers. Dramatic, too, was the moment when Fenner 
 Brockway read the names of fifteen members who were 
 already in the hands of the military, and when later the 
 first messages were read from guardrooms, the first sentence 
 was reported and the first prisoner on bail appeared. Later, 
 those messages and sentences were to flow on in one un- 
 ending stream, but in the first announcements the assembled 
 conscientious objectors heard the challenge which told of 
 the coming fight, and braced themselves to act. In many 
 a lonely prison cell and dingy guardroom the first Convention 
 was a sacred memory which kept men loyal to a great cause 
 in a dark hour. 
 
 It is easy for one like myself, who was not working at 
 the heart of the organization, and only from time to time 
 in touch with its activity, to speak unreservedly of its 
 marvellous career. The conspicuous ability with which it 
 was organized, the literary faculty it had at its command, 
 the combination of selflessness, unbending principle and 
 statesmanlike toleration in its leaders, were all the more 
 remarkable in contrast with the Government opposed to 
 them. Those confined rooms at 8, Merton House, Salisbury 
 Court, Fleet Street, and afterwards at 5, York Buildings 
 Adelphi, may become places of pilgrimage. 
 
 16. It was not to be expected that a Government armed 
 with the not easily limited powers conferred by the Defence 
 of the Realm Act would allow an organization of its 
 opponents to exist with impunity, however necessary it 
 might be to break the spirit of British institutions in order 
 to destroy it. General Childs, the Director of Personal 
 Service at the War Of&ce, to whom it fell to conduct the 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 191 
 
 persecution, was known to desire to break the No-Conscrip- 
 tion Fellowship. The effort of the Government, all through 
 the struggle, to destroy the Fellowship and suppress the 
 Tribunal, was like a sort of comic relief to the grim tragedies 
 of the gaols. Against the heavy hand of the police was 
 matched an agility of mind, a courage, a spirit and a serious 
 devotion, which went far to make for the second time the 
 reniark appropriate that the children of this world are not 
 always in their generation wiser than the children of light. 
 Each week at this time the Tribunal was sent out to 100,000 
 readers. It was a four-page journal, in small print on 
 cheap paper ; but it was full of fire, and written with 
 remarkable literary power. For, indeed, there was no lack 
 of writers in the movement. Under the title ran the 
 ironic definition : 
 
 *' Tribunal. A Court of Justice. (Webster's Diet.) " 
 
 W. J. Chamberlain was the editor till July 20, 1916, when 
 he was taken to prison. Each week at this time Clifford 
 Allen, like a true general, wrote words of encouragement, 
 in leading articles which bore up the spirits of the 
 oppressed. 
 
 The first move of the Government was to summon the 
 whole of the National Committee of the Fellowship, with 
 the curious exception of the Chairman, under D.O.R.A. 
 for publishing a leaflet called Repeal the Act. It was 
 clumsy to select this, for it had been definitely stated when 
 the Act was before the House that any agitation for its 
 repeal would be perfectly legal. So said the Home Secretary. 
 But it is not easy to keep straight on a crooked course. 
 No sooner was the Act through than the Home Secretary's 
 promise was null and void. The Government drew a dis- 
 tinction between trying to repeal the Act and trying to 
 prevent its execution. No doubt the N.C.F. did the latter 
 all the time, but not in this particular leaflet. Prosecutions 
 for distributing leaflets were very common. In one, where 
 I gave testimony for the accused, I found among the banned 
 literature seized an extract of a purely historical character 
 from a book of mine. Evolution and Empire, written some 
 years before, and another extract, without comment, from 
 
192 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 a still earlier writing known as the Sermon on the Mount. 
 But my friend Gwilliam was convicted all the same. 
 
 The prosecution of the N.C.F. Committee began at the 
 Mansion House on May 17, 1916, and conviction naturally 
 resulted, with fines totalhng £800 from eight members. 
 A further result, however, was the dissemination of the 
 leaflet, which had previously reached three-quarters of 
 a million, in many newspapers in the land, in millions of 
 issues. It was agreed that five members should refuse to 
 pay the fine, and on July 17th they surrendered to the 
 police at the Mansion House. They were A. Fenner Brock- 
 way, W. J. Chamberlain, W. H. Ayles, A. Barratt Brown 
 and John P. Fletcher. 
 
 Miss Catherine Marshall became acting honorary secre- 
 tary of the Fellowship in place of Fenner Brockway, and 
 B. J. Boothroyd acting-editor of the Tribunal. 
 
 The same day a letter to members was sent from the 
 Committee urging that only by earnest work for peace 
 could they justify resistance to military service : theirs 
 was not a merely passive, least of all a selfish aim — it was 
 not mainly to get out or to keep out of prison, but to find 
 an end to war. This was signed by Clifford Allen, chair- 
 man ; Edward Grubb, treasurer ; Henry Davies, J. H. 
 Hudson, J. Marshall and Francis Meynell, and four of the 
 names above. 
 
 17. On August 3rd the Tribunal contained the farewell 
 address of the Chairman, by that time in the hands of the 
 poHce. He refused to leave his work to do other civilian 
 alternative service. ' He was removed from his post at the 
 time it was most necessary to prevent the difference between 
 the Absolutists and Alternativists from splitting the ranks ; 
 and his farewell was an exhortation to unity and tolerance, 
 looking forward also across the dark years to possible annual 
 reunions of the Fellowship in the days of peace, " under 
 canvas on some hill-side." 
 
 It was thought best that Fenner Brockway should come 
 out of prison to take the chairmanship. So his fine was 
 paid for that purpose, and he remained for a while at hberty. 
 ? Case in full in Tribunal, August 10 and 17, 1916. 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 193 
 
 The illegalities of the Tribunal, which altered CUfford 
 Allen's exemption, which was conditional on taking alter- 
 native service to one for non-combatant service, caused 
 delay, and only on August nth did he finally go to prison. 
 He had been treated with great courtesy throughout by 
 the police and officials unwillingly concerned. Whilst await- 
 ing liis second, trial by court martial he was kept in an 
 underground cell in Newhaven Fort, which he succeeded in 
 lighting with candles stuck in bottles. The w^alls of the 
 cell, revealed by the candle light, dripped with damp 
 and mildew. There was no ventilation except a small 
 opening near the ceiling giving into the guardroom of the 
 fort. 
 
 In gaol he obeyed the rules during his first two sen- 
 tences of imprisonment, but during his third he carried 
 his opposition to the system so far as to refuse to do prison 
 work. This was an issue which caused a good deal of debate 
 among the men in all the gaols, and considerable self- 
 examination. Was it acquiescence in an evil system or 
 was it merely submission to punishment ? ' Clifford Allen's 
 frail physique was little fitted to stand the sufferings which 
 inevitably followed disobedience. Subject to daily medical 
 examination to prevent a breakdown he was sentenced to 
 punishment diet of bread and water, deprived of exercise, 
 and confined in a cell in the semi-basement, stripped entirely 
 of every article except a mug of water and a wooden stool, 
 and denied even access to a lavatory, having to make use 
 of a pot in the cell. These periods of punishment took the 
 form of three days under these conditions and then three 
 days normal prison diet, but still in solitary confinement. 
 Men would, it was believed, have starved to death under 
 continuous bread and water diet. He occupied some of 
 his time in the punishment cell picking the vermin from 
 his body and clothes. Other complaints of dirty punish- 
 ment cells are on record, but for the most part English 
 civil prisons are the cleanest places in the world. In other 
 respects the punishment experience was typical and kept 
 occurring to men all the time. Finally, after some weeks 
 of such treatment, he was visited by a prison inspector and 
 
 « See Chapter VI. 
 
 13 
 
194 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 removed to the prison hospital, where he remained for 
 over four months. 
 
 i8. The spring and summer of 1916 was the period ot 
 most interest and excitement in the movement, which had 
 not yet settled down to its long phase of passive endurance. 
 At that time hopes were still high that public opinion would 
 surely break down the attack of the Government on liberty 
 and on the principles of human brotherhood. Great efforts 
 were therefore made to rouse and instruct public opinion. 
 A series of pamphlets followed one another rapidly from 
 the N.C.F. office. The National Labour Press was brave 
 and untiring, and the Meeting for Sufferings of the Society 
 of Friends, its Peace Committee and its Service Committee 
 helped to flood with literature all the persons whose minds 
 were accessible to such appeals. 
 
 Monday, June 5th, was a notable day. T. Main- 
 waring, in South Wales, appeared before the magistrates 
 for a speech describing the treatment of prisoners ; the 
 No-Conscription Fellowship's office was raided by orders 
 of the competent mihtary authorities, and all papers and 
 literature taken ; and Bertrand Russell received the sentence 
 of a fine of £100 and costs, or sixty-one days' imprison- 
 ment, for writing a leaflet describing the Everett case, 
 already mentioned. 
 
 Ernest Everett, a teacher under the St. Helens Educa- 
 tion authority, was refused exemption there, and appealed 
 to the Liverpool Appeal Tribunal. He was unexpectedly 
 confronted with the following letter from the St. Helens 
 Tribunal : — 
 
 " This man belongs to a group who are coaching men 
 of military age to object to service. He has no reUgious 
 convictions, and would see his sisters ravished or the 
 war lost rather than do anything to help. He is willing 
 to take Government money. He considers himself first 
 and only." 
 
 It appeared that the claimant was a religious man who 
 cycled twenty miles to church. No testimony of witnesses 
 was allowed. The appeal was dismissed ; and a letter 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 195 
 
 against him was sent to his employers. This illegal act 
 was perpetrated because the man turned out to be against 
 monarchy : a subject with which the Tribunal was not con- 
 cerned. This " selfish coward '* I knew intimately as a prisoner 
 in gaol, from which he was finally released in broken health 
 over two years later. He was a man of even fanatical 
 courage, so conscientious that he would not break any 
 rule in prison. He was the first to receive the full two 
 years' sentence. 
 
 The Hon. Bertrand Russell, F.R.S., brother of Earl 
 Russell, is one of a band of mathematical experts, of whom 
 there are not many in the world, who treat the philosophical 
 theory of our ideas of number, space and time. The Fellows 
 of Trinity College, or rather the older ones who were left 
 when the younger were at the war, expelled him from his 
 lectureship there for his unpopular stand. When the younger 
 men came back he was restored. He suffered from too 
 much clearness of mind, aggravated by courage. The 
 Everett leaflet had been widely circulated and six men 
 had been prosecuted for merely distributing it. Under 
 these circumstances Mr. Russell wrote a letter to The Times 
 saying that he was the author of it, and desired to take all 
 responsibility. The case was really a very simple one. It 
 was whether a pamphlet which assisted the supremacy of 
 conscience was contrary to the Defence of the Realm Act. 
 Bertrand Russell conducted his own defence in a memorable 
 speech, arguing that no reasonable interpretation of the 
 Act would bring the leaflet within its scope. The section 
 reUed upon was interpreted to mean that the leaflet was 
 likely to prejudice recruiting and discipline. The defendant 
 argued that the pamphlet was directed towards the civil 
 population to explain to them the persecution going on. It 
 therefore came within the admitted right of poUtical agita- 
 tion. In fact, its effect was to inform civilians that if they 
 chose to become conscientious objectors they would get 
 two years* hard labour. This, Mr. Russell thought, would 
 act as a discouragement to anyone who pretended to such 
 an objection ; also, the knowledge of the price of dis- 
 obedience would hardly encourage the soldiers to resist 
 disciphne. If the knowledge of such punishments under- 
 
196 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 mined discipline, why were they inflicted ? asked the accused. 
 The prosecution amounted to the denial of the common 
 right to criticize court martial sentences. The Government, 
 in fact, appeared to be of the same opinion as himself, 
 inasmuch as Everett's sentence had been commuted to 112 
 days very shortly after the distribution of the leaflet began. 
 Mr. Russell's speech was frequently interrupted by the 
 Lord Mayor, who was evidently unhappy under it, and 
 it concluded with these words : — " I would say, my Lord, 
 that whether I personally am acquitted or condemned is 
 a matter of no great importance, but it is not only I that 
 am in the dock ; it is the whole tradition of British hberty 
 which our forefathers built up with great trouble and with 
 great sacrifice. Other nations may excel us in some respects, 
 but the tradition of liberty has been the supreme good that 
 we in this country have cultivated. We have preserved, 
 more than any other Power, respect for the individual con- 
 science. It is for that that I stand. I think that under 
 the stress of fear the authorities have somewhat forgotten 
 that ancient tradition, and I think the fear is unworthy, 
 and the tyranny which is resulting will be disastrous if it 
 is not resisted. I would say to them, ' You cannot defeat 
 such men ' " 
 
 The Lord Mayor : "I have allowed you a good deal of 
 latitude because you are not an expert. Really now, you 
 are making a political speech." 
 
 Mr. Russell's goods at Trinity College were distrained 
 upon for the fine. 
 
 The rest of the speech thus interrupted was to have 
 been as follows : — 
 
 " The persecution which conscientious objectors have 
 endured has enormously increased their moral weight. It 
 illustrates the invincible power of that better way of 
 passive resistance, which pacifists believe to be stronger 
 than all the armies and navies in the world. Men inspired 
 by faith and freed from the dominion of fear are unconquer- 
 able. The noblest thing in a man is the spiritual force 
 which enables him to stand firm against the whole world 
 in obedience to his sense of right ; and I will never acquiesce 
 in silence while men in whom spiritual force is strong are 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 197 
 
 treated as a danger to the community rather than as its 
 most precious heritage. I would say to the persecutors, 
 * You cannot defeat such men ; you cannot make their testi- 
 mony of no avail. For every one whom you silence by force 
 a hundred will be moved to carry on his work, until at last 
 you yourselves will be won over, and will recognize, with 
 a sense of liberation from bondage, that all the material 
 force the world contains is powerless against the spirit of 
 indomitable love.' " 
 
 Bertrand Russell later devoted himself whole-heartedly, 
 as Acting-chairman of the Fellowship, to the work of resist- 
 ance to the Government's attack upon the sense of duty 
 and upon elementary human liberty. He wrote every week 
 an article of high quality in the Tribunal. He was refused 
 passports to America to deliver mathematical lectures at 
 Harvard University. He was, in a quite amusing way, 
 debarred from lecturing in certain parts of England and 
 Scotland, viz. in the " prohibited areas " round the coast, 
 where his lectures might help the enemy ! So that an adver 
 tised lecture of his in Glasgow had to be read by Robert 
 SmiUie, and was no doubt still more damaging in that form. 
 It had nothing to do with the war, but was on the philo- 
 sophical principles of politics, and delivered, he said, mainly 
 for the purpose of earning his living. He had delivered it at 
 Manchester the night before, without known harm to 
 that city. 
 
 19. In these D.O.R.A. prosecutions Mr. Bodkin was 
 the Crown Advocate. At the trial of the National Com- 
 mittee he remarked that " war would become impossible 
 if all men were to have the view that war was wrong." This 
 was good pacifist doctrine, so the N.C.F. issued a poster 
 containing nothing but these words of the Government, 
 and their source. Being too angry to see the humour of 
 it, the Government prosecuted Mr. Fuller, a journalist of 
 Stratford, E., for intending to display it. His advocate, 
 Mr. Hawkin, made great play at the trial, where Mr. Bodkin 
 himself was prosecuting, by demanding the Crown Prose- 
 cutor's arrest, as the author of the dangerous words : and 
 the Tribunal offered maintenance to his wife and children 
 
198 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCmNCE 
 
 if he felt it his duty to prosecute himself. But Mr. Fuller 
 was fined £120, or ninety-one days. 
 
 No known pacifist's house was safe from raids for litera- 
 ture. No less than 150 N.C.F. branch officials had their 
 homes treated in this way. 
 
 The use which was made by the Government of the clause 
 in D.O.R.A. about prejudicing the recruiting and discipline 
 of the forces was in no case more startingly illustrated than 
 in that of H. Runham Brown, chairman of the Enfield 
 Branch of the N.C.F. Mr. Beavis brought him a letter 
 from France from his son, H. Stuart Beavis, then expect- 
 ing to be shot for refusing military service, saying that this 
 might happen, and he might not be able to write again, 
 and suggesting that his friends might appeal to the Prime 
 Minister. To try to save his friend's life H. Runham 
 Brown had the letter printed and circulated to members 
 of Parliament and local clergy and residents. The absurd 
 irrelevancy of the charge did not prevent a fine of £30, 
 or two months' imprisonment. 
 
 When prisoners came out of gaol they brought with 
 them, in certain ways which passed the warders, letters 
 from inside, often asking for instructions. Once there was 
 a controversy going on among the wearied prisoners in a 
 certain gaol on whether they should break out into rebellion 
 and defy prison rules. It was referred to the N.C.F. office 
 for guidance. Twelve days were allowed for the time which 
 the post might take to reach its destination and return. 
 Either a red or a white signal was to be visible on the 
 third tree in the avenue outside a certain prison wall before 
 4 p.m. twelve days later. It took eleven days for the letter, 
 which may or may not have come out by the usual way, 
 which it is safer not to describe, to reach Miss Catherine 
 Marshall at Headquarters. She doubted if the tree was 
 climbable by herself or another, feared an intrusive police- 
 man, thought the signal might be hidden in the foliage, 
 and was much puzzled. But she presented white kites to 
 some children, and sent them for a walk with Miss Lydia 
 Smith to fly them ; and the children wondered why the 
 kites always stuck in a certain tree. It was just in 
 time, and word went silently round the gaol, where all 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 199 
 
 talking was, of course, forbidden, that there was to be no 
 revolt. 
 
 20. The attacks upon the Tribunal were among the 
 least dignified of the performances of coercion. It was 
 taken in regularly by the War Office along with the Labour 
 Leader and the Daily Herald, and read by General Childs. 
 
 The authorities were justifiably annoyed by the wonder- 
 ful help given by the Tribunal to the cause. First they 
 attacked the distributors, who were prosecuted in various 
 places. This was ineffective. Raids were then made on 
 the office itself to stop the distribution at its source. They 
 were always too late. Then the National Labour Press was 
 warned that its machinery would be dismantled if it con- 
 tinued to print it. This was disregarded. 
 
 In the issue of January 3, 1918, Bertrand Russell wrote 
 on the German Peace offer which had been rejected : — " The 
 American garrison which will by that time be occupying 
 England and France, whether or not they will prove 
 efficient against the Germans, will no doubt be capable of 
 intimidating strikers, an occupation to which the American 
 Army is accustomed when at home." For writing this, Mr. 
 Russell, and Miss Joan Beauchamp the pubHsher, were 
 prosecuted at Bow Street on February 9th. It was declared 
 that these words would have " a diabolical effect " upon the 
 British and Alhed soldiers. The fact that they formed the 
 basis of the prosecution, and were quoted in all the news- 
 papers instead of in a semi-private organ Uke the Tribunal, 
 does not seem to have had any weight, though it enormously 
 increased the diaboHcal effect. In a bitter tone Sir John 
 Dickinson sentenced Mr. Russell to six months in the second 
 division, and Miss Beauchamp to a £60 fine and fifteen guineas 
 costs. There was a second summons against her for pub- 
 lishing false statements in the same number of the Tribunal. 
 These were in an article called " A Guardroom Message *' — • 
 being a letter from a man in the interval between two 
 imprisonments. It told how the soldiers had a fellow-feeling 
 for, and were indeed inclined to honour, the C.O.'s. Miss 
 Beauchamp*s advocate stopped the prosecution with the 
 information that he was prepared to prove the facts and 
 
200 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 wished to have an adjournment in order to obtain a Home 
 Office permit to call the writer from prison. With com- 
 mendable prudence the Crown decided to abandon this 
 charge. The prisoners appealed, and were released on bail. 
 The appeal was heard on May 2nd, and a valuable argument 
 took place, which was widely published. It was shown 
 from American Blue Books that the Washington Govern- 
 ment itself issued accounts of the use of troops to put down 
 strikes, and that serious criticism of the Americans had 
 appeared in The Times. Nevertheless the appeal was 
 dismissed ; but it was granted that Bertrand Russell 
 should serve his time in the first division, and that Miss 
 Beauchamp — who had declined to pay her fine — should 
 have one month in the first division. There is a good deal 
 of difference between the first division and the others. A 
 prisoner there has the right to a special cell, which may be 
 furnished by himself and fitted with what he needs for his 
 ordinary occupations. He is entitled to a servant and 
 may wear his own clothes. He may have a visit and a 
 letter every fortnight. 
 
 Meantime, a direct attack upon the paper was made. 
 In the issue for February 14th, Miss Beauchamp had an 
 article on " The Moral Aspect of Conscription," consisting 
 chiefly of articles from The Times and speeches in the Upper 
 House of Convocation by the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 and the Bishop of Winchester concerning the official brothels 
 opened in France for the use of British soldiers, and the 
 protests made by the local people. The police raided the 
 office, seized all the copies they could find, and dismantled 
 the National Labour Press, which printed the paper. In 
 spite of this a brave comrade, Mr. S. H. Street of Streatham, 
 undertook the printing. 
 
 On April nth the last page was occupied by a sort of 
 poster urging people to stop the war. On April 22nd six 
 policemen raided the works, smashed Mr. Street's machinery, 
 including some which belonged not to him but to the owner 
 of the premises, destroyed £500 worth of plant, and carried 
 off the books, invoices, and all the work in hand. The 
 same evening three detectives visited the publisher's office 
 at 5, York Buildings, Adelphi, and asked Miss Beauchamp 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 201 
 
 if she were still the publisher. They asked her who was 
 the editor, and she refused to tell them, in spite of their 
 gloomy warnings of what would be the consequences of 
 her refusal. From a newspaper cutting which they found, 
 they thought that Hubert Peet was the editor, until they 
 discovered that he had been in prison nearly two years. 
 But this was not the end of the Tribunal. Without one 
 week's delay it came out again — three days after the raid — 
 and for just a year it was printed from a small secret hand- 
 press in the back room of a house in a back street in London, 
 by two devoted comrades. In vain Scotland Yard used 
 all it knew to find it. Policemen shadowed the officials at 
 the office. The two printers stayed entirely indoors for 
 many days at a time, but the plucky little sheet, rather 
 smaller than usual, came out every week from the secret 
 press, until the C.O.'s were released and the prosecution 
 abandoned. Then it came out into the open again. Strangely 
 enough the last issue of the Tribunal recorded the final 
 stage in the long proceedings against Miss Beauchamp for 
 this publication. They began on August 19, 1918. She 
 was summoned on the ground that the imprint on the 
 Tribunal, giving her name as a printer, was untrue. The 
 magistrate fined her £200 and twenty-five guineas costs, or 
 fifty-one days' imprisonment. Notice of appeal was given. 
 As she owned the hand-press, and directly employed and 
 paid the printers, she was legally in the right. The case was 
 again and again postponed, the Government having no 
 evidence. It went to Quarter Sessions, thence to the King's 
 Bench, and it came back to Quarter Sessions as long after- 
 wards as January, 1920. By that time the Government and 
 its Prosecutor, now Sir Archibald Bodkin, wished the thing 
 to end as smoothly as possible, and Miss Beauchamp was 
 sentenced to twenty-one days* in the first division, though 
 everyone knew she was innocent. She was released after 
 eight days. 
 
 The legal point — causing the lawyers to proceed at such 
 length with a useless prosecution for eighteen months — was 
 this :— 
 
 Miss Beauchamp was accused, in August 1918, of issuing 
 the paper without the printer's nanie. She replied that it 
 
202 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 bore her name and address, and that she was the master 
 printer. The Government denied that this was the case, 
 supposing that there was some printing firm hiding itself 
 behind her. But they had no evidence. At the appeal to 
 Quarter Sessions in the following October it was discovered 
 that the publisher could only be fined for " each such copy 
 so printed by her." But as the prosecution contended 
 that she had not printed anything, the Crown Prosecutor 
 was in a fix. The lawyers considered it to be of importance 
 to have a case in which, with no printer discoverable, they 
 could punish the publisher. 
 
 So the paper held on till its service was over, with 
 No. 182, when it reported the National Convention of the 
 N.C.F. in the last issue of January 8, 1920. It ran to 736 
 closely printed quarto pages. There must be few writings so 
 full of human interest. There is sorrow and pathos, cruelty 
 and tragedy in abundance, courage and delicacy of feeling. 
 It is full also of buoyant humour, and of a hope that did 
 not fail. One by one its editors had gone to gaol, till only 
 the women were left. They were W. J. Chamberlain, B. J. 
 Boothroyd, Lydia S. Smith; then anonymity supervened 
 for the best of reasons, and we have Joan Beauchamp the 
 publisher facing the music. Bertrand Russell week by 
 week wrote articles of extraordinary force till he went to 
 gaol, and Clifford Allen wrote his weekly word of advice 
 and inspiration in the leading article until his imprison- 
 ment. Fenner Brockway and Ernest E. Hunter were 
 constant contributors. I cherish my complete set, in a 
 bound volume, as one of my precious possessions. Few 
 things in the Government's acts were more undignified 
 than their attempts to stifle this organ of recalcitrant 
 conscience. 
 
 The editor whose name Miss Beauchamp refused to 
 divulge was Miss Lydia S. Smith. She had already for some 
 time been acting in that capacity, and her name had appeared 
 as its editor during the month of October 1917, after Mr. 
 Boothroyd had gone to gaol. The scheme was, in fact, 
 arranged by Miss Smith and Miss Beauchamp in conjunction 
 with the Committee of the N.C.F. and it was decided, simply 
 in the interests of the cause, that Miss Beauchamp should 
 
THE ORGANISATION OF PEACE 20S 
 
 publicly appear as publisher — and if necessary go to prison — 
 whilst Miss Smith should remain to continue the editing which 
 she had already in hand. In order to circumvent Scotland 
 Yard, it was Miss Smith who had actually organized the 
 arrangements and continued to do so, she not being so closely 
 watched and followed about as Miss Beauchamp. The way 
 in which these two clever girls baffled all the acuteness of 
 the police for twelve months is a delightful story. Detectives 
 estabhshed themselves in York Buildings opposite the 
 publishing office and watched everyone who passed in or 
 out. They were to be found also at the top of the street. 
 Copy for the press never went direct to the printers in their 
 remote premises in North London. It was taken out by 
 an old woman with a baby, who used to call at the office, 
 apparently for relief, and was never suspected by the police. 
 She took the proofs home and somebody else conveyed 
 them to the printing press. The copies were distributed 
 and posted from six different localities in succession, so that 
 no single post office or post pillar could be raided. Once 
 a boy who had the bundle of copies found them too heavy, 
 and left them temporarily on the Embankment in charge 
 of a policeman ! When he brought news of this back to 
 the office, consternation supervened, but the worthy guar- 
 dian of the law — and in this case of the gospel — had not 
 penetrated below its husk. 
 
 The secret printing press had, of course, been bought 
 ahead and was waiting, or all would have failed. But 
 there was a scarcity of type, particularly of the large capital 
 letters of the title. The two printers — whose ingenuity and 
 devotion equalled that of their young employers — were 
 able to " wangle " a few capital letters from fellow-printers 
 on the Harmsworth Press I '* Out of the eater cometh 
 forth meat." Once a capital " R " was short, and the 
 printer had managed to borrow it, but unfortunately lost 
 it in the dark as he went home. It was absolutely necessary 
 to print off the next morning, so he got up as soon as it 
 was light and searched all the streets along which he had 
 passed till he found the missing letter. Only 2,000 copies 
 could be printed instead of the preceding 6,000, on account 
 of the smallness of the press. That was some success for 
 
204 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 the great intellects whom the taxpayer maintains to detect 
 criminals. » 
 
 21. From 1918 onwards, after the arrest of so many 
 of the early leaders, the Fellowship was led by Bertrand 
 Russell, Dr. Alfred Salter, Edward Grubb, Catherine Marshall 
 and Ernest E. Hunter. Dr. Salter was a genuine and 
 indomitable man. His courage and outspokenness and 
 his unflagging energy are proverbial among his friends. As 
 chief officer with him was Hunter. He had a nimbleness 
 and ingenuity with which to meet every contingency, and 
 remained openly the secretary of a persecuted organization, 
 though " wanted " by the authorities for over two years. 
 As speaker and organizer he never abated his untiring ser- 
 vice, though surrounded by some whose vitality and good 
 temper had almost ebbed. Fearless without being fanatical, 
 he conducted the Fellowship to the very end, and had the 
 joy of being in charge when the prison gates opened and 
 the prisoners met together in the final Convention. 
 
 The further story of the N.C.F. will be found in portions 
 of all the succeeding chapters of this book. 
 
 HI. Other Organizations. 
 
 22. The Fellowship of Reconcihation was a union of 
 Christian pacifists of all denominations, people who, Quakers 
 or not, held the Quaker view of war. There was need and 
 use for such a union, for the scattered members of the 
 Churches who held to the early Christian attitude towards 
 war were peculiarly isolated. The union was founded by 
 Dr. Henry T. Hodgkin, Miss Maude Royden, Richard 
 Roberts, Miss Lilian Stevenson, and a few others, and was 
 launched at a memorable Conference of about a hundred 
 people invited to meet at Cambridge, December 28-31, 1914. 
 Dr. Orchard took an active part in its proceedings. It 
 
 » Finding that the Government in ParHament was giving halting and 
 evasive answers as to the whereabouts of a certain ordinary prisoner of whom 
 they had plainly lost track, Ernest E. Hunter, at the N.C.F. office, thought 
 it would be most amusing and forgiving to find him for the Home Office. 
 The office, through its numerous correspondents in the gaols, was soon able 
 to do this, and the Government was told in which prison their lost prisoner 
 was ; for which the Department wrote a friendly letter of thanks. 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 205 
 
 appointed an executive which met weekly for many months, 
 and spent whole days together, drawing nearer to God and 
 to one another. They came to their decisions not by reso- 
 lutions, but by the method of united prayer. " Matters 
 often took a form which the Committee had not planned, 
 but they found it to be the form they all desired." The 
 methods of the organization were, in fact, the methods of 
 an extended Quakerism, just as its principle was the Quaker 
 principle. ^ 
 
 An organization which works by prayer and the pro- 
 pagation of a right spirit, which eschews political action, 
 and is not in any immediate hurry to count up results, cannot 
 be easily reported upon in summary. It had achieved in 
 1918 a membership of about 8,000, distributed amongst 
 165 groups and branches. It never ceased to issue valuable 
 pamphlets for the help of the persecuted men and their 
 cause. It has issued a News Sheet which has been a 
 great encouragement to its members, first monthly, then 
 quarterly ; and its public journal was the Venturer, edited 
 by Richard Roberts and Gilbert Thomas. PubUcation was 
 suspended in September 192 1. It has held annual confer- 
 ences at Swanwick, and conducted series of propagandist 
 meetings in very many places. Many of its young men were 
 sent to prison, and its women and older men devoted them- 
 selves in all possible ways to the help of the conscientious 
 objectors, combining for this work with the Friends' Service 
 Committee and the No-Conscription Fellowship. Theodora 
 Wilson Wilson's paper, the Crusader, was, in effect, a voice 
 of the F.O.R. Books and papers in great numbers were 
 written, issued or distributed. Study circles abounded, 
 along with devotional meetings. The headquarters were 
 at first at Miss Lucy Gardner's house. But offices of its 
 own soon became needful to the Fellowship. Richard 
 Roberts became the general secretary, till he took charge 
 of a Church in New York. He was followed by Leyton 
 Richards, who similarly became pastor of Pembroke Chapel, 
 
 * The names of the original Committee were : Roderic K. Clark, Marian 
 E. Ellis (now Lady Parmoor), James Eraser, Lucy Gardner (hon. sec), 
 W. Fearon Halliday, J. St. George Heath, Henry T. Hodgkin (chairman), 
 McEwan S. Lawson, Hugh Martin, W. E, Orchard, Mary E. Phillips, Richard 
 Roberts, A. Maude Royden, Lilian Stevenson, Theodora Wilson Wilson. 
 
206 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 Liverpool. The Fellowship continues its valuable work 
 after the war. Its secretary is Oliver Dryer, and its offices 
 are at 17, Red Lion Square, W.C. It is a centre of pro- 
 paganda, an education in living faith in Christ. 
 
 The Fellowship devoted much labour to promoting a 
 World Conference of Churches on Peace, but hostile forces 
 have so far prevented its meeting. 
 
 Part of its preoccupation was always with reconciliation 
 among classes at home. Its first Annual Report says of 
 the F.O.R. :— 
 
 " Its members are convinced that the present industrial 
 strife, the uncertainty of the financial position of the wage- 
 earner, his inferior social status, the unchecked competition 
 which leads to sweated labour and dishonest practices, the 
 high profits which are made by many who contribute per- 
 sonally nothing to the community, the general struggle for 
 wealth as an end in itself, are profoundly unchristian." 
 
 The Fellowship has extended its operations internationally 
 since the Armistice rendered it practicable. Henry T. 
 Llodgkin has had an enthusiastic reception in Scandinavia, 
 as he preached the F.O.R. gospel there. International 
 religious conferences on a small scale have been held at 
 Bilthoven in Holland. The American F.O.R., founded by 
 Henry Hodgkin in 1915, numbers 1,800 members and issues 
 an able journal. The World To-morrow, edited by Norman 
 Thomas, with a circulation of 10,000. The Bilthoven 
 Message of October 1919 states that the organization is 
 definitely opposed to Capitahsm and Imperiahsm. 
 
 23. Besides the three larger organizations there were 
 useful auxiliary bodies. The " National Council against 
 Conscription " (Robert Smillie, president, and B. N. Langdon- 
 Davies, secretary) included amongst its Committee names 
 already identified with the larger organizations which really 
 helped to found it. It issued an enormous number of 
 informing leaflets and kept up a large and helpful corre- 
 spondence with sufferers. Later on it became changed to 
 " The National Council for Civil Liberties," and acted as 
 a watchdog for liberty against D.O.R.A. and the bureaucracy 
 of war. It co-operated actively with the N.C,F, during the 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 207 
 
 passage of the Acts and helped many thousands of appellants 
 in all kinds of ways before Tribunals. 
 
 24. Before the close of the war there arose in Manchester, 
 under the inspiration of Percy Redfern, an Alternative 
 Service Guild, of those who, in spite of all that the Govern- 
 ment had done to discourage alternative service and drive 
 men to be Absolutists, still held as a doctrine that, at a 
 time of strain due to any cause, the State had a right to 
 arrange the service of its citizens, so long as the work in 
 itself did not offend consciences by being directly for war 
 purposes. The Guild was chiefly useful as a successful 
 agency for finding work for conscientious objectors, a work 
 to which John Mee and Mrs. Wright Robinson devoted much 
 unselfish labour. It desired to work in harmony with the 
 N.C.F. though it differed from its official doctrine. Finally 
 its employment agency coalesced with that conducted by 
 J. Theodore Harris, as a joint effort by the London organ- 
 izations. It had a useful career for over two years. It 
 had branches in London and in the Home Office Camps, 
 but it did not in practice extend much outside Manchester. 
 The line it took in desiring national service, and its criti- 
 cisms of the weak points in the Absolutist position, lead 
 to the belief that perfect consistency is not attainable by an 
 individual hostile to war who is also a citizen of a State 
 engaged in war. The habit of the Tribunals to forbid any 
 useful or specially skilled work, or any that returned a living 
 wage, to their victims, made the employment agency often 
 feel as though it were striking futile blows in a fog. 
 
 The Pelham Committee, even after the Armistice, tried 
 to keep its hold on the men by issuing circulars demanding 
 monthly reports from their employers, though the Tribunals, 
 from whom they had their power, closed with a snap on 
 Armistice Day. Little heed was paid to them. Organiza- 
 tions are apt to show a strong will to live. 
 
 25. A large Central Fund for dependents of imprisoned 
 C.O.'s was organized under the chairmanship of Mr. Ramsay 
 Macdonald, and with valuable organizing service from Miss 
 Violet Tillard and Mrs. Salter. It handled large sums, for 
 
208 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 much was needed. It was felt that the suffering of a man in 
 prison would be terribly increased if he was conscious in 
 his hours of loneliness that his family were starving through 
 his action. There were local and divisional funds, under 
 the Central Fund. Each locality met its own needs so far 
 as it could, and contributed to or drew from the divisional 
 fund what circumstances demanded. Similarly, the division 
 contributed to or drew from the Central Fund, according 
 to its surplus or its deficit. Subscriptions might go to 
 the local, the divisional, or the Central Fund. Thus locahties 
 helped one another, and yet local responsibility remained. 
 It was an excellent plan, and worked very well. Much 
 labour was put into this distribution till the end of the war 
 and afterwards ; many appeals for funds had to be made 
 from time to time ; and great discretion in distribution was 
 called for. But the misery alleviated made it all well 
 worth while.' 
 
 IV. The Peace Party in Parliament. 
 
 26. A study of the pages of the C.O.'s Hansard, 
 shows how diligently the cause was kept before the House 
 of Commons at question time. It is impossible to speak 
 too highly of the persistence of Mr. Phihp Snowden in 
 this unpopular task. To " write to Snowden " was the 
 ever-ready resort of victims of illegal or unjust action. 
 Mr. T. E. Harvey and Mr. Arnold Rowntree also 
 gave assistance. Support also came from Mr. Richard 
 Lambert, Mr. Trevelyan, Mr. Lees-Smith, Mr. Joseph 
 King, Commander Wedgwood, Mr. A. H. Ponsonby, 
 Mr. Philip Morrell, and Mr. Outhwaite. The Parha- 
 mentary Department of the N.C.F. arranged and sifted 
 complaints which reached it, and sent them to Mr. Snowden. 
 
 » It is not necessary to give a complete statement of the money raised 
 by each locahty, and not possible to give the total, which was raised in the 
 manner above described, but I happen to have at hand the Manchester 
 District accounts, of which Mr. H. V. Herford was the treasurer, and may 
 be given merely as an illustration. These accounts show contributions of 
 ;{4,o22, which were treated in the manner described. This was distributed 
 at a cost of ;^22 for expenses. The Friends of North Somerset and Wilts 
 Monthly Meeting, under the treasurership of Edwin L. Gales, disbursed 
 over ;^6oo, and similar results were achieved elsewhere. 
 
THE ORGANISATION OF PEACE 209 
 
 He was supported from time to time by questions from 
 J. Ramsay Macdonald and J. Howard Whitehouse. The 
 cause owed much to the band of unpopular pacifists and to 
 the leaders of the Union of Democratic Control, who bore 
 fearless testimony to the truth in a markedly hostile 
 atmosphere. 
 
 In reply, Mr. Brace or Mr. MacPherson or Sir George 
 Cave propounded such statements as the incriminated 
 officials supplied, or took refuge in ignorance, promising 
 further investigation and a private reply. Sometimes 
 large gaps, apparently unbridgeable, were left between 
 the grievance and the official rejoinder. In other cases, 
 great hardship had been inflicted in a legal manner, as the 
 law was administered under the Military Service Acts. 
 
 One or two specimen questions and answers may be 
 recorded. On July 31, 1917 (quoting from Hansard), 
 Mr. Chancellor asked the Home Secretary whether any 
 complaints had been recorded about the conduct of the 
 Chaplain at Winchester Prison ; whether he was aware 
 that he sneers at the beliefs of conscientious objectors and 
 of Nonconformists in particular ; whether he is aware 
 that he told a conscientious objector that Christ would spit 
 at him, and that he refers to conscientious objectors as 
 vermin and lice, and if he would make enquiries as to this 
 person's conduct from conscientious objectors to whose 
 spiritual needs he has ministered ? 
 
 Sir G. Cave : "I have received no complaints against 
 the Chaplain of His Majesty's Prison, Winchester, and I 
 am satisfied that the allegations made in the question 
 grossly misrepresent the language used by the reverend 
 gentleman." 
 
 Mr. Chancellor : ** Has the right hon. gentleman 
 enquired of any of the prisoners to whom this Christian 
 gentleman addressed himself, or of the Nonconformist 
 Chaplain ? " 
 
 Sir G. Cave : ** I have made no enquiries." 
 
 Mr. Chancellor : " Made no enquiries, and yet you 
 deny the statements ! " 
 
 Not many questions were answered so blatantly as this, 
 but the spirit of the answer is quite typical. 
 
 14 
 
210 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 Questioned about the effect which the reduced rations 
 had on the half-starved men in Wormwood Scrubs, Sir 
 George Cave repHed : — " There is no foundation for the 
 statements that the rations have been reduced by half, 
 and that these men are in a state of semi-starvation. 
 Their health, as a body, is well maintained. If, in 
 individual cases, the diet does not appear to be sufficient, 
 the medical officer in the ordinary course orders extra 
 diet." 
 
 No doubt he would do so, and did, when the man was 
 becoming reduced to a bag of bones, i.e. " losing weight 
 seriously." The actual facts of the diet at Dartmoor were 
 given in a valuable, but ignored, speech by Mr. Joseph King 
 in the House on November i, 1917. Their 22 ounces of bread 
 per day had been reduced to 11 ounces. Their 2 pints of 
 porridge per day, with an extra one in the evening for full 
 marks, were reduced to ij pints. In heu of these i ounce of 
 cheese was given. These men were engaged in hard phy- 
 sical work, and the original diet had been fixed as the 
 minimum for maintaining health. 
 
 27. Of actual poHtical parties the only one officially 
 with us, and heartily supporting the fight against conscrip- 
 tion, was the Independent Labour Party. As the idealist 
 wing of Labour its members naturally saw more clearly 
 into political tendencies and the long consequences of a 
 temporarily popular tyranny than those parties whose 
 outlook was not illuminated by an inward faith. It should 
 give food for thought to Liberals and to Christians generally, 
 that neither the ancient party of personal liberty nor the 
 friends of the Son of Man — as a whole and officially — resisted 
 this great enemy of both, but left it to certain Socialists 
 to do so. When driven from public halls and cold-shouldered 
 out of chapels, the advocates of liberty and peace would 
 always find a platform and friends in the simple tabernacles 
 of the I.L.P. and editorial advocacy in the Labour Leader. 
 Most of the Socialist objectors were of this party, and one 
 may be sure that its brave fidelity to its principles in diffi- 
 cult times has accumulated for it a store of energy, some 
 day to be turned to practical account. 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 211 
 
 28. This chapter gives, I do not doubt, an impression 
 of extensive, varied, and efficient organization, and so it 
 was. But many of the people in the various bodies were 
 also members of several other wings of the organization. 
 The whole was worked by remarkably few people altogether ; 
 and is a striking example of what may be achieved by a 
 group of men and women of unusual inteUigence, backed 
 by financial support, and willing to take all risks and meet 
 all calls for sacrifice. They could not aboUsh conscription 
 this time, but they saved its victims, otherwise alone in 
 a hostile world, from collapse of body and perhaps of soul. 
 To have been engaged in this crusade — as it may with 
 exactness be called — will bind us together all our Uves. 
 And the country will not be against us always. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 VARIETIES OF TESTIMONY 
 
 1 . It cannot be denied that the path for the conscientious 
 objectors to war was far from inwardly clear and obvious 
 to begin with. The subject was encompassed with difficulties, 
 for it was, in reality, one of those subjects on which " much 
 may be said on both sides " ; not using this phrase as a 
 woolly cover for intellectual indolence, but as a statement 
 of genuine but opposed loyalties — loyalty to the State and 
 loyalty to the Best — the demand of Man organized as 
 he is now, against the demand of the God within. To 
 a man trying to give both their due, I believe no completely 
 consistent course was possible during the war. I have 
 yet to hear of a course of action taken by a pacifist, including 
 my own, in which some incongruity might not be discovered 
 by a penetrating mind. This was not our fault. We had 
 to try to be both good Christians and good citizens, or good 
 Socialists and good citizens ; to go as far as our sense of 
 duty allowed, but no further, in obedience to the State, 
 though we believed that the State had done wrong. It 
 is no wonder that great variety of action resulted. The 
 State, during the six years that have passed since 1916, 
 has become discredited as a helpful instrument of co-operation, 
 has been found frequently to be an enemy of the people, 
 and has been conducted with less than average wisdom. ^ 
 The one desire now, of Socialists and Individualists alike, 
 is to have as few controllers and other bureaucrats as possible. 
 
 2. The bulk of objectors could take no military oath, 
 and were not willing to serve in the war at all, particu- 
 
 » Clififord Allen's preface to this book may be read in conjunction with 
 this chapter. 
 
VARIETIES OF TESTIMONY 213 
 
 larly in a rather safer place than the front Hne. They felt 
 that constructively and corporately they would thus be 
 accomplices in slaughter. 
 
 The favourite device of the Tribunals was, as we have 
 seen, to grant a man whose genuineness was admitted 
 ** non-combatant service in the Army." It was known 
 that this meant a sentence of imprisonment, and was a 
 covert defiance by the Tribunals of the purpose of the Acts, 
 in nearly every case, since such service was nearly always 
 refused. The exceptions were the members of certain sects 
 who followed the Bible literally. 
 
 Among the general body of conscientious objectors there 
 remained two outstanding positions held respectively by 
 what became known as Alternativists and Absolutists. 
 
 The former felt that the nation needed maintenance and 
 service of all sorts, on usual civilian lines, and admitted 
 in general the right of the State, if it saw fit — under such 
 crises as plague, famine or war — ^to prescribe what work a 
 man should do. The line of refusal would be drawn by 
 these men if the work prescribed turned out to be in itself 
 immoral, but not till then. Such men, if they met a reason- 
 able Tribunal, often accepted civilian service approved by 
 them. How the Government, blinded by the idea of deter- 
 rence, and aiming at punishment only, made this course 
 as repellent as possible, we shall hear in its place. Had 
 they been wise in their generation, they might have gravely 
 weakened the Absolutist band. 
 
 3. The critics of the Alternativist line stated that every 
 kind of permitted service was helping the war indirectly ; 
 and, further, that the man who accepted it was helping to 
 make the Conscription Acts workable, by obeying them. 
 The former of these arguments was easily met by showing 
 that no one could remain in England and produce anything 
 and pay taxes without helping England in the conflict ; 
 and that, further, objectors had no testimony against help- 
 ing their country, in itself, and no wish to take sides 
 against her. 
 
 The second argument was valid. This much of compliance 
 was certainly not the way to destroy conscription. This 
 
214 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 was the main motive which spurred the Absolutist to make 
 no compromise with such a demand of the State. He was 
 out to make conscription impossible. Some would say that 
 in so doing he was overstepping his individual conscien- 
 tious testimony and working for a political object. He 
 would reply that such political service was a sacred duty 
 and bound his conscience as a citizen. He was called to 
 it and was prepared to suffer for it. His resistance was, in 
 fact, an act of citizenship. 
 
 The Absolutist was sustained by the faith that he was 
 bearing a pure testimony to the Gospel of Goodwill, for 
 which great positive idea he was a missionary and a sufferer. 
 He was, at bottom, no negative " objector " but an active 
 soldier, building up the Kingdom of God. 
 
 The Absolutist had one further reason for demanding 
 nothing else than complete exemption. He pointed out 
 that by doing work considered of national importance you 
 were doing work considered important for war,' and were 
 thereby liberating some one else to go to the front, who 
 would otherwise have been considered essential at home. 
 That this did happen is true. The question is. Was the 
 conscientious objector responsible ? If he carried the argu- 
 ment into all the consequences of his action, he found he 
 could do nothing, however harmless in itself, that did not 
 in the end liberate a man, it might be indirectly or several 
 degrees away, for the Army. Even with complete exemption 
 one could not avoid this. For the whole nation was under 
 one great strain, and complete abstention from the universal 
 effort was impossible. These varieties of type will manifest 
 themselves all through the story. 
 
 The Absolutist denied the right of the State to conscript 
 for war, and so would not inferentially admit that right 
 by bargaining himself out of it. He took his stand on a 
 universal principle, and would make no compromise. The 
 Alternativist recognized the difficulties the State was in, 
 and wished as an individual to save it all he could, minimizing 
 his refusal to comply with its orders. One man desired 
 to help the nation by civilian work in its time of strain, the 
 
 » Clifford Allen and others tested this by offering Peace work as work 
 of national importance. It was refused. 
 
VARIETIES OF TESTIMONY 215 
 
 other would not help it to fight, and made his form of service 
 resistance to the establishment of an evil system within 
 his country. But when the whole nation is fighting, and one 
 cannot do any ordinary work which has no military reaction, 
 there is little room for perfect consistency. Particularly, 
 any change of occupation ordered by the Government 
 would be so ordered with some idea, however unintelligent, 
 that the war was being helped. That was supposed to be 
 the reason why CO. teachers were set to quarry work, and 
 no CO. might teach except those unqualified to do so. 
 
 In some extreme cases, men refused even to follow their 
 own work, if it were by order of a Tribunal. The only 
 sensible course for the Tribunals would have been to let such 
 men alone, after being clear about their honesty. They 
 would have helped the nation in the way for which they 
 were qualified, and with all zeal. Popular contempt and 
 hatred would have been their portion. This they were 
 prepared to stand. It has manifested itself since their 
 release, in the widespread refusal to reinstate or to employ 
 conscientious objectors. The State would not then have 
 played the traitor to freedom and conscience. 
 
 4. A vivid and interesting narrative which Mr. J. Scott 
 Duckers has printed, recording his experiences,^ throws clear 
 light upon the mind of some Absolutists at this juncture. 
 It is also valuable for its details of the prison system and 
 of the way in which courtesy and force of character, combined 
 with an established reputation, can succeed in taming 
 officials of that system. Mr. Scott Duckers went so far as 
 to refuse to go before a tribunal. The number of men who 
 did this was small. Mr. Duckers, who had been Chairman 
 of the " Stop the War " Committee, who had done political 
 work on the Liberal side, and who had habitually resided 
 at the National Liberal Club, was even pressed by the Central 
 Tribunal in prison to appear before them ; and to all appear- 
 ance they would have been only too glad to grant him 
 alternative service. Far different treatment was meted 
 
 » Handed Over. The prison experiences of Mr. J. Scott Duckers, solicitor 
 of Chancery Lane, under the Military Service Act. Written by himself. 
 With foreword by T. Edmund Harvey, M.P. (Daniel, is. 6d,) 
 
216 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 out to a poor cotton operative of Rochdale whom I knew 
 in prison, who also — badly advised as I thought — had not 
 been before a Tribunal. The Central Tribunal at Wormwood 
 Scrubs prison turned him down at once as not genuine, though 
 his genuineness was clear to the most undiscerning. Mr. 
 Scott Duckers says that to himself the certificate would 
 have been of no use ; he would have declined any sort of 
 alternative service " because the only purpose which the 
 Government could have in transferring me to another 
 occupation (or in requiring me to remain in my own) would 
 be that in their view I should be then most useful in helping 
 to carry on the war. Being against the war, I do not want 
 it to continue." 
 
 Mr. Scott Duckers was within the Holborn district, and 
 would have had to appear before Mr. A. W. Gamage, whose 
 behaviour, as referred to in Parliament by Mr. Snowden, 
 has been previously mentioned. Apart from any particular 
 person, however, Mr. Duckers says that at a Tribunal he 
 would see a man probably friendly and open-hearted in 
 private life, " see him seated at a table in the public view, 
 dressed in a little brief authority and accompanied by all 
 the petty pomp and circumstance with which borough 
 officials freeze human souls : explain to him what it is 
 almost impossible for any human being to explain ; satisfy 
 him about something which he entirely fails to understand ; 
 answer every silly question, put up with every foolish gibe. 
 
 If Mr. will exempt you, that will be sufficient. If he 
 
 refuses, you will be seized upon and ground up inside the 
 military machine. Parliament has handed everything over 
 
 to Mr. subject only to the right of appeal to a Tribunal 
 
 of super 's in case either objector or military representa- 
 tive is not satisfied." 
 
 But apart from all these things, Mr. Duckers would 
 have nothing to do with the Tribunals, though they had 
 been models of fairness and courtesy, and had freely given 
 certificates of exemption. He would decline to admit 
 their jurisdiction, or the absurd fiction by which you are 
 " deemed " to be a soldier. His line was that he was not, 
 and never would be, a soldier, and would ask for no certificate 
 of exemption from a soldier's duties. 
 
VARIETIES OF TESTIMONY 217 
 
 When it came to a possibility of alternative service under 
 the Home Office Committee, and by leave of the Central 
 Tribunal, he naturally declined it "as being industrial 
 conscription of a particularly objectionable kind." 
 
 5. It will be well that on this important issue I should 
 quote from the statements of leading thinkers on both sides. 
 Professor Gilbert Murray wrote in a letter quoted by T. E. 
 Harvey in the Tribunal of July 27th, 1916, as follows : — 
 
 " As one who has done his best to help conscientious 
 objectors, who has tried to understand their position, who 
 realizes the suffering, both mental and bodily, to which they 
 have willingly submitted for conscience' sake, and the great 
 courage with which in some cases they have faced persecu- 
 tion, I venture to make an earnest appeal to those now in 
 prison, that when they are invited to undertake work of 
 ' national importance * they will not refuse. I assume, 
 of course, that the work will be in no way connected either 
 with warfare or with the Army. 
 
 " They have made their protest. They have vindicated 
 their courage. They have established the rights of conscience. 
 The State no longer demands that they should do anything 
 to which, before the present crisis, they had expressed any 
 objection. All that the State now asks is that they should 
 be willing in some way to work for the good of their fellow- 
 citizens in a time of extreme need. 
 
 " Some of them argue : ' The State is absorbed in war, 
 which is a great crime ; to give any help to the State is 
 indirectly to help the crime.' 
 
 " I will not pause to consider to what strange results 
 this argument would lead us, if logically pursued. But 
 I would appeal to every man of ordinary feeling to recognize 
 the utter falsity of saying that we, his average fellow-citizens, 
 whom he regards as engaged in crime, are entirely absorbed 
 in our criminality, and have no life outside it. Even the 
 hardest fighter in the trenches is not always fighting. He 
 is sometimes writing home, planting flower-beds, playing 
 with children, reading, sleeping, eating and doing all the 
 ordinary things of which the life of a human being is composed. 
 
218 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 Granted that the objectors are early Christians and the 
 rest of us Pagans, the early Christians did not as a rule 
 refuse all help to Pagans in distress. They did not say, ' If 
 we save the life of this Pagan child it will merely encourage 
 idolatry.' 
 
 " Why do I plead in this way or care so much what the 
 objectors do ? Not because of the actual amount of help 
 they can bring to the country ; but for two reasons. First, 
 I respect and value these people with extra sensitive con- 
 sciences and imperious ideals ; I am on their side as against 
 those who decide against them. And therefore I cannot 
 bear to see them behave in a manner which savours less of 
 brotherly love than of insatiable pugnacity, and tends to 
 bring idealism itself into disrepute. And secondly, like 
 most Englishmen, I hate to see decent people punished like 
 felons, and other decent people forced into punishing them. 
 
 " If the C.O.'s will be content with what they have won, 
 and face the problem before them in a spirit of love and 
 not of strife, they may make a positive contribution to our 
 national life which will have a permanent effect also in the 
 wider world of international relationship.'* 
 
 6. The Editor of the Tribunal replied as follows : — 
 
 *' Mr. Harvey goes straight to the root of the matter 
 when he implies an objection to the word ' alternative.* 
 It is mainly because such work is forced upon men as an 
 alternative to military service that we object to it. If 
 this is not so, why is it that if a man does not accept it, or 
 says he cannot find it, he is forced into the Army ? Con- 
 versely, why is it that, with negligible exceptions, a man 
 is only exempted from the Army on condition that he does 
 this work ? Why is it, also, that even if he is already doing 
 such work, and has been granted a conscience by a Tribunal, 
 he is given only a conditional exemption, or even taken 
 away from the work he is doing and sent to do similar work 
 in another place ? We submit that this is done merely 
 because the authorities mean to make it clear that the 
 alternative to doing such work is military service. We 
 further submit that all these orders and restrictions regarding 
 
VARIETIES OF TESTIMONY 219 
 
 those who are either doing or ordered to do such work are 
 imposed because such work is compulsory, and is compulsory 
 because it is part of a Compulsion Act, passed solely for 
 military purposes. 
 
 " Dr. Murray says we have made our protest. Yes, 
 but we feel it is our duty to go on protesting until the evil 
 stops, and not merely protest once and then shut our mouths 
 and acquiesce in it. He says we have vindicated our 
 courage ; this is unimportant — the soldiers have shown 
 more. He says we have established the rights of conscience. 
 We reply that the Tribunals, the Houses of ParHament, 
 the Churches, the newspapers, the Universities, and the 
 general public daily show by their actions and words that 
 they do not yet begin to understand the word as it applies 
 to us. To the vast majority of the nation a conscientious 
 objector is either one who doesn't like fighting because he 
 is a coward, or else one who, owing to a kind of malicious 
 insanity, refuses to help his country in the only way open 
 to able-bodied men. 
 
 " They say that all the State asks is that we should 
 help our fellow-citizens in time of need. We reply that, 
 by refusing to allow men to be free to continue useful work 
 even after they have shown that they are nothing but im- 
 pediments when forced into the Army, the State has shown 
 that it is not our service that it wants, but our subservience 
 to military law. We deny, emphatically, that we are refusing 
 to help the community, or even the State, merely because 
 the latter happens to be engaged in a war. We are, on the 
 contrary, willing to help the nation ; but not in a manner 
 which would imply acquiescence in what we consider immoral. 
 
 " He says that our argument, if logically pursued, would 
 lead an early Christian to refuse to help a Pagan child. 
 That is the reverse of logical. Logically pursued, our 
 argument would merely lead an early Christian to refuse to 
 be ordered to take care of a Pagan child in order that its 
 father might be free to go out and kill somebody. And 
 such an order would be all the more impossible to obey 
 if accompanied by a strict injunction not to try and persuade 
 the father to stop killing. 
 
 " All that, however, is merely the negative side of our 
 
220 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 argument. We cannot repeat too often or too emphatically 
 that our action is not negative, but positive and definite. 
 Professor Murray is incorrect in describing our argument 
 as a refusal to help the State in doing what we think wrong. 
 That is like describing a sprinter as a man who refuses to 
 stand still. If our action were merely a refusal to help our 
 fellows because we were asked to do so by a Government with 
 which we disagree, it would be harder to defend. But it 
 is nothing of the sort ; it is an active protest against what 
 we consider the greatest evil in the world ; and our method 
 of protesting is to refuse to acquiesce by a single act or deed 
 in a system which is indescribably evil, both in origin and 
 purpose. By doing this — by making this protest — we 
 believe we are doing more for the community than by doing 
 safe civil jobs as plain-clothes conscripts. 
 
 *' We are accused of insatiable pugnacity, and asked to 
 show a spirit of love. If it is ' pugnacity ' to refuse to 
 compromise with a vile thing, then we hope we are pugnacious. 
 As for a spirit of love, we have no love to show for Militarism 
 — nothing but hatred ; on the contrary, it is our love which 
 dictates our attitude — our love for freedom. Freedom is 
 a greater need for a nation than the temporary convenience 
 of its Government, and freedom will never come to any 
 land so long as men meet the commands of a military law 
 with anything less than uncompromising hostility." 
 
 We believe the reader now has before him all that need 
 be said on both sides. ^ The choice made by the men was 
 made partly by temperament and by intuition, and partly 
 by reasoning. 
 
 » A number of Absolutist statements are printed in Chapter III, 
 pp. 89-93. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 THE HOME OFFICE SCHEME 
 
 I. The Government set itself resolutely against the 
 group known as Absolutists, but hoped that a new adminis- 
 trative proposal for dealing with the imprisoned men would 
 be successful in solving the problem of the Alternativist 
 and might even attract other more extreme sections, especi- 
 ally after they had had a taste of prison life. I now propose 
 to outline the scheme invented by the Government for sorting 
 out the men in prison and setting them to civilian work. 
 
 It was during the summer of 1916 that the question 
 of alternative service became acute. It was, of course, 
 cropping up all the time for individuals who were offered 
 work of nationar importance. The Government proceeded 
 to divide the forces of their opponents. On July 26th 
 Mr. Lloyd George, then Secretary for War, made his famous 
 speech in the House, which gave the key-note to all the 
 future proceedings of the Government. Referring to the 
 Absolutists, the man who had first risen from obscurity as 
 the champion of the Welsh Nonconformist conscience con- 
 cerning burials said : " With that kind of man I, personally, 
 have absolutely no sympathy whatsoever. I do not think 
 that they deserve the slightest consideration. With regard 
 to those who object to shedding blood, it is the traditional 
 policy of this country to respect that view, and we do not 
 propose to depart from it ; but in the other case I shall 
 only consider the best means of making the path of that 
 class as hard as possible." 
 
 What had become of the clause about absolute exemption, 
 " the proper exemption to meet the case " ? Why did 
 Mr. Asquith and Mr. Walter Long and Mr. Herbert Samuel 
 allow their Parhamentary utterances to be so flouted ? 
 
 221 
 
222 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 It was popular, doubtless. Some day, in the coming time 
 of reaction from war, we may yet hear public opinion echoed 
 in an eloquent speech from Mr. Lloyd George on the nobility 
 of the martyrs to a sense of duty. 
 
 Bertrand Russell replied in the Tribunal of August 
 17th :— 
 
 '' Our politicians may, for aught I know, have made a 
 careful study of [conscience] in dictionaries and histories, 
 but have evidently been denied by nature the opportunity 
 to learn about it by looking within. Does Mr. George think 
 St. Paul would have been satisfied with a certificate excusing 
 him from preaching Paganism ? Does he think that Luther 
 would have acquiesced in a dispensation from maintaining 
 the doctrine of indulgences, on condition that he should 
 preserve silence as to his objections to the doctrine ? Does 
 he think that Joan of Arc would have accepted civil 
 alternative service ? Would he himself have been willing 
 to spend all his time during the Boer War in growing 
 cabbages ? " 
 
 We now reach the beginning of the important Home 
 Office scheme which was intended by the Government 
 to solve the problem of the men in prison. Had it been 
 worked in a right spirit, it might have done something to 
 assuage the persecution. It was launched with the usual 
 flavour of good intention, and was sincerely intended as a 
 rehef, but it was baffled by lack of comprehension of the 
 minds of the men dealt with, and by the dull penal imagina- 
 tions of the executive instruments employed, incited always 
 by the baying of newspapers, and relying on an abnormal 
 inflammation of public opinion. 
 
 The gaols were becoming inconveniently crowded. ^ 
 The persecution was reaching unforeseen dimensions. A 
 certain sense of scandal had to be avoided. 
 
 2. On June, 28, 1916 (to go back to the beginning), Mr 
 Asquith explained the scheme in the House of Commons : — 
 
 " The procedure to be adopted by the War Office in 
 the cases of soldiers under Army Order X of May 25, 1916 
 
 » Prison life is described in the next chapter. 
 
THE HOME OFFICE SCHEME 223 
 
 sentenced to imprisonment for refusing to obey orders, is 
 as follows : — 
 
 " The first step is to sift out the cases where there 
 is prima-facie evidence to show that the offence was the 
 result of conscientious objection to military service. For 
 this purpose all court martial proceedings on conscien- 
 tious objectors will be referred for scrutiny to the War 
 Office. 
 
 " With regard to the cases of those who have been before 
 a Tribunal, the records will be consulted. If the data 
 therein are not sufficient, further investigation will be made ; 
 answers to categorical questions will be required, and those 
 who have knowledge of the men's antecedents — such as 
 ministers of religion — may be consulted. 
 
 " With regard to those who have never been before a 
 Tribunal, the first step will be to require them to answer 
 the categorical questions which the Tribunal might have 
 put. If the information is supplied, investigation will be 
 made into those answers, and for the purpose of such investiga- 
 tion, and in all cases where a prima-facie case is established 
 the Army Council will depend on the advice of the Central 
 Appeal Tribunal, or a Committee of that Tribunal, who 
 have consented to lend their assistance for this purpose. 
 If the information is refused, and in all cases where the 
 plea is not sustained, the prisoner will remain under military 
 control, his sentence will be at once commuted to detention 
 and he will be sent to a detention barracks to underg:o his 
 sentence. 
 
 " The men who are held to be genuine conscientious 
 obj ectors will he released from the civil prison on their under- 
 taking to perform work of national importance under civil 
 control. They will be transferred pro forma to Section W. 
 of the Army Reserve, and they will cease to be subject 
 to military disciphne or the Army Act so long as they 
 continue to carry out satisfactorily the duties imposed 
 upon them. 
 
 ** The Home Secretary has appointed a Committee, 
 consisting of Mr. W. Brace, M.P., Sir Thomas ElUott, K.C.B. 
 and Sir Matthew Nathan, G.C.M.G., who are now engageu 
 on the work of determining to what kind of work these men 
 
224 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 should be set and under what conditions, and to take the 
 executive action which is necessary. 
 
 " I may add to this statement two general propositions 
 which will, I hope, meet with universal acceptance. The 
 first is that all men whose objections to military service are 
 founded on honest convictions ought to be able, and will 
 be able, to avail themselves of the exemption which Par- 
 liament has provided ; and, in the second place, it is 
 necessary that men who put forward objections of this kind 
 as a pretext and cloak to cover their indifference to the 
 national call, and who are therefore guilty of the double offence 
 of cowardice and hypocrisy, should be treated, as they ought 
 to be treated, with the utmost rigour." 
 
 3. This speech reads reasonably, until you examine it 
 in the light of knowledge of the subject. The representatives 
 of the men concerned rephed to the effect that 
 
 (i) Those who had been sentenced before the recent Army 
 Order were not clearly included in the scheme. 
 
 (2) Inquisition by Tribunals having failed conspicuously, 
 
 there was little hope from a further sifting, particu- 
 larly under the War Office. 
 
 (3) There are no official reports of Tribunal proceedings 
 
 to refer to. 
 
 (4) The categorical questions will be unfairly difficult 
 
 for uneducated men. 
 
 (5) Ministers of rehgion will not be available to give 
 
 testimony for Socialists outside the Churches. 
 
 (6) This precarious test will result in further severity 
 
 among the men who are not passed as genuine. 
 
 (7) Men transferred, however formally, to Army Reserve 
 
 W. are retained in the Army and hable to recall. 
 
 (8) Those who do not pass the precarious test and are 
 
 to be treated as cowards and hypocrites will suffer 
 grave injustice. 
 
 (9) The Absolutist will refuse to make the bargain 
 
 suggested. 
 
 This was signed : For the F.S.C. by Robt. 0. Mennell, 
 hon, sec. ; Hubert W. Peet, organizing sec. For the N.C.F. 
 
THE HOME OFFICE SCHEME 225 
 
 by Clifford Allen, chairman ; A. Fenner Brock way, hon. 
 sec. For the F.O.R. by Hy. T. Hodgkin, chairman ; 
 Richard Roberts, sec. 
 
 A further forcible reply was made by Clifford Allen on 
 the leading page of the Tribunal, July, 6, 1918 : — 
 
 " As we foreshadowed some weeks ago, the Government's 
 new proposal for dealing with conscientious objectors results 
 from an entire misconception of our views and the character 
 of our protest. It had been held by many that the presence 
 of the Prime Minister at the War Office would have afforded 
 an opportunity for a more liberal understanding of this 
 complex problem. All such hopes have been dissipated, and 
 there can be little doubt that the new scheme will give rise 
 to anger and resentment in the minds of many who deplore 
 persecution but had withheld their protest in the hope 
 that some way out would be discovered by Mr. Asquith. 
 As it is, the persecution will be intensified, and brutality 
 officially encouraged as the result of a proposal which dis- 
 regards the stand already made by those who have been 
 sentenced to death, penal servitude or other penalties. One 
 might almost describe as ludicrous the proposal to institute 
 a further enquiry into the genuineness of such conscientious 
 objectors through the medium of the War Office, which 
 is the last body in the world that can or ought to deal with 
 such matters. Months will slip by whilst thousands of 
 cases are being investigated, and for a while men will linger 
 in prison and penal servitude. 
 
 " The Army Order which transferred men to the civil 
 power was welcomed on all sides by those who beheved 
 the Government had a genuine desire to solve the problem. 
 Their confidence must have been rudely shattered by the 
 complete reversal of policy initiated by the new scheme, 
 which allows the Army Council to commit such men as 
 they fail to certify as conscientious objectors to military 
 detention, to be treated with ' the utmost rigour.' 
 
 " We may now expect a new scheme to be adumbrated 
 by the Government, in order to modify further opposition 
 in the country and in the House of Commons. Meanwhile 
 persecution will continue. There is, however, every reason 
 
 15 
 
226 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 to hope that our friends and critics in Parliament are nettled 
 by the way the Government is trifling with the matter, and 
 that the Free Churches and many other sections of the 
 public will not tolerate this new attempt of the Army author- 
 ities to crush a movement, which menaces their authority 
 and contests their domination over civil rights and rehgious 
 freedom. 
 
 " Elsewhere we record our criticism of the Government 
 scheme. It only remains for us to make clear why we believe 
 the Government must always fail to settle this problem, 
 unless they extend to conscientious objectors the right to 
 absolute exemption allowed under the Military Service 
 Act. The crux of the position lies here : conscription 
 cannot be justly administered. 
 
 " Let it not be supposed for a moment that the offer 
 of civil work to the men whose consciences are recognized 
 by the War Office is likely to ease the situation. Without 
 doubt many of our members will, in all sincerity, under- 
 take that work, but it is interesting to speculate how many 
 of them, when they are in possession of the facts, will reject 
 the conditions that will probably govern their status, or will 
 agree to become a means of exploiting the Trade Union 
 Movement, or consent to abstain from giving expression 
 to their pacifist views. 
 
 "It is only natural that the final struggle will centre 
 round the men who decline to enter into such a bargain 
 with the Military Service Act, and who are entirely dis- 
 regarded by the Government proposal. None of us can yet 
 estimate what measure the Government will adopt to break 
 the spirit of these men, but all of us realize that the future 
 of Militarism in this country will be decided by the conscien- 
 tious objector, and we take courage when we hear how gladly 
 our men are accepting the penalties imposed upon them, 
 and how eager they are that we should maintain our un- 
 compromising policy. Indeed, the Fellowship is imaffected 
 by the repeated attempts of the Government to avoid doing 
 the right thing. 
 
 ** It is possible that this week many of those hitherto 
 entrusted with the work of the Fellowship will cease their 
 present work, and change the character of their service. 
 
THE HOME OFFICE SCHEME 227 
 
 We know now that nothing can happen in our absence to 
 deflect the Fellowship from its true purpose. We have been 
 urged to rest content with the witness the Fellowship has 
 so far made. May those who remain to carry on the work 
 have a like experience to our own and return the same answer 
 we have believed it right to give. 
 
 " Our strength must still rest in a full understanding 
 of each other's points of view, but we cannot compromise 
 if we hope to render effective service." 
 
 Early in August the National Committee of the N.C.F. 
 addressed the following reasoned letter to Mr. Asquith, 
 endeavouring to explain the conditions of success of the 
 alternative service proposed : — 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " Under their latest scheme for dealing with the problem 
 of the conscientious objector, the Government propose to 
 release from prison those men who agree to do work under 
 civil control, and to continue the punishment of those who 
 are unable to accept that condition. 
 
 *' As men in both these categories are included in the 
 membership for whom we speak, we consider it our duty 
 again to represent their opinions to His Majesty's Govern- 
 ment. They may be grouped as follows : — 
 
 " (i) Those who, whilst recognizing their obhgation to 
 the community, cannot admit obHgations imposed 
 as part of the Military Service Act, and therefore 
 cannot accept any form of service as an alternative 
 to military duties. 
 
 " {2) Those who cannot refuse work under civil control 
 on grounds of conscience, however much they 
 may desire to do so on grounds of policy. 
 
 " (3) Those who feel it their duty to undertake civil work 
 of national importance, even when imposed under 
 the MiUtary Service Act. 
 
 " We believe it is of the first importance that men who 
 feel called upon to accept work under civil control should 
 be satisfied that they are rendering service of real value 
 to the community. 
 
228 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 " The Tribunals are offering work of national importance 
 to some conscientious objectors, not in order to give such 
 men an opportunity of rendering useful service to the com- 
 munity, but rather as a means of inflicting some disability 
 upon them in the name of what is called * equality of sacrifice/ 
 This penalizing of men who have established the genuineness 
 of their objection to war was not contemplated by the 
 Military Service Act, which directs the Tribunals to give 
 exemption when a conscientious objection is proved. If 
 work under civil control is to take the form of what amounts 
 to a penalty instead of a service, it is bound to be rejected 
 by men who would otherwise undertake it. These men are 
 not deterred by any sacrifice which they are satisfied must 
 naturally result from the service they render. Military 
 duties are not imposed as penalties, but are conceived as 
 an honourable form of service for those who believe in war, 
 though great sacrifices must inevitably follow. The same 
 must apply in the case of those conscientious objectors who 
 can accept other forms of what they deem to be useful 
 national service." 
 
 The letter went on to explain that 
 
 *' The conditions should be that men should be set to 
 the work for which they have skill, wherever possible. 
 They should not be set to tasks connected with the organ- 
 ization of war, or which would liberate other men, hitherto 
 exempted, for the conscript Army. They should not be 
 used as blacklegs, or a labour reserve, or to maintain sweated 
 trades, or to reduce wages. Allowances to dependents 
 should be equal to those granted to soldiers' families ; ' for 
 they are not offenders undergoing punishment, but men 
 who have established a claim to a particular form of exemp- 
 tion provided by law.* Liberty for pacifist propaganda must 
 be allowed. The fullest information should be publicly 
 given before any document was presented to the men for 
 signature." 
 
 The letter proceeded : — 
 
 *' Having regard to the great variety of methods by 
 which the authorities are conducting the new enquiry amongst 
 conscientious objectors in prison, we desire to emphasize 
 
THE HOME OFFICE SCHEME 229 
 
 once again our belief that the most serious injustice must 
 follow any further investigation into the genuineness of 
 men who have already suffered for their opinions. Just 
 as the Local and Appeal Tribunals, and the Central Tribunal 
 itself in its normal working, have failed to discriminate 
 equitably between conscience and conscience, so will this 
 new enquiry inevitably force many sincere men back under 
 military control, to be treated ' with the utmost rigour ' 
 as persons ' guilty of the double offence of cowardice and 
 hypocrisy/ The sole purpose of the enquiry should be to 
 ascertain the view taken by the prisoners concerning civil 
 alternative work, in order to decide what form of exemption 
 to give them. 
 
 '* Whilst desiring justice for those of our members who 
 will accept civil work, and offering our criticism upon the 
 method so far adopted for imposing this work, we desire 
 to stress in the strongest possible terms the inevitable disaster 
 that must follow any further refusal on the part of the 
 Government to grant absolute exemption to the men who 
 cannot accept any service imposed by a Military Service Act. 
 These include many Quakers, and some of those who have 
 already faced the death sentence in France and are now 
 undergoing periods of ten years' penal servitude. To them 
 it is not the character or the conditions of the service offered 
 that affects their decision. It is not killing only to which 
 they object ; it is war, and therefore Militarism. They 
 believe it wrong to accept conditional exemption because 
 they hold it to be a bargain with a Military Service Act, 
 which to them is the most complete expression of Militarism 
 yet admitted in this country. They welcome the obligation 
 of every man to serve the community, but believe that their 
 refusal to be a party to this Act is the highest form of service 
 they can render. 
 
 '* It is these men of whom Mr. Lloyd George stated, 
 * I shall only consider the best means of making the path 
 of that class a very hard one.' Thus, for the very reason 
 that they cannot waive their conviction, they are to be 
 subjected to prolonged persecution, expressly authorized 
 by the Government with a view to breaking their determina- 
 tion to be loyal to their sense of right and wrong." 
 
280 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 This paper was signed on behalf of the National 
 Committee of the N.C.F. by Clifford Allen, chairman ; A. 
 Fenner Brockway, chairman-elect ; Edward Grubb, hon. 
 treasurer ; Catherine E. Marshall, hon. secretary. 
 
 4. During July rumours of this action in Parliament 
 were rife in the prisons, and the prospect of liberation to 
 do useful civilian work was a great encouragement. But 
 they had to wait a long time before the scheme was carried 
 out. Waiting in ignorance in prison, hoping that each day 
 might bring some announcement, the men felt the delay 
 long and hard to bear. This was characteristic of all that 
 happened to them during imprisonment. At various times 
 during August batches of men were sent up under an escort 
 to Wormwood Scrubs prison, where they were interviewed 
 individually by the Central Tribunal under Lord Salisbury. 
 They were brought, weakened and exhausted, from their 
 cells, in total ignorance of what was before them, to a 
 Tribunal within prison walls, and in the prison atmosphere. 
 The proceedings were of the briefest ; apparently about 
 three minutes to each was usual. The majority of men 
 were passed as genuine after being sent back to their prisons 
 to await the publication of the verdict concerning them. 
 Then the offer was made that the men should be trans- 
 ferred to Section W. of the Army Reserve and should 
 cease to be subject to military discipline and the Army 
 Act. Each was asked to sign the following conditions of 
 release : — 
 
 (i) He will serve the Committee for the Employment 
 of conscientious objectors (hereinafter called " the 
 Committee "), their agents or representatives, with 
 diligence and fidelity on such work of national 
 importance as the Committee may prescribe. 
 
 (2) He will reside at such place as the Committee, their 
 
 agents or representatives, may from time to time 
 determine. 
 
 (3) He will conform to such regulations as the Committee 
 
 may lay down for the due execution of the work 
 allotted to him. 
 
THE HOME OFFICE SCHEME 231 
 
 (4) He will conform to such regulations with regard 
 to conduct, and to such as are framed to secure 
 the well-being of men under similar conditions 
 to himself, as may be made by the Committee 
 or by the agents or the representatives of the 
 Committee, or as may be made by duly appointed 
 representatives of the men so working and approved 
 by the Committee. 
 
 If and when he ceases to carry out any of the foregoing 
 conditions he will be liable to complete the term of his 
 sentence. One of the regulations made was that there 
 should be no Peace propaganda. However natural on the 
 part of the Government, it was intolerable to many C.O.'s. 
 Some who refused to sign, like Howard C. Marten, were 
 nevertheless released from prison. 
 
 5. This scheme had the theoretical possibility of giving 
 relief and presenting a sensible solution of the puzzling situa- 
 tion to some at least of the men. It might have given, to 
 all men who were willing to take alternative service, a chance 
 of really serving their country during a hard time. But 
 the condition of general acceptance would have been the 
 provision of useful work and full liberty of expression, 
 for which the Government was not prepared, and which 
 it is fairly certain public opinion, as mirrored in the militant 
 Press, would not have approved of. A sensible Warden 
 of the Home Office Settlement at Wakefield, Mr. Edwin 
 Gilbert, himself a well-wisher to the men under his control, 
 defended the Settlement scheme on the ground that the 
 public would very likely use violence against any C.O.'s 
 who returned as free men to their homes. It is probable 
 that a few such incidents might have occurred, but the 
 men would have been prepared to face that. They would 
 have been willing to bear their testimony in the face of 
 violence and injury. 
 
 Whatever fair prospect of relief to conscience and work 
 of usefulness lay in the Home Office scheme as it might have 
 been, we shall find that it was rendered a failure by the 
 way it was worked, and under the influence of the military 
 
232 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 and penal spirit was, in the end, the most unsatisfactory 
 and miserable of all the Government's experiments. 
 Alternative service was made as repellent as possible, as 
 though the Government wished to multiply the number of 
 Absolutists. 
 
 The first Settlement was at the remote village of Dyce, 
 near Aberdeen, to which 250 men released on the ground that 
 they were genuine, and therefore victims of Tribunal in- 
 justice, were sent to work in granite quarries, and to transfer 
 the broken stones to where they were wanted for road metal. 
 
 As usual, it was thought that anything would be good 
 enough for these shirkers, so they were housed in tents 
 which had been condemned for use by soldiers, and which 
 were therefore considered good enough in the rainy climate 
 of the North of Scotland, for men who had been worn down 
 by some months of imprisonment and under-feeding, and 
 who were told to work ten hours a day at heavy manual 
 labour, for which many of them were unfit at any time. 
 The tents were on a hill-side which was always a sea of mud. 
 Walter Roberts of Stockport died on September 8th, after 
 a high fever and a very short illness. ^ Ultimately the men 
 sought refuge in the barns of the neighbouring farms and in 
 the village. Thence they were ordered back to their wet 
 tents. There was one large dining-tent and a recreation 
 tent, used for general meetings. Once these were both 
 blown down. The men found that they could satisfy the 
 local road officials by working in alternate shifts of two 
 and a half hours each or five hours a day. There was 
 abounding good fellowship and high spirits in spite of 
 cold and wet. At first it was at least better than prison. 
 Quakers and others in Aberdeen were very kind to the men 
 who were able to visit them, and so were the people in the 
 neighbourhood — in spite of a local newspaper. The local 
 doctor certified many men as physically unfit for the work. 
 At the week-end some of them would go down in their 
 shoddy coats and corduroy trousers to the Friends' Meeting 
 at Aberdeen. Tea was provided at the Meeting House, and 
 after the evening meeting a convenient tram took them part 
 of the six miles back. 
 
 ? V. Chapter X, 
 
THE HOME OFFICE SCHEME 28S 
 
 Finally, Dyce was given up at the end of October ; a 
 week's leave of absence was granted, with a free pass home, 
 and orders to return at the end of the week to the gaols at 
 Wakefield or Warwick — now to be transformed and known 
 as Work Centres. Dyce had become unmanageable. The 
 men were in revolt against what was offered them as work 
 of national importance ; many had, in fact, not signed the 
 promise to obey all orders ; and rules were widely disregarded. 
 A voluntary return to prison as morally preferable to these 
 Settlements had already set in. Another company of forty- 
 nine men were making a road at Keddington in Suffolk, 
 which, they became convinced, was a military road. The 
 camps were not medically organized even as well as the 
 prisons were, and many cases of gross neglect occurred, 
 due to Home Office agents and doctors being chiefly on the 
 look-out for malingerers as in their prison days. One of 
 the clearest cases of this caused the death of Bennett Wallis 
 at Newhaven in September 1917.^ 
 
 The prison at Wakefield had been transformed : the 
 locks had been taken from the doors of the cells ; dining 
 tables were placed in the broad corridors, and the warders — 
 out of uniform — acted as instructors. The doctor acted as the 
 head of the establishment. The work was the usual prison 
 work — mailbags, mats, etc. Work stopped at five in the 
 afternoons, and the six hundred men could spend their evening 
 in or out till 9.30. The Friends' Meeting House was again 
 turned into a social centre, and men were frequently wel- 
 comed at the Meeting Houses at Bradford and at Leeds. 
 For a long time the efforts of the hostile local Press did not 
 produce any hostility among the townspeople ; later on a 
 gang of roughs was organized to attack the C.O.'s as they 
 returned to the prison in the evenings. The example of 
 Knutsford, described later in this chapter, spread to Wakefield. 
 Not unconsciously, but quite intentionally, the mob there 
 decided to follow the example set with impunity at Knutsford, 
 and a riot was prepared for the Whitsuntide holidays of 
 1918. It was of the same general character as the other, 
 and need not therefore be treated in detail. It included a 
 good deal of robbery, and the windows and furniture of some 
 
 » V. Chapter X, 
 
284 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 Quaker ladies were broken. From Wakefield also the work 
 centre was withdrawn. 
 
 It must not be supposed that the Alternativists were 
 necessarily less courageous than the Absolutists remaining 
 in prison, though in such a large number must have been 
 included those whose hearts had fainted by the way, and 
 who were willing to take the easiest course when offered them. 
 All had to pass through the Army and prison before reaching 
 a Home Office camp, and it should be remembered that a 
 real shirker would in all probability have accepted the Army 
 when rejected by his Tribunal — particularly if the service 
 were non-combatant, as was offered in so many cases. These 
 remarks are made at this point because it is noticeable that 
 of the thirty-four men who had gone bravely through so 
 much in France all but three, Messrs. Beavis, Taylor and 
 Murfin, accepted the Home Office scheme. By December, 
 1916, a small group, including Cornelius Barritt, H. E. 
 Stanton and Rendel Wyatt, wrote to the Home Office to 
 say they would not continue under the scheme, and returned 
 to prison, where they stayed until April 1919. 
 
 6. During March 1917 various settlements and camps 
 were broken up and their population transferred to the 
 large convict prison at Princetown on Dartmoor, which 
 was converted into a Work Centre. The ninety convicts 
 in residence were removed elsewhere. Dartmoor was the 
 scene of the most ineffective, inglorious, tedious and 
 disheartening experience of the whole story. The men were 
 not called upon to show a brave resistance to the terrible 
 experience of prolonged hard labour, which the Absolutists 
 were suffering in the various gaols. They had larger 
 opportunities for social life among themselves, and for 
 engaging in controversies on the many issues which centred 
 round their own hostility to war. They fell into two well- 
 marked groups — ^the religious group, taking either the 
 Quaker or the Tolstoyan or the more purely Scriptural line ; 
 and the political or revolutionary group. Some of these 
 were out for the class war and were not entirely disbelievers 
 in all force ; they would, on the contrary, have fought in 
 a war against Capitalism. There were, further, those who 
 
THE HOME OFFICE SCHEME 235 
 
 were for immediate rebellion or escape — men who would 
 break all rules and stand a siege — scattered among a majority 
 of more sensible men whose heads were screwed on in the 
 usual way. Poor Mr. Brace was within the lines of truth 
 when he remarked that the C.O.'s were not all angels.* 
 
 The complete uselessness of the work set to these men 
 in the Home Office camps, causing utter waste of their 
 energies, was a cause of constant irritation to men of 
 character and spirit. A letter by Lydia S. Smith,^ written to 
 the Manchester Guardian, puts the situation very clearly : — 
 
 "... There are at the Settlement between eight and 
 nine hundred men of all shades of religious and political 
 opinion — Quakers, Churchmen, Socialists, Plymouth Brethen, 
 Tolstoyans, Internationalists, and so on ; their one common 
 belief being that war is wrong. All these men have suffered 
 imprisonment for their convictions, and all have been 
 adjudged * genuine ' by a none too friendly Tribunal sitting 
 at the prison, and have been offered this work of so-called 
 ' national importance ' on that ground. Here were men 
 genuinely anxious to render to their country every service 
 they conscientiously could, who, before they realized the 
 nature of the work, welcomed this opportunity of proving 
 themselves ready to * render to Caesar the things that are 
 Caesar's ' so long as they might also render to God the obedience 
 they felt to be God's. 
 
 ** What outlet did the Home Office find for the energies 
 of these men, who are drawn from the thoughtful section 
 of the community, whether they be doctors, accountants. 
 University men (as some of them are) or tradesmen and 
 skilled artisans ? Has the Government, which is calling 
 
 » Howard C. Marten supplies me with the following note : — 
 The classification of the " Groups " is not easy. Many of the political 
 and agnostic objectors, together with those belonging to a not inconsiderable 
 " Artistic " group, were usually ranged in general policy alongside Friends, 
 Tolstoyans and members of the F.O.R. The so-called " Religious " group 
 included a big section of International Bible Students, Plymouth Brethren 
 and others who, while excellent men individually, took little or no part in 
 the political or social life of the settlements. The most difficult section 
 were those who belonged to the Communist group and who had little real 
 sympathy for the true Pacifist position. In matters of policy these would 
 at times draw to their side many of the " Fed-Ups " and extremists of other 
 political sections. 
 
 » Now Mrs. Horton. 
 
236 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 so insistently for efficiency, made any attempt to use the 
 talents of these men in a way which will be most helpful 
 to the community ? The answer is unfortunately in the 
 negative. Not only is the work futile, but the conditions 
 under which it is performed are those most calculated to 
 discourage the worker. 
 
 *' There are attached to the prison some two thousand 
 acres of land, on which about six hundred men are 
 employed. Another two hundred are engaged on the 
 internal work of the Settlement. A few, about fifty, 
 are employed upon land reclamation under the Duchy 
 of Cornwall. The agricultural work is penal in character ; 
 that is to say, it is organized on exactly the same lines 
 as for convicts, when, labour being only too plentiful, 
 the main object was to make work, the harder and more 
 physically tiring the better. 
 
 " A few concrete examples will illustrate my meaning. 
 The crushing of oats is performed with antiquated machinery 
 of the treadmill type arranged for hands instead of feet. 
 Sixteen men are needed to work this machine and the output 
 is six bags per day. The difference in value between the 
 crushed and uncrushed oats is sixpence per bag. The 
 sixteen men have the satisfaction of knowing that their 
 * work of national importance ' has added three shillings 
 to the wealth of the community. One of the men engaged 
 on this work was, when arrested, engaged upon important 
 research work at the Royal College of Science. 
 
 " I saw a gang of eight men harnessed to a hand-roller 
 engaged in rolling a field — work that one man and a horse 
 could have performed in a third of the time. Three weeks 
 have been spent in digging a fiat field which might have 
 been ploughed in three days. The crops grown are almost 
 entirely foodstuffs for the animals with which the farm is 
 stocked, and the men have calculated that the turnips, 
 when grown, will have cost ninepence each. 
 
 " The spades, barrows, etc., are all prodigiously heavy, 
 with a view to tiring the users, and all the appliances and 
 methods are of the most antiquated nature. Applications 
 for improved appliances have been consistently refused by 
 the Home Office. The bootmakers have asked for a machine 
 
THE HOME OFFICE SCHEME 237 
 
 costing eight pounds which would save three men's work 
 per day. They are not allowed to have it. The coke for 
 the gasworks and furnaces is carted by hand, teams of 
 ten men being harnessed to a cart. And yet there appear 
 to be a large number of horses on the farm. The Home 
 Office seems deliberately to have avoided the introduction 
 of any device by which the usefulness of work might be 
 increased. ' We are merely keeping the place warm till 
 the convicts return/ said one man to me, ' and no one can 
 pretend that it is work of national importance.' 
 
 " The result of such a policy cannot fail to be that the 
 men employed feel that they have been cheated by the 
 Home Office. They wished to help the community by their 
 labour, and they are actively prevented from doing so. 
 There is absolutely no incentive to work when they cannot 
 but feel that what they are given to do is essentially punish- 
 ment work and economically valueless. In spite of this, 
 the farm bailiff has repeatedly stated that the farm work, 
 both as regards quantity and quality, is better done than 
 it was by the convicts. This is the more significant in 
 view of the fact that the food is poorer and the hours of 
 labour longer than under the old regime when convicts 
 filled the prison. ..." 
 
 7. Early in the history of Dartmoor, the Harmsworth 
 Press thought that there was material there for a popular 
 stunt against the C.O.'s. Newspaper men were sent down 
 to Princetown for the purpose of taking photographs and 
 seeking interviews. They were admitted by the authorities. 
 Articles were headed, with more regard to alliteration than 
 to accuracy, " Princetown's Pampered Pets," " Coddled 
 Conscience Men," " The C.O.'s Cosy Club." Idleness and 
 self-indulgence were freely ascribed to these worried and 
 suffering men. Interviews, mainly mythical, were printed. 
 A constant storm of questions in Parliament was directed 
 to prevent the Government from adopting any less wasteful 
 but more humane plan ; and indeed, the Parliamentary 
 attack probably produced the continually increasing severity. 
 Meetings indignantly protesting against the presence of these 
 men at Dartmoor were held in Plymouth, the nearest town. 
 
238 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 and persecution was carried on against Mr. Riley, a Non- 
 conformist minister, who was brave enough to oppose the 
 clamour. 
 
 Just at the time when the limelight was being thrown 
 upon the miserable scene at Dartmoor there occurred what 
 looks, rightly or wrongly, very like an attempt by some 
 authority to provoke violence. One of the men had, without 
 leave, taken a cup of milk from the farm to a sick comrade. 
 The authorities decided to send him back to prison for doing 
 this. They chose the one moment for his arrest most likely 
 to produce resistance. The force detailed to take away 
 the offender arrived at Dartmoor during the dinner hour, 
 when the whole population was standing about the yard, 
 full of indignation, of course, at the procedure. Then a 
 CO. suddenly called out, " Let us stone them *' — or some 
 similar incitement to violence, took up a stone and threw 
 it at one of the guards. Happily no others responded to 
 his call. This man had been a foremost inciter to extreme 
 measures in the meetings of the men. He had been elected 
 chairman of the Men's Committee at the very beginning 
 when the Settlement was small, and had tried for re-election, 
 but A. J. Mayors, a man of moderate and conciliatory views, 
 succeeded in gaining election, with Howard C. Marten as 
 secretary. After a career of incitement to violence culmi- 
 nating with the actual beginning of it, what punishment 
 would be likely to fall upon this man corresponding to 
 indefinite imprisonment for taking a cup of milk ? The 
 man mysteriously left Dartmoor that evening ; he joined the 
 Royal Engineers, and was afterwards heard of as teaching 
 telegraphy, his own business, as a soldier. I leave the 
 matter without further comment, for that is the end of 
 my knowledge. Mr. Joseph King stated in the House on 
 March 8, 1917, that he had information, both personal and 
 by numerous letters, which had satisfied him, after enquiry, 
 that " a number of police spies were set to watch and, if 
 possible, to inveigle C.O.'s into some breach of the law.'* 
 The Government spy. Booth, admitted in a libel case on 
 February, 7, 1921, that he had pretended to be " a CO. 
 on the run " under the name of Comrade Bert, though he 
 denied having acted as an agent-provocateur, and won his case. 
 
THE HOME OFFICE SCHEME 289 
 
 On the other side. Ministers were the target of hostile 
 questions from Sir. C. Kinloch-Cooke, General Page Croft 
 or Major Newman. Sir C. Kinloch-Cooke in particular 
 pursued the men at Dartmoor with a petty vindictiveness 
 which showed little balance of mind. He wanted to know 
 if they met their friends in Princetown and received food 
 from them, if they supplemented their rations by buying 
 food at the shops there ; complained of money being spent 
 on their railway fares at a time when they were earning a 
 maximum of eightpence a day with deductions for their 
 families. He complained of their meagre food allowance 
 being excessive ; objected to their being out till 9.30 ; 
 succeeded at one time in stopping the ten days' leave per 
 annum which they had, and, in fact, attempted to deprive 
 them of everything that made life externally worth living. 
 He asked that their letters should be censored and postal 
 facilities curtailed. As a member for the dockyard consti- 
 tuency at Devonport, close to Dartmoor, his line may have 
 been locally popular, as well as congenial. Though the 
 replies to the questions put from our side were often far 
 from satisfactory, the questions were a great safeguard 
 to the men in prison, particularly those whose health was 
 being undermined. If I were to record any large fraction 
 of the stories of broken health and hardship that the questions 
 record, this book would become unwieldy in length. 
 
 As the result of the Press outcry, the Dartmoor men were 
 forbidden to enter any town or village except Princetown ; 
 to travel by railway ; or to have Christmas leave, Christmas 
 being then imminent and their families expecting them. 
 The first leave of four working days had been granted after 
 three months' service, and after a year's service a week had 
 been allowed, until it was later withdrawn. In addition 
 to the poor food, lodging and clothing, a wage of eightpence 
 a day was paid for pocket money. The only provision for 
 the families of the men was a very small allowance granted 
 on the recommendation of the Poor Law Relieving Officer. 
 In these cases the men's wages were reduced to twopence 
 per day. Truly it was a wonderfully economical Government, 
 in some spending departments. It was admitted in the 
 House that the labour of the men at Dartmoor did not pay 
 
240 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 for their maintenance. Mr. Brace gave the total gross cost 
 of the scheme to the State at £92,306 17s. iid. from 
 August 1916 to October 31, 1917, or about £1,500 per week. 
 A more detailed estimate was made from official figures by 
 some of the interned men who had access to them. They 
 put the gross annual cost of the Dartmoor Centre alone at 
 £62,000, and the Labour value of the product at convict 
 prison rates at £15,900. These averages were obtained 
 from the actual figures for April, May and June 1917. It 
 shows Dartmoor to have cost the nation about £900 a week, 
 roughly £1 a head, besides the loss of the labour of the 
 men at their proper skilled occupations. 
 
 8. Dartmoor took less than one-third of the total number 
 of men under the Home Office scheme. At Broxburn, 
 near Edinburgh, a number of men were employed in making 
 manure from bones and carcasses of animals, to which 
 chemicals were added. They had to pull the raw material 
 to pieces with a pick and shovel and remove it in wheel- 
 barrows. Finally, the dtist, which was the final product, 
 had to be caught in bags by two men and weighed. Naturally 
 the smell was foul, and the dust produced much bronchial 
 trouble. The men coughed up green matter. This work 
 had been generally done by casuals, who passed through, 
 and only stood it for a day or two. The men got up at 
 half-past four, and were housed in a model lodging-house 
 a mile and a half from the manure factory. There was 
 only one room for meals, dressing and recreation. Their 
 evil-smelling clothes had to be hung in this room all the 
 time. No private house would take them in, because of the 
 bad smell. The latrines were public, insanitary, and in 
 the middle of the cubicles. There was no opportunity of 
 having a bath, and they had to ask for pegs to be put up for 
 their clothes. All their baggage was bundled on the floor. 
 Here worked Dr. J. C. McCallum, a Graduate in Arts and 
 in Medicine of Edinburgh, who had been awarded the 
 Scholarship given to the best Graduate in Surgery of his 
 year. He could easily have obtained exemption as a doctor. 
 It happens also that he was a leading Scottish football player. 
 Such was the way in which the Government, bent only on 
 
THE HOME OFFICE SCHEME 241 
 
 punishment, utilized the most skilled and most necessary 
 services at a time when there were not enough doctors to 
 go round. His father, the Rev. Malcolm McCallum, says 
 that his son expressed his disapproval of the hard usage 
 undergone by the ordinary employees at the manure works, 
 and showed a spirit of independence displeasing to the 
 overseer. He was sent back to prison. 
 
 There was also a road-making gang at Ballachulish, 
 a well-known Highland spot. That included the local 
 schoolmaster, turned into a navvy. There were several 
 places in Wales where men were put to quarrying, such 
 as Llanddeusant and Llanon. From one of these there was 
 finally discharged, ill, Ernest Charlesworth, a cotton operative 
 from Hyde, now spending his days in a hospital, in consump- 
 tion, due to the hardships of the compound. Another from 
 Rochdale, Frank Davenport, of sedentary occupation, I used 
 to meet in the gaol at Manchester and came to know him 
 well. He had been sent back from one of these Welsh 
 Centres for being one of a large group of men who refused 
 to go to their distant work in a snowstorm. For this offence 
 he suffered more than two years' imprisonment. Another 
 young man, named Wolstencroft, of the highest character, 
 from Farn worth in Lancashire, had fled back to prison at 
 Manchester on account of the callous neglect, in the matter 
 both of nursing and of feeding, which he had suffered in a 
 serious illness at Llanelly. He was ill with indigestion, was 
 left alone in his lodging, had an unsuitable diet for four 
 days, and when on his sick-bed was ordered to report some 
 miles away. 
 
 Other camps were at Denton, Chelsea, Sutton, Loch Awe, 
 Sunk Island, Grimsby and Hornsea, and small groups 
 elsewhere. The list is not complete ; many Settlements 
 were temporary. 
 
 9. After a long time some of the men were gradually 
 allowed to go out to work under private employers, provided 
 the work was of the kind for which they were ill suited. 
 Unless they contrived to find a place with sympathetic 
 friends, as they did sometimes in spite of the vigilance of 
 Mr. Brace's Committee, they were practically enslaved. 
 
 16 
 
242 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 The employers paid full wages and the Committee took 
 the difference between that and the small allowance to the 
 slave, who, at any time, if he displeased his master, could 
 be sent back to prison. This plan was worked in truly char- 
 acteristic fashion. It began by compulsory transfers at 
 the close of 1917 — true serfdom in a land of Trades Unions. 
 This led to many returns to prison, and widespread irritation. 
 A better plan began at the beginning of 1919, and was 
 applied to those men who had served twelve months under 
 the Committee. The man might not go out to seek work, 
 but if his friends found it for him in his absence, he might 
 apply for leave to take it. The range of work allowed 
 was at first very narrow, and the scheme was very slow in 
 realization, every difficulty being put in its way. I failed 
 to secure men to whom I offered employment. Later 
 on it was worked more liberally, and before the end was 
 extensively used. After many months of agitation and 
 several appeals to the Home Office, a number of men were 
 allowed to work with the Friends' War Victims' Relief 
 Committee. 
 
 One of the numerous incongruities of this persecution 
 arose from the fact that men who were fortunate enough 
 to have been handed over to the guidance of the Pelham 
 Committee to begin with, instead of being sent to prison 
 by way of non-combatant service, were many of them 
 employed under tolerable circumstances, and doing, if not 
 their proper work, at least something useful under conditions 
 of practical freedom. This although they were in reality 
 indistinguishable in their character and views from the 
 sufferers under the Home Office Committee. 
 
 Among the worst forms of waste which the system 
 entailed was that the farms and market gardens previously 
 worked by C.O.'s went out of cultivation all over the country 
 at a time when every nerve was being strained to produce 
 food by ploughing more land and working on allotments. 
 If space permitted, numerous instances of these derelict 
 farms could be mentioned.^ 
 
 » See pamphlet on Home Office Compounds, by Ernest E. Hunter, 
 published by the N.C.F. ; and The Conscientious Objector and the Waste ojf 
 Natural Sources, by C. G. Ammon. (National Labour Press.) 
 
THE HOME OFFICE SCHEME 248 
 
 J. S. Perry, a Cornish farmer, who owned thirty acres and 
 rented two hundred more, was put into gaol, though he had 
 no one to leave on the farm, nor any relatives to look after 
 his interests. This means ruin to a farmer. The military 
 authorities of Exeter promised to let him go back on condition 
 that he attested before leaving the barracks. The nation 
 and the Army would in this way not benefit at all, but 
 the soul and conscience of the man was to be violated. 
 Mr. Perry declined the bribe. Yet after this the Central 
 Tribunal at Wormwood Scrubs, with great penetration, 
 required two testimonials to the reality of his conscientious 
 objection, and he appealed from gaol to a Quaker chaplain 
 to help him to get them. 
 
 The waste of teachers was as marked as that of doctors 
 and farmers. Numerous cases are mentioned in Mr. Ammon's 
 pamphlet. A friend of mine in the gaol at Manchester, a 
 Cambridge graduate, had been turned out of his post as 
 assistant master at a preparatory school near Malvern, 
 and his place taken by a young accountant who had been 
 allowed by an indulgent tribunal to do teaching as work 
 of national importance. This was a type of hundreds of 
 cases. 
 
 Of course the prisons as well as the Home Office 
 compounds were full of instances of this kind of waste. 
 Malcolm Sparkes, a Friend, the originator of the Parhament 
 of the Building Industry, on whose plans Mr. Whitley and 
 his Committee built up the Whitley Councils, refused to 
 be exempted as the head of his business and was sent to 
 prison. He was released a little before the others because 
 the King happened to ask who was the author of the WTiitley 
 Council scheme. There were few men in England whose 
 help at that crisis would have been more valuable to the 
 country. 
 
 10. The Home Office Committee was under the chair- 
 manship of Mr. William Brace, M.P., one of the Labour 
 members who supported the Government in the war. 
 Originally a miner, he had become a miners' agent in South 
 Wales, and his clients had sent him to Parliament. He 
 never replied to numerous letters which I sent him pointing 
 
244 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 out hardships or asking for rehef for the various men who 
 were working under him. His services in 1920 in assisting 
 to settle the coal strike brought him such criticism from 
 the extreme party among the miners that he went over to 
 the other side, and has become Labour Adviser to the 
 Government. He was, unfortunately, not gifted for dealing 
 with conscientious objectors. It may be gladly acknowledged 
 that in the intention of the Government, and in the hands 
 of its first Committee, the scheme pointed to a genuine 
 amelioration. 
 
 It was generally believed that the Chairman was not 
 much more than a figure-head, and that his two colleagues. 
 Major (now Sir George) Terrell, M.P., and Major Briscoe, 
 M.P., were the true tyrants. They, unfortunately, took the 
 place of more sympathetic men who were on the Committee 
 to begin with. The Committee was in effect an Army 
 Committee, under retired soldiers, and its sole idea was to 
 trample on the men at its mercy, supported by the skill 
 of Sir George (now Lord) Cave, the Home Secretary, in 
 keeping the House of Commons in ignorance by evasive 
 answers to questions. Seeing that the whole point of the 
 scheme was that it was to be under civil control, the appoint- 
 ment of ex-majors as its controllers was very like other 
 uncomprehending actions of the Government. 
 
 After paying visits to the camps, Major Terrell left behind 
 him everywhere a trail of resentment ; his one idea was 
 to make it as hard as possible for the men. After one of 
 his visits to Wakefield, Edwin Gilbert, the sympathetic 
 agent of the Home Office there, and leading Adult School 
 organizer among Friends, felt it his duty to resign his charge 
 (October 6, 1917). 
 
 II. The central grievance of the men in the Home Office 
 camps was their liability to be returned to prison for any 
 trivial irregularity. They and their champions pointed 
 out that they had been passed as genuine, and that under 
 the Military Service Act, upon which all the powers of Mr. 
 Brace's Committee depended, they were given the liberty 
 of doing work of national importance. This view was 
 taken by Mr. R. A. Griffith, the Stipendiary Magistrate 
 
THE HOME OFFICE SCHEME 245 
 
 for Merthyr, who refused to return to the Army a man 
 named Henry Thomas who came before him. The fact 
 was that in the eyes of the Committee the men were 
 prisoners already, under a mihtary regime. Major Terrell, 
 whose appointment on the Committee was the beginning 
 of worse days, made a disturbance at Wakefield because 
 the men had lifted their plank beds a little way from the 
 ground on boxes, and because they had too many books in 
 their cells. These are exactly the ideas of the Governor of a 
 gaol. The result of the system was that hardly a day 
 passed without men being sent back to prison. News 
 Sheet (an organ issued at Dartmoor for private circulation) 
 No. II gives particulars of twenty-six cases. The offences 
 were : — 
 
 Outstaying leave for half a day or more ; going to 
 work three minutes late, coupled with " insolence," which 
 was denied ; refusing to work under a private employer 
 because it was indentured labour or industrial slavery ; 
 leaving work when soaked to the skin and fearing serious 
 illness ; writing two letters to the Western Morning News 
 defending the CO. position when the Press campaign of 
 lying was going on ; going to work indoors at making mail- 
 bags when wet to the skin outside — in this case the man's 
 mother, who was an invalid and dependent upon him, 
 had her separation allowance withdrawn. For being ten 
 minutes late for work a man was fined a fortnight's pay, 
 and for then refusing to work for a fortnight was sent back 
 to prison ; another man was sent for refusing to promise 
 to abstain from Peace propaganda. 
 
 12. The charge of idleness, wilful slacking, with a 
 determination to bring the Home Office detention camps 
 to an end, was the subject of great controversy during the 
 spring and summer of 1917. Let us try to realize the 
 psychological situation. The plan these men had accepted 
 was that, their genuineness being recognized, they were to 
 be put to do useful civil work for which they were suitable, 
 with a wide measure of freedom, and with the prospect of 
 being really useful to the nation in its time of strain. They 
 were all physically run down, many of them emaciated by 
 
246 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 prison diet ; they had spent months under a system which 
 aimed at suppressing their personaHty and weakening their 
 self-control. They were suddenly turned out in droves to 
 gaols like Princetown on Dartmoor or Wakefield, where 
 they found no organization for employment ready. " We 
 came to Princetown and found the Settlement in a state 
 of chaos ; order was unknown, labour was of a desultory 
 character. (It is still.) None cared how the new * shop ' 
 of the Government progressed. Topsy-turvydom reigned 
 supreme." ^ There was nothing to do but to loaf about in 
 deep disappointment over the prospect before them. At 
 Dartmoor the warders unearthed one after another of the 
 penal tasks formerly set to convicts, and called for volun- 
 teers, of whom there were always an abundant supply. 
 Doing nothing was the most miserable job of all. At this 
 juncture it was that the Harms worth Press, with the consent 
 of the Government,* sent down its interviewers and its 
 photographers and began their ** stunt." The public — 
 already prejudiced — were quite easily taken in. Those 
 who were anxious for the good name of the movement were 
 particularly solicitous that there should be no conscious 
 attempt to wreck the scheme by the C.O.'s who had accepted 
 it. A general meeting of the men at Dartmoor passed the 
 following resolution on May 17, 19 17, signed by Howard 
 C. Marten, hon. sec. : — " This meeting repudiates the charge 
 that a policy of slacking is, or has been, pursued at this 
 Settlement, and declares that the men here are prepared to 
 perform the work provided in a reasonable spirit, but 
 protests against the penal character of the work imposed 
 by the Home Office Committee and demands civil work of 
 real importance with full civil rights." This may stand 
 as a corporate statement of the Alternativist position. 
 
 The Executive Committee of the N.C.F. did all that 
 they could to guide the men into wise counsels, quiet ways 
 and loyal obedience to the scheme they had accepted. 
 Members of the Committee visited the chief Centres at 
 the beginning of 19 17, and sent round a circular letter on 
 March 3rd. They also took steps to assure the Government 
 
 » Ben Hyman in News Sheet No. g. 
 
 » According to C. H. Norman's letter. News Sheet No. 8, p. 7. 
 
THE HOME OFFICE SCHEME 247 
 
 that neither the official movement itself nor any considerable 
 fraction of it was likely to depart from their principles of 
 passive endurance. In May resolutions were passed at 
 men's meetings at Dartmoor and at all the other Centres 
 but one, deploring any conscious slackness or sabotage. 
 Some severe letters from Mr. C. H. Norman, who was at 
 Dartmoor, to his colleagues on the Executive Committee 
 on this subject may be found in No. 8 of the News Sheet. 
 He thought the Executive were giving in too much to 
 the Government. Thus, while there was often compulsory 
 unemployment in the camps, due to the Home Office not 
 fulfilling its responsibility for organizing it, there was little 
 wilful idleness. A Daily Mail man, intent on criticism, easily 
 mistook the one for the other. 
 
 Being congenitally blind to the minds of the men who 
 had fallen into their hands, it appeared to the Brace 
 Committee that it would be a good thing to grade them 
 according to their character ; to give the good boys of Class A 
 one shilling a day on condition that they exercised control 
 over the others and kept them up to their work. It was 
 supposed that for a mess of pottage some of the more orderly 
 ones. Friends and religious objectors generally, might be 
 induced to keep in order exuberant and rebellious Socialists, 
 who were meantime to be graded in pay down to fourpence 
 a day, in order to make the whole scheme cost nothing 
 extra. This precious scheme of creating a number of lance- 
 corporals and sergeants-major was universally repudiated. 
 Part of the scheme was that the agents were to have power 
 to order overtime at twopence an hour and to make up 
 time lost by weather, on fine nights and Saturday afternoons, 
 with an extra penny an hour as consolation pay. 
 
 About this time men were voluntarily leaving the 
 settlements and camps at the rate of twenty per week. 
 William Watson, the chairman of the special Committee 
 at Dartmoor, left the place in order to put the position before 
 influential Trade Union officials. He knew, of course, 
 that he would be sent to prison, though he was in a bad 
 state of health. 
 
 The withdrawal of the leave which they had been promised 
 was regarded as a breach of faith on the part of Messrs, 
 
248 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 Brace, Terrell and Briscoe. A protest was signed by six 
 hundred settlers, but the Home Office sent no reply. 
 
 After such incidents had kept up a constant irritation, 
 a group of men were sent to South Molton to fell timber. 
 The agent, on their arrival, said that he wanted expert timber 
 fellers, not clerks and schoolmasters ! They had to walk 
 twelve miles a day to and from work. Shortly they were 
 returned by the agent as unsuitable. This was treated 
 as an offence on their part ; they were fined two weeks' wage 
 and had to pay their return railway fare and receive nothing 
 for the time they were at South Molton. This cost them 
 varying sums between one and two guineas — which is 
 serious for men at eightpence per day. A number of similar 
 cases occurred, 
 
 13. Under the incitement of the Press campaign, there 
 were various lynchings. At Lyndhurst the wounded soldiers 
 at the Military Hospital manifested hostility. " We were 
 punched and pelted, knocked down and kicked and sneered 
 at by hundreds of soldiers and civilians. Two of us, I and 
 another fellow, were thrown over a bridge into a river, a 
 drop of about 14 feet, and afterwards pelted and knocked 
 down. Our luggage also was thrown into the river and 
 nearly everything was lost or spoilt.*' At Lyme Regis 
 too, to take an account given by a local Alderman, a riot 
 was incited by a number of women and girls. Afterwards 
 the men who had suffered from it were punished for it on 
 the ground that they had irritated some soldiers, the fact 
 being that they had a friendly conversation with some 
 wounded soldiers during the afternoon, and the trouble 
 did not arise until the evening. 
 
 An extensive riot occurred at the Work Centre at 
 Knutsford, the culmination of growing friction between 
 the C.O.'s and the hooligans of the town. It occurred on 
 two successive evenings, and though the police had grave 
 warning of the second day, they took no precautions for 
 protection. The riot had every appearance of being 
 organized. A crowd occupied the streets around the Centre 
 and knocked down and kicked and broke the heads and 
 tore the clothes and smashed the bicycles of the men as 
 
THE HOME OFFICE SCHEME 24d 
 
 they came in. Eighteen wounded men were treated that 
 night in the hospital. The number would have been much 
 larger but that the agent sent warning out to men approach- 
 ing the town to keep away, and well-concerned residents 
 received them into their homes. One policeman told a 
 man lying battered and helpless on the road that he was 
 " to get into his kennel," and many cases are mentioned 
 in a letter to the Home Secretary from the Secretary of the 
 men's Council, dealing with the inaction of the police. 
 They did, however, arrest altogether ten young men, who 
 were brought before Judge Mellor for the riot. The Super- 
 intendent of Police, in the witness box, said that there was 
 no evidence of organized disturbance, intimated that the 
 private feeling of the police, if they had followed it out, 
 would have been in favour of the rioters, made much of 
 the walking sticks carried by the C.O.'s, and much of the 
 fact that fifty of them left the prison about eight o'clock in 
 order to protect their friends as they came in. The witness 
 thought that was ** asking for trouble," and Judge Mellor 
 remarked that — considering the state of local feeling — it 
 was literally trailing their coats before the townspeople. 
 The Inspector said he had heard of the Conchies insulting 
 wounded soldiers and jostling them ofi the footpath, and 
 had received complaints of their insulting and interfering 
 with ladies, and that this had been a pretty common practice 
 with them ; he had also heard that a Mrs. Williams had 
 been struck on the jaw by a Conchie in front of the prison. 
 All this hearsay was wholly unconfirmed by any evidence, 
 and by all the principles of our courts, should have been 
 promptly suppressed by the Judge. 
 
 Judge Mellor said that the Bench had seen for them- 
 selves " the provocative behaviour of the men " (whatever 
 that might mean), and went on to describe it as *' lolling 
 about, and being allowed out till 9.30 at night," " so that 
 it did not require much to put a match to popular opinion." 
 He bound over the defendants in their own recognizances 
 to keep the peace for six months ; that is, they were let 
 off. The Judge added that he hoped these unwelcome 
 visitors would soon be sent to the right-about, and the 
 magistrate at once announced that they were all about 
 
250 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 to be removed. " We hope and believe," he added, amid 
 the cheers of the company, ** that Knutsford will very shortly 
 be rid of these nuisances." Neither the British public nor 
 British justice can be greatly commended for this incident. 
 
 14. Lord Parmoor, all through the long Parliamentary 
 struggle, represented fearlessly and with all the weight 
 of his great ability and legal standing, the cause of the 
 oppressed in the House of Lords. His service will always 
 remain memorable. An interesting debate on the whole 
 question was raised by him in the House of Lords on April 30, 
 1918. He moved a resolution to the effect that the non- 
 combatant work of conscientious objectors should be service 
 of national value and not merely of a penal character ; 
 also that the total term of imprisonment should not exceed 
 a fixed limit. This debate was one of the expressions of 
 the widespread unrest felt among thoughtful people as 
 the months and years went by and the men in prison were 
 reaching one by one the limit of their endurance. He quoted 
 one who had known them intimately, who said, " They are 
 going downhill on a very steep gradient, the speed is acceler- 
 ated, health is broken, nerves are unstrung, and their mental 
 vision is clouded." He described the work of two bodies 
 of men in two adjoining courts in Dartmoor prison. In 
 one court they were taking up the stones, and in the next 
 court they were putting them down, and then they were 
 changed across from one to the other. Lord Parmoor was 
 supported by Viscount Bryce, the Bishop of Oxford and 
 Earl Russell. Viscount Peel, in reply, made the most of the 
 Government's plan — which by that time was being carried 
 out — to scatter the Dartmoor men, who had served there 
 a year, among private employers. This was a useful con- 
 cession but far too small and too late to meet the need. 
 It was carried out, like everything else under conscription, 
 in a rigid, inhuman way. The work was to be twenty-five 
 miles from home, except with the consent of the local 
 authority, or on account of exceptional skill. One of the 
 men being thus distributed was the son of parents over 
 seventy, one crippled and one blind. Their other sons 
 had been killed in the war, and this survivor was the only 
 
THE HOME OFFICE SCHEME 251 
 
 one left to manage the fish-shop in Knutsford by which the 
 family lived. But it had not pleased the Brace Committee 
 to consider shopkeeping work of national importance, so 
 he was compelled to seek other work elsewhere. 
 
 No one can look back upon the Home Office scheme 
 with satisfaction. To the men under it it did not give 
 the reaction of relief after prison which the Absolutist who 
 resisted to the end feels now. Indeed, it goes far to justify 
 his Absolutism, at any rate as a practical policy. To the 
 men who accepted it, it was the collapse of a plan under 
 which they had hoped to be enrolled in the community as 
 useful members of the national fellowship. The best that 
 can be said for it is that the physical and mental improve- 
 ment it made in the lot of some thousands of prisoners 
 prevented breakdowns, madness or death in a large number 
 of cases. These sad culminations of prison conditions we 
 must now describe, in chapters dealing with the Absolutists 
 and others who remained in prison. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 PRISON 
 
 I. Treatment 
 
 We now come to the other group of objectors, known as 
 Absolutists, who refused even civilian work when it was 
 offered by Tribunals. Like the Alternativists, they had 
 been handed over to be broken in the Army, and like the 
 Alternativists they had emerged unbroken, and were lodged 
 with them in civil prisons. But, unlike the Alternativists, 
 they believed it their duty to refuse the offer of the Home 
 Office scheme when it was made to them after examination 
 by the Central Tribunal in prison. Consequently, as we 
 shall see, they remained in prison until six months after the 
 end of the war. 
 
 Along with the Absolutists in their experience of prolonged 
 imprisonment there were nearly three hundred men who had 
 either been pronounced not genuine by the Tribunals or had 
 returned to prison, for punishment or by their own act, 
 from the Home Office Settlements, or who were in prison 
 for reasons unknown. Detailed particulars will be found 
 in the chapter on Statistics. 
 
 I. Prisons all conform to type. Behind the vast wall 
 with its spiky rim of iron bars is an open space within which 
 the prison building proper stands. The entrance porch 
 in the outside wall is large enough to hold a prison van, 
 and is locked at both ends ; so that both gates rarely need 
 to be open at once. The inner gate is in an iron framework 
 of bars, which project out from the gatehouse into the 
 open space, so that any prisoners escaping to the right or 
 left, or any violent groups, may be under fire. On a seat 
 
 252 
 
PRISON: I 253 
 
 in the porch wait the relatives of prisoners who have come 
 on a visit. 
 
 In the open space stands the building where visits take 
 place. At one side of a double row of stalls enters the 
 prisoner, at the back of the stall ; at the other side enters 
 the visitor. But they do not meet in the middle. Two 
 thicknesses of wirework intervene ; and up and down between 
 them walks a warder, who has to see that the talk is only 
 of domestic affairs. At Wandsworth and at other places 
 where " improved " boxes are in use the warder walks up 
 and down behind the prisoners. In this way, in a poor 
 light, meet the separated faces of husband and wife, the 
 prisoner's ugly with a stubbly beard and a hateful cap 
 and jacket covered with broad arrows. They have twenty 
 minutes for the first visit, half an hour afterwards. Later, 
 however, to the C.O.'s happier times were allowed, in a 
 room in the prison, the two separated only by a table, and 
 the warder between. But warders are kindly, sometimes 
 sleepy, or temporarily at the other side of the door. 
 
 In this open space also is the " reception." Here a 
 kindly or a bullying warder may make all the difference to 
 a fellow beginning his prison experience. Here you strip, 
 bathe, don prison dress and are examined by the doctor 
 and registered in various big books. 
 
 The prison proper, if modern, is built like a starfish, the 
 halls radiating from the centre like the spokes of a wheel. 
 Wormwood Scrubs is an exception, and consists of four 
 parallel halls. The hub, the " centre," is the seat of control, 
 where a warder is on duty all the time. You have one 
 more carefully locked door to pass before you reach it. From 
 the centre the whole interior is in view. A lofty skylight 
 is above it, a perhaps hexagonal table is in the centre. This 
 is on the first floor, and has a dark central cellar-like place 
 below it, whence the punishment cells are reached. These 
 latter are under a hall floored across on the level of the 
 centre, making the basement dark. But most halls are 
 open from skylight to basement, and the cells on the upper 
 floors are reached by narrow railed gangways along the 
 sides of the hall, to which there is access by spiral staircases 
 at the centre. Lest anyone should commit suicide by 
 
254 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 throwing himself from these passages a wire network is 
 stretched across, to catch a falHng object gently. Out 
 of these passages, or out of the hall, open the cell doors. 
 There may be forty in a row, and four rows on each side, or 
 320 cells to each hall. On one floor are the men under 
 observation, dangerous to themselves or others. Here a 
 warder in felt slippers passes from one peephole in a door 
 to another, and is never absent. It is a corridor of concen- 
 trated misery. 
 
 The lower floors are usually occupied, the upper ones 
 left vacant ; for prisons are not usually full. During 
 war-time prisoners were few. When demobilization began 
 the governors prepared more cells. There is more light 
 and air on the top floors, but they are not so easily accessible, 
 and convenience to oflicials counts every time. The prisoners 
 come second. The usual outlook from the bottom windows 
 of lower cells is on to brick walls not far off. Sunlight is 
 the enemy of tuberculosis. No wonder some CO. prisoners 
 contracted this disease. On the corridors work in association 
 takes place, each man sitting silent on his stool by his cell 
 door, sewing mailbags. Other men are in workshops, or 
 moving stones about in the yard. 
 
 2. The cells measure 11 to 14 feet by 7 : just broad enough 
 to hold a bed board across them. They have generally a 
 floor of square tiles or rough black concrete, (at Wormwood 
 Scrubs there were some boarded), walls of brick, painted 
 and glazed, so that the dirt cannot stick to them, nor writing 
 on them be easy. They are ugly in colour, of coarse yellows 
 and browns. The upper part may be whitewashed merely. 
 At spring cleaning time prisoners may be told to scrub 
 these with their hairbrushes. The window is nearly as 
 broad as the cell, but small from top to bottom ; and high 
 up, so that you have to stand on the stool to look out. This 
 is forbidden. Sometimes the windows are of ribbed glass, 
 put in arbitrarily, with cruel disregard of what it means 
 to a prisoner. The door has a most elaborate lock and a 
 spyhole from outside, so that there is no secure privacy. 
 Hubert Peet was spied on when he was saying his prayers, 
 and accused by the warder of using " foul langwidge." 
 
PRISON: I 255 
 
 Privacy is a condition of individuality, and the central 
 effect of prison life — though, I think, not its intention- 
 is to destroy individuality. The cell is lighted in some 
 large prisons by electricity, with the bulb inside, but usually 
 by a gas jet in the wall by the door, lit from the corridor 
 outside, and giving light into the cell through a thick pane 
 of obscure glass. If gas were lit in the cells, men might 
 easily commit suicide by turning it on unlighted ; and it 
 would be at all times inconvenient to turn on and off. The 
 light is ordinarily sufficient to read by. But we were living 
 in darkened air during the war, from fear of Zeppelins ; 
 and the prison windows must not give the faintest light. 
 But curtains or blinds meant expense and trouble. So 
 in one gaol at least the device was adopted — at the expense 
 of the prisoner's allowance of light — of blacking over the 
 pane of thick glass, except a piece at the bottom, so that 
 the outside window was in gloom, and the whole cell too, 
 except a small place by the light. There, close to the door, 
 the man had to set his table, in order to read. 
 
 There is a bell in each cell to ring on emergency, but 
 it is not always promptly attended to ; and woe betide 
 the ringer on any occasion not deemed serious. Its handle 
 is so arranged in a downward curve that no rope could be 
 hung on it. When there is to be an execution in prison, 
 it upsets the nerves of the prisoners. I have visited cell 
 after cell, and found the men taken out of their usual dull 
 patience, and alive with shocked suffering. They shivered 
 to think that a fellow-prisoner was being killed close by. 
 
 The cell contains a movable sleeping board, made of 
 planks. The mattress and blankets are carefully rolled 
 up in a prescribed manner during the day, and the board 
 is reared against the wall. There is a tank provided in most 
 prisons where these boards can be periodically soaked in 
 disinfectant to destroy the bugs which sooner or later seem 
 to make their home in the cracks. There is a corner shelf 
 containing simple eating tools and a few books. These 
 have to be arranged in a prescribed form. No slightest 
 use of volition or personality must come in. The spoon 
 and tin knife must lean against one another in the proper 
 way or a miUtary-minded governor may object. The 
 
256 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 tin knife is bendable. It will not cut a throat. No fork is 
 allowed. I suppose it would be dangerous. Food is handed 
 out in a tin. The prisoner washes his enamel plate in cold 
 water after each meal. The books are a Bible, a Prayer- 
 Book, a Hymn-Book, a childish book of an Anglican devo- 
 tional character, an educational work (that is, something 
 not fiction), and, when allowed after the first month, one 
 other library book ; after the second month, two. Poems 
 may or may not be counted fiction. Reading is the one 
 mental solace of prison life. Books are changed weekly 
 after the first month, except *' educational " books, which 
 last a month. The amount of choice you have is irregular. 
 You cannot always, but sometimes you can, get what you 
 ask for from the prison library. This helplessness under 
 the whim of officials is one of the most trying and undignified 
 features of imprisonment. The libraries at the larger prisons 
 are not bad collections. If a man's friends are allowed 
 to send him books, after permission from the Prison Commis- 
 sioners, they are sent to the prison library and must stay 
 there. This enrichment of the libraries was a profit to the 
 nation. The thirty-nine volumes of the magnificent Library 
 Edition of Ruskin are in the Pentonville prison library. 
 Mr. Arnold Lupton, a former Liberal Member of Parliament, 
 had them in to read when he was in prison there. 
 
 In response to a request from my friends in the gaol 
 at Manchester, I presented half a dozen Friends' books, 
 selected from the devotional writings of those dangerous 
 men, William Penn, Rufus Jones and Edward Grubb. The 
 Chaplain, who controls the library, refused to admit them 
 unless by instruction from the Prison Commissioners. Here 
 he was quite in order. I wrote to that cold and difficult 
 authority, but obtained no reply for many weeks. Being 
 somewhat on my mettle, I wrote again. A fortnight later 
 came permission for their use " for Quaker prisoners only." 
 Those words were therefore written on the front leaf of each, 
 and my men got them at last. No ordinary wife-beater, 
 however, was to be corrupted by reading such immoral 
 authors. It was all very characteristic of the Prison 
 Commission. 
 
 On the walls hang some cards of prison rules, and if 
 
PRISON: I 257 
 
 you know the rule, which is not on the card, you may have, 
 again after the first hard month, four unframed photographs 
 of cabinet size to look at — a really merciful concession. 
 You may also change them. 
 
 There is a small table and a stool with no back. One 
 or two sanitary pails, bright and speckless, complete the 
 outfit of the cell. Everything has to be kept perfectly clean. 
 One of the small panes of the barred windows generally 
 opens. When it happens not to, the suffering is great. 
 
 In this place, alone, you spend twenty-three hours ten 
 minutes out of the twenty-four in the first month of your 
 sentence, hungry much of the time. You get little 
 exercise, and probably suffer from indigestion, headache 
 or sleeplessness. The entire week-end is solitary unless 
 you attend chapel. After the first month you have 
 thirty minutes' exercise on Sunday. You would go mad 
 but for the work. You sit and stitch canvas for mail- 
 bags. Your fingers begin by being sore and inflamed ; 
 but they become used to it. At first your daily task 
 can hardly be managed in the day. You struggle hard to 
 get the reward of a large mug of cocoa and piece of bread 
 at eight at night. It will save you from hunger all night ; 
 for your previous food — I cannot call it a meal — had been 
 at 4. 15. This extra ration, which varied and was not universal, 
 was a war-time incentive to produce work of national im- 
 portance. It was cut off as a war economy in 19 18. There 
 appears to have been variety in detail. In time, however, 
 the work becomes less in quantity, and, from practice, 
 easier. In my own experience the C.O.'s were treated 
 leniently in this matter, but this was not always so. Most 
 of those I knew became able after practice to do their day's 
 task under the concessions of December 1917 quite easily, 
 indeed by midday. Before that date the task was longer 
 and harder. 
 
 The prison day begins at 5.30 a.m. and the cells are 
 locked for the night at 4.40 p.m. Since the war the day 
 begins later, to give the warders an eight-hour day. Every 
 morning each man has to carry his pail of slops and empty 
 it as a sort of drill, and clean out his cell. In some prisons 
 cleaners take away slops. 
 
 17 
 
258 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 3. After " breakfast " comes forty-five minutes* exercise, 
 in some gaols less. The exercise yards occupy the spaces 
 between the spokes of the wheel. They are arranged in 
 circular flagged walks ; and round and round these, in single 
 file, march the prisoners. They are separated by a couple 
 of yards or more, so that they cannot talk to one another 
 without risk of being caught by the warders on their high 
 posts of observation. But they do talk. It is their one 
 chance of doing so. In a conspicuous position on the exercise 
 ground stands a clump of w.c.'s. One sees the physiological 
 purpose of exercise, and begins to feel like an animal. At 
 any other time leave has to be asked for this purpose, and 
 it is not always granted. In practice you cannot ordinarily 
 visit the w.c. between 4.40 p.m. and next morning, but 
 must use the pail in the cell. 
 
 The rule of silence is the crowning and typical terror 
 of the prison regime. Warders, even, may not speak to 
 a prisoner, nor they to him, except on needful business. 
 And prisoners must not communicate at all. This hideous 
 order is not kept, either by warders or prisoners, except by 
 a few very conscientious conscientious objectors such as 
 Ernest Everett. Stephen Hobhouse, scorning subterfuge, 
 informed the Governor that he did not intend to obey the 
 rule, and lost in consequence all privileges — all visits and 
 letters — and was kept in solitary confinement. There came a 
 time when Fenner Brockway did the same, as a protest against 
 the system, which was wearing out both bodies and minds. 
 He was kept in separate confinement for eight months and 
 on No. I diet of bread and water for three months. His early 
 letters expressed what the strongest spirits felt in the earlier 
 months of imprisonment. He wrote in February 1917 : — 
 
 4. " I am thoroughly well and I am happy. I do not 
 seem to be in prison. You know how contentedly I entered ; 
 that feeling has remained all through. I am calmer in spirit 
 than I have been for a long time, and, possessing that calmness 
 within, the harshnesses which make prison prison don't seem 
 to exist. . . . 
 
 " My cell has seemed a quiet retreat, and within it I have 
 rediscovered the power of prayer — not the requesting of 
 
PRISON: I 259 
 
 some Supernatural Engineer to change the mechanism of the 
 universe on my behalf, but the reaching down into my own 
 being and finding there unity with the Universal Spirit, 
 with all mankind and with nature. . . . 
 
 " And each day I have imagined myself in some beautiful 
 natural scene — Derwentwater, Bettws-y-Coed, the Peak, 
 Seascale, Loch Lomond, Knole Park at Sevenoaks, the New 
 Forest, Colwyn Bay, Chislehurst, the Carpathians with 
 Alfred, the Rhine, the woods at Berne, Monte Rosa and 
 the Alps, Lake Orta with Harold, and a hundred other 
 places. I have drawn in all their grandeur, and I have 
 known something of the deep joy they can give, even though 
 I have been in a prison cell. 
 
 " You could not have sent me a more welcome Christmas 
 card than the picture of Derwentwater. During those 
 Christmas days I was living again the Christmas walking 
 tour we had in the Lake District. Will you ever forget 
 descending upon Ullswater that moonhght night, with the 
 mountains covered with snow, a glistening white glory all 
 around ? Or the lunch we had by the fire you made in 
 the wood by Thirlmere on Christmas afternoon, despite 
 the heavy snowstorm from which we were sheltering ? 
 This last Christmas I went that tramp again with you, 
 almost step by step. 
 
 " I cannot describe to you the wonderful sense of com- 
 radeship there is among the C.O.'s in prison. We are not 
 allowed to speak to each other, but the unity we feel does 
 not need expression in speech. I shall never forget the first 
 day I went on " exercise " at Scrubs, — you cannot conceive 
 the sense of spiritual exultation and expansion received 
 from the sight of those two hundred C.O.'s marching in step 
 around the prison yard. It gave me a new hope for the 
 future. And when Sunday came and I went to chapel, 
 the joy of being one of the eight hundred C.O.'s there was 
 almost intoxicating. You should have heard them sing 
 
 " O God of Love, O King of Peace, 
 Make wars throughout the world to cease. 
 The sinful wrath of man restrain. 
 Give peace, O Lord, give peace again. 
 
260 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 " I felt that such a body of men, nearly all quite young, 
 could do much to answer the prayer of that hymn if they 
 retain, all through their lives, their present enthusiasm — 
 I mean not merely to bring peace * again * but for ever ! 
 
 *' My mind is extraordinarily alert. I am constantly 
 thinking out all kinds of plans for the N.C.F., for the I.L.P., 
 for the Labour Leader. At times I seem flooded with ideas, 
 and not to be able to put them into effect is, I confess, some- 
 what of a torture. When Allen wrote from prison, he said 
 he had great schemes for me to work out with him in the 
 future. I wonder if they are as Titanic as the schemes 
 which have come to me as I have sat sewing, sewing, sewing ; 
 I look forward eagerly to many years of close co-operation 
 with him, in the Cause we love in common.*' 
 
 The following letter was written by Clifford Allen from 
 Maidstone Gaol on March 24, 1917. Though rather long, 
 I give it nearly complete, as the best analysis at hand of 
 the varied phases of the mind of the captive : — 
 
 " I wish I could manage to give you some idea of the 
 effect prison has on one's mind. I am a little fearful lest 
 men who are buoyed up by abounding good health, or who 
 foolishly think it a sign of weakness to speak truthfully 
 of anything but the joy of prison life, should do a great 
 disservice to men of very sensitive temperaments or who 
 are physically weaker than themselves. 
 
 " I am not sure how far anyone can really speak with 
 honesty of the kind of mental and spiritual adventures 
 experienced here ; they are of the very essence of one's 
 being, and so I can only expect to make intelligible those 
 which are the most obvious and, I suppose, universal. 
 
 " Men who are only revealing one effect of prison life would 
 perhaps be surprised if they were asked whether they were 
 ashamed of Christ for passing through Gethsemane. I 
 feel that if we speak of prison we ought not to omit any 
 of its aspects. Naturally I can only reveal my own life. 
 It is a very harassing one, for I am never the same individual 
 for long together. There are moments of spiritual exaltation 
 that neither hills, nor seas, nor sky, nor music, nor great 
 
PRISON: I 261 
 
 gatherings of men have ever given me, when in some way 
 or another the more conscious I am of the curbing of my 
 freedom, and of all the greyness of everything around me, 
 the more content I seem to become. The very fact that 
 I can, as it were, feel my bonds, gives me a more vivid 
 consciousness of my real freedom. I can then see with un- 
 mistakable clearness the untold worth of what we are attempt- 
 ing, and am full of joy and hope at the memory of the effort 
 we have made during the last two years. It does not matter 
 then how many bars there are to my prison cell, or how 
 high the wall opposite my window, which cuts me off from 
 the outside world (except the tops of two trees). I seem 
 to be in the closest contact with the other men shut away 
 in their prison cells all over the country, and with those 
 of you who are left in the glorious activity of the work. 
 I know how essential it is that I should be here to make 
 effective all our other efforts. I am spiritually proud, but 
 I am, I think, then liable to one of many unhealthy false 
 sentiments, a feeling of joy that I am shut up here. It 
 makes me forgetful of my own and other men's weakness. 
 
 '* There are other moments much more satisfying and I 
 believe more eternal ; moments which are of greater quietude, 
 when I am less restless. At these times I think not so 
 much about the past as of the future ; I feel then not so 
 much in spiritual harmony with men and women as with 
 something very intimate and very precious around and 
 within the life of the world. I suppose it is because such 
 an experience can only be true if it finds subsequent expression 
 in a greater understanding of human affairs, that it is at 
 these moments that I get the clearest vision of the direction 
 our work should take in the future. These are times when 
 I realize most vividly that though I am now removed from 
 the joy of striving and achieving, I can store up strength 
 for what will be of far greater consequence than a dozen 
 sentences of imprisonment — I mean the period immediately 
 following the war. I don't suppose any of us can estimate 
 how fruitful that time can be made, if we are then prepared 
 to justify all we have now protested of our desire to render 
 service. 
 
 " There are other mental experiences, and for me they 
 
262 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 are forming a somewhat large part of my life here, which 
 I should be false to hide. They are moments of intense 
 mental and spiritual torture. They almost seem to gather 
 force as month after month of imprisonment, following upon 
 repeated solitary confinement, lowers my vitality. I don't 
 know if I can express what I mean. You know something 
 of my life during the last five years ; I am not now concerned 
 about its value or otherwise. It has been one sustained 
 effort, along with many others, to create something vital in 
 the world ; it has been a life of ceaseless action, of free spiritual 
 expression and unending struggle. You know, too, some- 
 thing of what my prison life is, and seems likely to be for 
 months, or even years, if the war goes on. I want you to 
 picture it again, and compare the two. 
 
 *' One hundred and ninety-five days of stitching, each 
 of twenty-three hours and fifty minutes' silence. I think 
 the greatest torture of enforced and perpetual silence is 
 the never-ceasing consciousness of thinking in which it 
 results. You cannot stop thinking for an instant. And 
 if you seem to, it is only to listen intently to the beating 
 of your heart drumming in your ears. You cannot escape 
 thinking about the most trivial matters of routine. I think 
 of the very knots in the boards each time I scrub them, 
 until I could scratch them out of the floor to rid myself of 
 their arrogant insistence upon themselves. One inevitable 
 result is a consequent and hopeless inability to think of those 
 very things that are your interest, and would stimulate 
 and hearten you. After all, we are here for the very reason 
 that we desire to reshape human relations, and I for one 
 fret bitterly because we seem so stifled and frustrated in 
 our effort to give service that will change the heart of the 
 world. Indeed, if no one else will say it, let me. There 
 are moments of unutterable loneliness and anguish, when 
 I seem unmindful of the very purpose that has brought me 
 here, and when I cannot see the ideal which I love with every 
 fibre of my being. The freedom and the worth of human 
 life and manhood appear idle words to me. Or, perhaps 
 I can put it in this way : — Even if I am at such times a little 
 faithful, it is only to suffer tenfold by doubting whether 
 I can effectively serve that purpose by stitching here month 
 
PRISON: I 263 
 
 after month. Would you or Russell always retain your 
 faith if you were to spend one hundred and ninety-five days 
 picking up black beetles for the sake of the principle of 
 cleanliness ? The task would not always conduce to the 
 remembrance of the principle at stake. For this is the 
 vital point of the whole matter ; all of us want to give such 
 service as will reflect the spirit of development and growth 
 in the world. Oh ! can't those who love us and those who 
 hate us understand that what goads most of all is the realiza- 
 tion that it should be necessary to direct any effort for the 
 purpose of preserving the spirit of liberty and free service ? 
 It involves a recognition that the life of the world is set back, 
 and that it is in this way we must strive when we would 
 give our every faculty to rendering service that would mirror 
 progress in the world, and not its backsliding. 
 
 *' And then I seem to have no way of escape from dwelling 
 upon the horror of the war, and just because I cannot be 
 active, my imagination is the more vivid, until I am driven 
 almost to the breaking-point of despair by thinking of the 
 agony of the world. And yet it is all an immense contradic- 
 tion, for in those bitterest moments there often come the 
 thoughts which give me strength to regain my still unbroken 
 faith. Strangely enough, I often feel comfort in those 
 moments of mental suffering, because they make me realize 
 that I am no longer isolated from the sorrow of men and 
 women who have sacrificed everything for this war, for 
 that was how I used to feel in the old days of freedom and 
 comfort. 
 
 " A day of physical pain is sometimes my salvation. 
 I have almost come to welcome pain, not in the belief that 
 it is good to suffer, but because pain in some weird way 
 acts like a spur to my memory so that I no longer doubt, I 
 know, that it is of vital moment that we should be prisoners, 
 and that our faithfulness, even in idleness, is the very life- 
 blood coursing through the movement from which we are 
 cut off, and without which all your efforts would lack their 
 certainty of ultimate success. 
 
 " How hopelessly artificial it seems attempting to give 
 you even the faintest insight into all my joys and sorrows, 
 but surely you will know that when these times of torture 
 
264 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 pass — as they always do — the vision is clearer, and the re- 
 gained assurance that we are a very living part of all the 
 old movements sweeter than an eternity of divine content. 
 
 *' On the other side of my thirty-foot wall, there must 
 be a school, I think, for I can often hear the children shouting 
 and playing. They remind me of freedom, and I like to 
 rejoice, as I listen to them, that behind the bars on the other 
 side of the wall I am helping to hand on that freedom to 
 them." 
 
 Another vivid account of prison impressions was written 
 by Hubert W. Peet for the Ploughshare (April 1917) and 
 reprinted under the title " One Hundred and Twelve Days' 
 Hard Labour/* Also an article, " The Fruits of Silence," in 
 the Friends' Quarterly Examiner, April 1920, by the same 
 author, reprinted. 
 
 Another narrative shows how the prisoner's interests 
 suffer in times of difficulty. 
 
 " H. was due out of prison on January 6th, but three 
 days previously he accepted the Home Office scheme and 
 was sent immediately to Ballachulish. His reason was that 
 he saw insanity looming ; for he had ' nerves ' and had not 
 slept for five nights, and could only pace up and down the 
 cell, thinking of suicide. He attributes the breakdown 
 to continuous separate confinement, in place of the usual 
 month of it. He brought the lack of * association labour * 
 to the notice of the Governor, who said it could not be 
 helped as they were understaffed, the warders having been 
 taken for the war. All the men in ' B ' Block were so treated, 
 and even the doors were not left open for the allotted time 
 on that landing, owing to the absence of warders." 
 
 Another from Stephen Hobhouse : — 
 
 " Sometimes when I feel tired and ill I long for some 
 little homely comfort, such as a glass of hot water or some 
 tea and dry toast. I felt cruelly the restriction of what 
 seemed the most elementary needs. I did not think that 
 my body with its weak points would stand it for so long. 
 The struggle is often intense. Prison life has its own special 
 temptations — to selfish introspection and the like. ... I 
 think the worst pitch of depression was one foggy and dark 
 Sunday, when it was impossible to see either to sew or re£^d 
 
PRISON: I 265 
 
 in one's cell, and on remonstrating in the evening with one of 
 the warders for not giving us the gaslight, he answered, ' You 
 are not worth it — it is not a work day ! ' The answer 
 sank in." 
 
 5. The cells are supposed to be warmed by thin hot-water 
 pipes built into the inside of the walls. They are not always 
 in order and not generally equal to a cold spell. This letter 
 is quoted in '* / Appeal Unto CcesarJ* 
 
 " When I met my husband coming out of prison on 
 February loth last, I was horrified to see how very badly 
 he was suffering from the cold. His face showed this very 
 much, and in addition to this his hands were literally covered 
 with chilblains and the prison doctor had painted them 
 with iodine. I was still more disturbed when he said that 
 ' that was nothing to what they had been.' He also told 
 me that for the last few weeks it had been so cold that he 
 had been quite unable to read at all — he could only pace 
 up and down his cell. I might say that normally he does 
 not feel the cold at all, and I have never known him to have 
 a chilblain on his hands before." 
 
 The winter at Maidstone covered the men's hands with 
 chilblains, the cold tiled floor abstracting heat all day, 
 and all night contributed to the coldness of the air. 
 
 There was heat and stuffiness at times, as well as cold 
 at others. The following letter was written by a man in 
 camp awaiting his second court martial : — 
 
 " ... I have seen a man go raving mad in the prison 
 after being shut up in a warm cell from four o'clock in the 
 afternoon until six o'clock next morning. The cells are very 
 badly ventilated ; the one I was in had all the windows 
 fastened down so that they were a fixture. Some cells 
 have got two little windows out, but some have not, and 
 it gets very hot in there ; especially when the sun is beating 
 in it gets unbearable. I have seen cell doors opened in 
 the morning and the men stretched out on the floor in fits 
 or fainting ; and the warders do not take any notice of them, 
 but simply pass on and leave the door open. It really is 
 very brutal. Men in the first stage are kept in the cell and 
 not let out, only for three-quarters of an hour early in the 
 
266 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 morning, from 8.15 to 9 o'clock, and it is more than you 
 dare ask to go out of your cell for anything for the first 
 month, so you can just tell what it is like to be so closely 
 confined this hot weather." (" / Appeal unto Ccesar" p. 69.) 
 
 6. The happiness of life, and the health of it, depend 
 almost wholly on the exercise of our faculties, on expressing 
 ourselves, on doing what it is our true nature to do. Aristotle 
 defines happiness as an " energy of the soul, on the lines of 
 virtue, in a complete life." All love and parenthood, all 
 games and other excitements, all hobbies and efforts, all 
 poetry, or artistic production in whatever material, all earning 
 of money and all religion, give joy because they are responses 
 to our nature's imperative call. 
 
 Of all the needs of human creatures intercourse with 
 others is central. We are gregarious animals and have 
 been such for uncounted millenniums. That has been the 
 environment in which all our characters have been formed 
 and our morality evolved. We are members one of another. 
 To express ourselves in words is a need that cannot be 
 denied without miserable frustration and spiritual starvation. 
 The wearing away of personality is the central effect of prison 
 life. I doubt if this psychological effect was really intended 
 by the authorities who made prison rules. They simply 
 wanted to make imprisonment painful, and the only way 
 to do that quietly and decorously led to the thinning out 
 of personality. At the same time, and above all, the regula- 
 tions must be such as cause little trouble to the gaolers. 
 Men who are completely isolated cannot rebel or plot trouble- 
 some revenges on warders. Silence is safer and easier to 
 maintain than noise in moderation. And the influence of 
 the prison reformers of the eighteenth century, exerted 
 against the evils of miscellaneous association, has worked 
 out to a system of silence still more terrible. 
 
 This absence of all choice, of the need or the opportunity 
 to make decisions, resulted in a really weakened will-power 
 in some cases when the men at last emerged. They found 
 they could not decide anything, even when to cross a street. 
 It was some time before they ceased to feel like sheep in a 
 flock. The will was atrophied. 
 
PRISON: 1 267 
 
 Without intercourse with others the soul shrivels. 
 Personality is dependent upon the throbs back and forth 
 from other persons, as a nerve centre upon the stimuli of 
 its nerves. No writing materials are allowed, except, by 
 a concession of real value, a slate and pencil. (In 1920, 
 long after the release of C.O.'s, the Chaplain Inspector 
 announced that by a new rule pencil and notebook would 
 be allowed if asked for, after six months, and for the purpose 
 of study for work after discharge. Let us hope this will 
 be carried out easily. It is said to be very rarely granted 
 as yet.) Therefore, little expression by writing was possible. 
 To men of ideas and education, this was stifling, and was 
 frequently circumvented. So, in prison, day by day, run- 
 ning into weeks and months and years, the soul withers 
 and fades. 
 
 The rules about letters are, for prisoners undergoing hard 
 labour, i.e. for most of them : — For the first two months 
 none may be written or received. Then one in and one 
 out, and a visit. The letters in must be of moderate length, 
 not more than about eight hundred words. I remember that 
 Wilfred Wellock's wife wrote to her husband in Manchester 
 gaol a fine long fifteen-sheet epistle, only to have it sent back 
 undelivered. Letters in are always read by the Governor 
 or chief warder ; they must not contain slang, nor deal 
 with public affairs. Letters out must contain no mention 
 of prison life or criticism of prison management. Hubert 
 Peet, parodying Hall Caine, wrote : — *' And the slither 
 shaffle of the night patrol passed on down the gallery." 
 He was called up and solemnly bidden to erase it. The 
 second letter and visit may occur after six weeks, the third 
 and subsequent ones after a month. If no visit can be 
 paid, a letter may go and come instead. Urgent business 
 letters, news of the death of a near relative, and letters 
 to obtain employment or help on release, are extra, by 
 leave. Visits may be paid by three people at once. If a 
 prisoner loses marks for misconduct, letters and visits are 
 delayed. 
 
 7. Except on monthly visits or to the Chaplain or doctor, 
 the prisoner is not allowed to say a single word, unless he 
 
268 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 has to accost a warder or complain to the Governor, for 
 two years under the usual sentence given to conscientious 
 objectors. 
 
 He receives, if he desires, visits from the Chaplain. The 
 CO. often received from him only contempt and hostility, 
 if any visits took place. To prisoners generally the Chaplain 
 was apt to rush round, popping his head round each door — 
 " You all right ? "—and off to the next. But he must be a 
 brave chaplain who keeps alive the true pastoral spirit with- 
 in him. I desire to mention the Chaplains of Liverpool 
 and Maidstone as examples of success, and there may well 
 be others unknown to me. For his grotesque failure the 
 Chaplain is not personally responsible. The situation is 
 impossible. The glory of religion is to broaden and deepen 
 personality, to make it larger, gentler and sweeter. The 
 prison system denies the possibility of enlargement, of 
 gentleness or sweetness. Where does the Chaplain come 
 in ? He can hold services, which are a relief to the monotony 
 of the cells, and enable men to find their voices in singing. 
 He can attack C.O.'s from the pulpit, creating anger. At 
 Wandsworth, Hubert Peet listened to a sermon which 
 deduced from the fact that Paul made tents the conclusion 
 that he was an Army contractor, *' proud to do his bit for 
 his Empire." The Chaplain's best service might be, outside 
 his strict calling, in making friends with his charges and 
 talking to them about anything except their souls. To 
 do this would be to become an exception among his colleagues 
 and would be out of the routine. To keep that up with 
 a changing clientele of several hundreds of poor hardened 
 creatures would be impossible to any soul except one aflame 
 with pity and love, and with great store of nerve power 
 constantly reinforced by the Divine Presence. One chaplain 
 told one of our men that by rule he could only spend four 
 minutes per month with each man. He meant, no doubt, 
 that it would average out at that. He was under no rule 
 about it, and the estimate appears to me very small. 
 
 I hope the following is not typical : — A prisoner asked 
 the Chaplain what he said to murderers before their hanging. 
 He recounted in reply his first experience of it. "I 
 went in to him the night before, and he began talking to 
 
PRISON: I 269 
 
 me about all sorts of things/' No wonder he used his last 
 chance of speech. " But I stopped him and said, * Look 
 here. I'm not here to chatter to you about all sorts of 
 things ; but I'll pray with you if you Hke. It's striking 
 eight now. You'll never hear eight strike again.' He was 
 glum, and said I could if I liked. So I knelt down and 
 prayed, but I kept my eyes open all the time, for fear he 
 should do me a mischief." Such is the horrible travesty 
 of prayer and communion of soul worked out by our penal 
 system. In such a case as this the Chaplain has become a 
 sort of magic medicine man, who fulfils his routine of prayer. 
 
 8. The Anglican and Roman Catholic chaplains are 
 regular prison officials, quite properly paid. The Noncon- 
 formists are looked after as a whole by a Nonconformist 
 minister, paid very little indeed, at threepence per visit or 
 thereabouts. Other denominations, like Quakers, may apply 
 for their own minister, who comes voluntarily. This was 
 a precious inlet for the help of the C.O.'s. It brought 
 them into contact every week with a real friend and sym- 
 pathizer. Perhaps a personal narrative may be excused as 
 a better way to describe the Chaplain's service, than im- 
 personal summaries. Seldom is it given to us to render so 
 much service at so little personal cost. Certainly I came 
 away from Strangeways Gaol, Manchester, every time feeling 
 like a sucked lemon, from entering sympathetically into the 
 lives of twenty sufferers at six minutes each. But how well 
 worth while it was I did not need to be told. Two after- 
 noons took me round my nearly forty cells. That was the 
 programme for one week.^ For the other we held a Friends* 
 Meeting in the chapel, and no further visiting was allowed 
 that week. The warders (all but one hater of C.O.'s) 
 allowed me to take charge. I occupied the chief warder's 
 stool myself, relegated him to an inconspicuous corner 
 and gave him a hymn-book ; he was glad to join in. I 
 put the men close together instead of a yard and a half 
 apart. The preliminary hymn, which they chose, I 
 conceded, because of the silence rule being strong enough 
 
 * It was more usual for the visits to be paid in a gloomy room used for 
 solicitors, with a warder at the door. This was where the numbers were small. 
 
270 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 in the prison already. Nominally we had only half an hour, 
 but we always exceeded it. Into these short opportunities 
 I did not feel it necessary to go with an unprepared mind. 
 The men also took frequent part, helpfully. We ended with 
 a hymn ; and then I gave them a talk on public events — the 
 war, the chance of peace, Dora, and the work of the N.C.F. 
 I did this because the Chaplain told the news at the close of 
 his service, but with intent maliciously to insult, sent the 
 C.O.'s out first as not being good citizens. At the end I 
 had a word and a handshake with everybody, and some 
 messages to give and take. My friendly Governor, whom 
 I induced to be present one day, called it my levee. 
 
 I think I had more liberty than most chaplains. I asked 
 the chairman of the visiting magistrates to take me the 
 first time and introduce me to the Governor, Captain Sanders. 
 He was a gentleman and a good man, and gave me all the 
 liberty he could. He has now gone on, after a long illness, 
 to a place beyond the reach of the Prison Commissioners. 
 An untoward accident limited his kindly intentions. The one 
 grumpy warder was once in charge of our meeting, insisted 
 on occupying a side pedestal, regimented the men a yard 
 and a half apart, refused a hymn-book and wrote a report 
 to the Prison Commission to the effect that the men and 
 I talked chiefly politics. I was asked by the Prison Com- 
 mission to report on this. Then the men all went to the 
 Governor in a body and said that they would strike against 
 all rules if I was dismissed. Ultimately I was cautioned, 
 and went on as before. As I sat before this select company 
 of choice spirits I asked myself whether they had any marked 
 characteristic. Nor had I any doubt about the answer. 
 They were a company of men of unusual sweetness and 
 gentleness of expression. This shone through their stubbly 
 beards, pale thin faces and ungainly clothes. 
 
 They were mostly non-Friends really. A prisoner could 
 choose his religion when he entered a prison. Attempts 
 to change afterwards failed. So word of the Quaker chap- 
 lains went round, and on any fresh sentence the number of 
 ** Quakers " rose by one. They did it veraciously by just 
 asking for a Quaker chaplain. I tried to see all the 
 (non-Quaker) C.O's. : my little adventures in that direction 
 
PRISON: I 271 
 
 caused the Governor to be overhauled ; and after 
 that a warder " escorted '* me round, but did not come 
 inside the cell. So the letter triumphed over the spirit. 
 Everything in a prison is minutely regularized, and religion 
 with other things. But here, to regularize is to kill. Clifford 
 Allen, declining guile, took the bull by the horns and wrote 
 to the Prison Commissioners arguing that a Socialist non- 
 Quaker should be allowed a Quaker chaplain. He actually 
 persuaded that impenetrable iron-barred body to his opinion. 
 This is, to my mind, the most marvellous incident it falls 
 to me to record. 
 
 One Anglican chaplain told the C.O.'s that " they ought 
 to be drowned.'* Being asked by a father to break to 
 his CO. son the news of the death of his favourite 
 cousin at the front, he did it as brutally as possible, and 
 took the opportunity to abuse his charge as coward and 
 shirker, sheltering himself behind such brave men as his 
 cousin. I 
 
 W. J. Chamberlain tells a story of a criminal in the 
 row behind him who was affected to a passion of repentant 
 tears on hearing the words '* Almighty and Most Merciful 
 Father, we have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost 
 sheep." He bowed his head on the form in front, his 
 shoulders heaving. A warder saw him, walked over the 
 bowed heads of the prisoners, interrupting the minister's 
 prayers, and quenching the flaming flax of the newly roused 
 soul, he pulled the man roughly back into an upright position, 
 calling out in a loud, brutal voice, " Now then, kneel up, 
 can't yer ? " The young man's eyes, as he left the chapel, 
 were full of hatred and revenge.^ To that warder it was 
 not the service of religion, only drill, that was performed 
 in the chapel. 
 
 Following the example of W. A. Albright, I made a 
 practice of carrying in flowers in my hand or in a Gargantuan 
 button-hole. I was not allowed to leave a man a flower, 
 but no one would interfere with the Chaplain's hand or coat. 
 I was not allowed to leave my flowers at the hospital either. 
 But the Governor regretted this when he heard of it. The 
 whole atmosphere was one of fear ; nobody was trusted. 
 
 ! Tfibunal, September 20, 191 7. * Ibid., September 21, 1916. 
 
272 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 Well out of sight of the chief warder or any other warder, 
 many a good talk in many prisons did the warders have 
 with their novel type of criminal. Pacifists were not unknown 
 among them, and sympathizers became numerous as they 
 noted the quiet dignity of their prisoners. 
 
 9. The punishments for breaking a rule, for talking, 
 lending a library book, getting in a clandestine letter, lying 
 on your bed before bedtime, looking out of the window, 
 having a pencil in your possession, not working, and many 
 other such acts, were savage. If these things were reported 
 to the Governor, there would be, say, three days' bread 
 and water in a gloomy basement cell totally devoid of furniture 
 during the daytime. This was famine. In addition your 
 exercise might be taken away, and your work in association, 
 your letter or visit, would be postponed a fortnight, whilst 
 your family were left wondering what had happened, and 
 marks, with the effect of postponing your final release, would 
 be taken off. What a strain the system placed on the 
 warders was plain from the zeal with which they welcomed 
 the blessed hour of 4.40 p.m. when they lined up at the centre 
 for dismissal. If, to finish my round, I kept a warder five 
 minutes too long, the grievance was real, and I tried to avoid 
 it. They were in appearance a good, weighty, respectable 
 set of men, doing a hopeless job. When all the men were 
 released at Durham, J. E. Hodgkin invited warders and 
 ex-prisoners together to a farewell supper, with the approval 
 of the Prison Commissioners. All the warders at liberty 
 accepted, and they had a cordial time together — a unique 
 incident. 
 
 It was to be expected that an organization so rigid 
 as the prison system would make itself ridiculous sometimes. 
 Bertrand Russell, when he was in prison in the first division, 
 was able to write a learned book on mathematical philosophy, 
 full of abstruse algebraic symbols. He applied for this to 
 pass out to the publisher. This was permitted provided the 
 book first passed the prison officials. He asked who was to 
 read it, and was told, the Chaplain. 
 
 Miss Kinder wrote to him in prison a gossipy letter full 
 of personal details about their common friends, who were 
 
PRISON: I 278 
 
 described by their initials. He never received this letter, 
 and on enquiry being made about it he was told that the 
 Governor was so puzzled by so many initials that he thought 
 it unsafe to let him have it. Who knew, one reflects, that 
 the initials might not signify Lenin or De Valera ? 
 
 A suffragette reports how kindness and compassion are 
 stifled among criminals. 
 
 " When in prison I saw a woman give a piece of bread 
 to another prisoner who was hungry. She was severely 
 punished. Once a prisoner sat weeping bitterly and another 
 one put her arms round her and kissed her. The warders 
 promptly stopped it, and punished the woman for her 
 kindly act." 
 
 10. The treatment of prisoners in Scotland differs from 
 that in England. Things are easier in Scotland in the 
 matter of literature, but in most other ways worse. To 
 judge by the following extracts from a letter from an artist 
 in Calton gaol, Edinburgh, they seem to be worse : — 
 
 " The most objectionable thing about being shut up 
 inside a cell is the lack of fresh air, which one feels very 
 keenly. Except at exercise one is not allowed access to a 
 * convenience.* The result is that for a considerable part 
 of the day one is breathing in an atmosphere which can 
 only be described as insanitary. Unfortunately the diet 
 up here is of a kind which causes one to need frequent relief. 
 On a hot day the smell becomes unbearable. Another 
 effect of the diet is that it necessitates one's getting up 
 frequently in the night. It is therefore impossible to get 
 an unbroken night's sleep. This fact is not peculiar to me 
 alone, for I have made enquiries of other C.O.'s and have 
 found my experience corroborated. ... At bedtime two 
 warders come round and compel the prisoners to put all 
 their clothes except their shirt and undershirt outside the 
 cell door, which is then shut. In the morning the prisoners 
 take them in again. The nights are often so cold up here 
 that one is sorely tempted to sleep fully dressed, and it 
 may be that this precaution is taken to prevent this. 
 Last winter the cold was nearly unbearable. One could 
 not sleep at nights owing to the fact that it was absolutely 
 
 18 
 
274 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 necessary to keep up a continual friction of the feet and 
 hands against each other in order to ensure the necessary 
 circulation. It was the same when one stopped work. 
 One could not sit still without keeping up a continual stamping 
 of the feet which left moist marks on the cold stone wherever 
 one remained for any length of time. . . . Drawing was often 
 out of the question altogether, as one had to bury one's 
 hands in the depths of one's breeches (there are no pockets) 
 to keep them warm. . . .The diet referred to consists almost 
 entirely of porridge and sour milk, and soup and bread. 
 On one day only, Friday, when potatoes are given, can it 
 be called solid food." 
 
 Prisoners in Scotland only wrote a letter and received a 
 visit once in three months. There has recently been some 
 assimilation of the two systems, causing a great improve- 
 ment in the Scottish prisons during the last eighteen months 
 of the time treated of here. The C.O.'s there were treated 
 under the rules for untried prisoners, and were allowed to 
 use their own clothes and have meals provided by their 
 friends. The administration of the Duke Street prison, 
 Glasgow, was at all times gentle and charitable. The cold 
 during the winter at Barlinnie prison was intense. 
 
 II. The prison doctor has an uphill fight against con- 
 ditions. You break down digestion by poor food and little 
 exercise, you encourage tuberculosis by sunless cells, you 
 ruin nerves by imposing the suffering of unsatisfied instincts 
 of many kinds, you weaken the resistance to influenza, 
 and then you set a doctor the task of keeping men free 
 from disease. For the official doctors I met I have great 
 respect. They were faithful men, I thought, and kindly. 
 General testimony shows that they were exceptional. Cases 
 of bad or poor treatment I have known of in several places 
 have been due to the half-time visiting assistant who is in 
 practice outside. A complaint of brutal treatment I was able 
 to bring home to one of these men in a London prison was 
 followed by his dismissal, which is a point in favour of 
 the Prison Commission. He had accused a man falsely of 
 having venereal disease. As the Commission never replied 
 to my complaint, which was well attested, I only infer the 
 
PRISON: I 275 
 
 causation. There were signs that at Wandsworth a doctor 
 was accusing men of having venereal disease and setting 
 about most damaging reports. One of the men so accused 
 managed, by the use of the secret post, to let his wife know. 
 She reported to the No-Conscription Fellowship, who 
 demanded at once a full enquiry, and settled that particular 
 lie. The hospitals were in some places as good as they 
 could be under prison conditions. They varied with the 
 doctor. The patients had more change in diet and better 
 beds, but might not talk, and when in separate cells with 
 nothing to do the men were often very unhappy there. 
 
 The prison diets have been changed often. The following 
 was typical of those in vogue in some places in 1918 : — 
 
 Breakfast. i pint of thin porridge with no milk. 
 
 Dinner. i pound of potatoes and 3 ounces of bread ; 
 
 and the following besides : — 
 Sunday. 4 ounces rice, 4 ounces parsnips. 
 Monday. 2 ounces bacon, 2 ounces beans. 
 Tuesday. 2 red herrings, 3 ounces pudding with sugar. 
 Wednesday, i pint soup, 4 ounces parsnips, 4 ounces rice. 
 Thursday. 4 ounces meat, stewed, with J pint soup 
 
 from it, 2 ounces beans. 
 Friday. i pound fish (to avoid ecclesiastical com- 
 
 plications) . 
 Saturday. Like Wednesday, but less rice and parsnips. 
 Supper 12 ounces bread, 4 ounces potatoes, 
 
 {at 4.15). J ounce butter or margarine, and either 
 
 I ounce of cheese or 4 ounces more of 
 potatoes. Cocoa generally. 
 
 This was not the diet I used to see every afternoon. 
 It was porridge like breakfast with bread. The suet 
 dumplings given in some gaols twice a week were quite 
 uneatable by some. Vegetarians were during the latter 
 part of the time provided for on application. There was 
 one case of a large supply of salted herrings, too dry and 
 meatless for Army use, handed over to the prisoners, and 
 found equivalent to nothing at all. 
 
 Hubert W. Peet gives the following account of the diet 
 at Wandsworth before any changes were made. It therefore 
 
276 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 represents the ordinary prison diet. Unfortunately the 
 pre-war diet has not been reintroduced at the time of 
 writing. 
 
 For a sentence of seven days a naan gets practically 
 nothing but bread and porridge. For a longer sentence 
 he gets for breakfast i pint of gruel and -| pound of bread ; 
 for supper i pint of porridge and | pound of bread ; for 
 dinner every day | pound of potatoes and 6 ounces of bread. 
 At dinner, in addition, is served on 
 
 Sunday, a small slice of bully-beef weighing 4 ounces. 
 Monday, 10 ounces of haricots and 2 ounces of crude-fat 
 
 bacon. ("Beans in candle-grease.") 
 Tuesday and Friday, a pint of thick soup in which 
 
 meat has been found. 
 Wednesday and Saturday, 10 ounces of suet pudding; 
 
 " good if received still hot." 
 Thursday, 4 oz. of meat, not without fat or gristle. 
 
 After four months you reach a diet where cocoa is served, 
 including your first taste of sugar. 
 
 This is from a letter from a man recently released, quoted 
 by Mrs. Hobhouse : — 
 
 "... One thing I want to draw your attention to, 
 
 and that is the necessity of keeping a cat at , as the 
 
 rice invariably disclosed the fact that there must be a swarm 
 of mice in the prison kitchen or store. This tended to 
 sicken one, although low feeding made me proof even against 
 this — I had a black beetle in my mouth one day. This 
 I readily admit was an exception, yet I mentioned it to a 
 warder, and he told me not to say anything about it, because 
 the other prisoners may ask for them too ! Yet the mice's 
 dirt was the rule, and never a day passed when we had rice 
 but that I picked out half a dozen or more lumps of 
 evidence." 
 
 A prisoner's note sent to the Information Bureau 
 states : — 
 
 " The test of the diet does not come until all the resources 
 of the body have been brought down to the irreducible mini- 
 mum and you rest entirely upon the nourishment provided. 
 
PRISON: I 27T 
 
 .... The common experience is that a man passes into 
 one or all three of the following stages :— 
 
 (i) Merely very hungry all day. 
 
 (^) Hunger more acute, with pains in the stomach 
 intermittently. 
 
 (3) Extreme weakness, nervousness, and constant and 
 very acute pain. 
 There is a sharp contraction of the muscles, the face 
 may be seen (or, more bitterly, felt) to twitch with 
 pain, and the face also becomes dark, particularly 
 about the eyes. Some of the men, in one or other 
 of these stages, may be sent to hospital ; many 
 recover somewhat by lying down every available 
 moment ; not that they need rest, but if you lie 
 down you do not feel hungry quite so soon. . . .*' 
 
 " Does not this slow elimination of life, " asks Professor 
 Herford — ** for, carried through a two years' sentence it 
 is nothing less — bear an unpleasant resemblance to the 
 gradual executions in China, where the suspended culprit 
 hangs with the tip of his toes touching the ground ? Is 
 it, in any case to be tolerated in an English prison ? " ^ 
 
 This, I am sorry to say, is from a verifiable source : — 
 
 '* I can bring evidence to prove that the doctor (at 
 
 prison) did nothing but abuse our men who were called 
 up before him to be examined for outdoor manual labour 
 at Road Board Camp.'* 
 
 And this, quoted by Mrs. Hobhouse : — 
 
 *' Prison officials treat any complaint with scorn. Gover- 
 nor says, * You are not at the Carlton.' Doctor says, ' You 
 are not in a blooming incubator.' On putting down to 
 see him continually for medicine he threatened to report 
 me to the Governor — which would mean punishment — so 
 I ignored him and his medicine too." 
 
 One more letter on health in prison. 
 
 *' ... The insomnia continued — sometimes complete 
 
 — all through my time in prison, and continues still. I 
 
 have not slept for more than about two hours any night 
 
 (with three exceptions) since February ist, and on two 
 
 * Manchester Guardian, May 2, 1918. 
 
278 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 occasions at least I was light-headed in the night, and telling 
 endless nonsense out loud, and became hysterical in the day- 
 time on the least occasion. The prison doctor could or 
 would do nothing for me, saying that only fresh air and 
 exercise could cure me, and warning me that an indefinite 
 prolongation of my condition would lead to a serious break- 
 down. He was rather kind to me, and I felt what he said 
 was true. ... I had passed six nights without sleep when 
 I appeared before the Tribunal on March loth. ..." 
 
 The writer was transferred to Dartmoor, whence the 
 letter was written, March 19, 1917. 
 
 12. Among the many records of broken health which 
 did not end fatally we may select one as typical. The 
 actual deaths are treated in a later chapter. 
 
 J. A. Skinner was a clerk in the General Post Office at 
 Manchester, and for ten years had never had a day's sick 
 leave. In his family record there is no trace of tuberculosis. 
 Those who know the devoted work which Mr. Skinner and 
 his wife put in for the cause of the sufferers throughout the 
 period of the persecution realize how genuine his case was. 
 His plea was disallowed at the Local Tribunal. The Appeal 
 Tribunal offered alternative work of national importance, 
 which he refused ; and after the usual trial, journey to 
 the military depot at Ashton-under-Lyne, and thence to 
 camp at Frees Heath, he found himself on the last day of 
 1916 in Wormwood Scrubs under a two years' sentence — 
 commuted to 253 days. After some weeks he was offered, 
 and refused, the Home Office scheme. It was a bitter 
 winter ; he was a vegetarian, and no vegetarian diet had 
 as yet been granted. He suffered terribly from hunger 
 and cold. His sentence, with commutation, was completed 
 by the end of March 1917. A further refusal of military 
 service brought a second sentence, and he reached Wandsworth 
 on April 12th. He had collapsed from faintness after exer- 
 cise before leaving Wormwood Scrubs. 
 
 At Wandsworth he began to have a festering sore in the 
 palm of his hand. The doctor ascribed it to a strained 
 tendon. He was put into a hospital cell, locked up by 
 himself. He wrote that he was almost incessantly hungry. 
 
PRISON: I 279 
 
 He began to have an inflamed arm and knee. These were 
 both wrongly and persistently diagnosed as rheumatism. 
 He served his second sentence of one year — commuted to 
 141 days — and was taken by ambulance, under escort, to 
 a London hospital. Finally he was brought home and 
 discovered by Dr. Vipont Brown to be suffering from surgical 
 tuberculosis, which was confirmed by the authorities at the 
 Baguley Sanatorium. The physician there wrote : — 
 
 " He has a tuberculous knee joint and a tuberculous 
 elbow with multiple discharging sinuses and subluxation 
 of the head of the radius." 
 
 Amputation at the elbow would have taken place but 
 that the knee would have continued as a centre of trouble. 
 Finally the elbow was operated upon twice, and the next 
 year the knee joint also. In January 1920, on crutches 
 and wearing a heavy splint, he obtained work ; at the 
 end of February 1921 operation on the other leg was 
 necessary, to be followed by several months' complete rest. 
 What the end of this prolonged suffering will be we do 
 not know. Surgical tuberculosis is a poverty disease, due 
 to under-feeding and lack of light, air and exercise. 
 
 Health is ruined in this way in the Army also, in 
 innumerable cases, and the trouble is met — so far as it 
 can be — by pensions. But these sufferings were inflicted by 
 our own administrative bodies upon one of their fellow- 
 citizens. They bear a similar relation to wounds given 
 in war as the sufferings due to reprisals in Ireland bear to 
 ordinary military violence. 
 
 13. Since there is no pen, ink or paper permitted, it 
 seems strange to record that nevertheless a number of 
 magazines were issued in the prisons and surreptitiously 
 circulated from cell to cell. This became much more easy 
 under the later regulations, when conversation was allowed 
 in the exercise yard, and men could walk two or three 
 together. But some issues were produced before that. 
 After the earliest days C.O.'s had in practice more liberty 
 in little ways than ordinary prisoners. The Walton Leader, 
 a Liverpool organ, ran to over a hundred issues. One 
 determined man, Albert Taylor of Bacup, who was arrested 
 
280 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 at the moment of his Parliamentary candidature for the 
 Rossendale Division, spent nearly all his time in solitary 
 confinement on bread and water, because he refused to 
 obey prison rules. At the end of each period of punishment 
 he had a week under ordinary rules, and then for a fresh 
 offence was sent back for many weeks to his loneliness. 
 How he managed to endure at all I cannot understand, but 
 he told me that he also edited a magazine which they passed 
 round outside from window to window. These productions 
 were nearly all written on brown toilet paper, the only 
 material available. Prison pen and ink were appropriated 
 as opportunity arose. Leads for writing were imported. 
 Pencils and the precious manuscripts were concealed inside 
 waistbands and the hems of waistcoats. An innocent- 
 looking ball of wax used in the daily work might be dis- 
 covered to have a movable top, revealing a bottle of ink 
 underneath. I have in my possession one of these pathetic 
 publications. It is No. 6 of the Winchester Whisperer, 
 the Christmas number for 1918, issued fortnightly on the 
 day after the cells were searched for pencils. The edges 
 of its leaves are tattered, in spite of its cover of sacking 
 decorated with an inscription. It begins with a good 
 imitation of Kelmscott printing and contains several poems 
 by " Radoteur," of which one has a title from Sappho, 
 printed in beautiful Greek capitals, addressed to " Evening." 
 It is given here : — 
 
 'ECnEPE nANTA 0EPEIC 
 
 There is no praise that I may say of thee, 
 Evening that bringest all things beautiful. 
 Shadows, and stars, and the soft winds that swell 
 Murmuring in moon-kissed tree-tops faerily ; 
 And their twin harmony of mystery. 
 Earth greeting Heaven with the Ave-bell ; 
 And rest, and dreams half-fathomed which foretell 
 Delights that life shall yet unfold to me, 
 Yet this one prayer I raise thee as I cease 
 The toils of day to lose my griefs in deep 
 Communion with thy beauty, hear my voice ! 
 That she, who loves thee as I love, rejoice 
 In thee beside me, till we fall asleep 
 Close-folded to thy heart and find thy peace ! 
 
PRISON: I 281 
 
 This magazine finds room for much poetry — serious 
 and humorous ; for pictures of the C.O/s marching with 
 their pails of slops in their hands as " Christmas Waits," 
 and drawings of their faces changing as their day of release 
 grew more hopelessly remote. It finds room also for an 
 advertisement of the prison cocoa. *' One teaspoonful 
 makes a quart of delicious and nourishing food ; Invaluable 
 for the Nursery ; Will not stain the tablecloth." There 
 is also a Chess Corner, and excellent caricatures of Lloyd 
 George and the typical Tory, and a hymn beginning 
 *' What a friend we have in Asquith." 
 
 A selection called the 6.0. Clink Chronicle ^ was printed 
 by the N.C.F. from a number of these journals. Those 
 from which it quoted were : — The Canterbury Clinker, edited 
 by A. Barratt Brown, the most literary one of them all ; 
 the Joy land Journal, published in Mount joy Prison, Dublin, 
 bo.:nd in cloth, containing Arthur Hagg's sketches and 
 designs ; the Winchester Court Martial, the predecessor 
 of the Whisperer, edited till he broke down by W. J. 
 Chamberlain, and entirely devoted to humour. It was 
 written in imitation print like a newspaper, and claimed 
 to be " the organ of the Absolutely Its." The Literary 
 Outlet was issued by W. Dixon of Huddersfield, whilst in 
 prison at Birmingham and Hull. Dorchester gaol issued 
 a handsome magazine entirely in Esperanto called Instigilo 
 There was also a Lincoln Leader, principally a news sheet, 
 and a publication was issued at Durham. One of Barratt 
 Brown's poems from the Canterbury Clinker began in the 
 following style : — 
 
 Gin a conchy meet a conchy 
 
 Comin' thro' the Chnk, 
 Gin a conchy greet a conchy 
 
 Should a conchy wink ? 
 
 Ilka conchy has a comrade 
 
 Ne'er a one hae I, 
 But all the comrades smile at me 
 
 Comin' on the sly. 
 
 » The Friends' Bookshop, 140, Bishopsgate, London, E.G. Price 34. 
 
282 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 Here is a poem of a different character written by Oswald 
 Clark in Armley gaol, Leeds : — 
 
 "THE CELL WINDOW." 
 
 Blue sky, grey flying clouds and shining stars 
 Are all that I can see between the bars 
 Of my cell window. Yet what more need 
 Of beauty, than the stars and clouds and sky ? 
 
 Blue sky that spans the earth, an azure dome, 
 I know is boundless. And when far from home. 
 Upon a cloudless day I glance above. 
 It tells me of a Father's boundless love. 
 
 Grey stormy clouds, that hang aloft like lead. 
 While muttering thunder fills the earth with dread. 
 Are filled with God's own rain, His precious gift. 
 And when the rain has fallen, clouds will lift. 
 
 Each tiny star, that shines above at night. 
 Is really one vast world. 'Tis my poor sight 
 And human vision dwarfs the distant view. 
 As oft I dwarf God's love and goodness too. 
 
 For limitless as is the boundless sky. 
 
 And filled with goodness, as the clouds that fly. 
 
 Magnificent as those vast worlds above. 
 
 So is the Father's overwhelming love. 
 
 Pencils and letters were brought in and out by the " foot 
 post." I leave the reader to imagine the nature thereof. 
 Chess was not unfrequently played from cell to cell, of 
 course without boards or pieces, or words audible to warders. 
 Albert Taylor of Rossendale was a constant practitioner ; 
 Clifford Allen played games with Scott Duckers five cells 
 away. Each game lasted about thirty-four days, the moves 
 depending upon whether the players were within whispering 
 distance of each other at exercise or emptying slops. The 
 games were marked on their slates. Finally they organized 
 a sort of chess tournament over half the prison. So their 
 brains were kept from atrophy. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 PRISON 
 
 II. Discussions, Concessions and Release 
 
 It was only to be expected that a discussion would 
 sooner or later arise regarding two prison problems. The first 
 was concerned with the question as to how far the organ- 
 izations representing imprisoned objectors should devote 
 attention to working for their release and for the ameliora- 
 tion of their prison conditions, and the second as to whether 
 the imprisoned men themselves should pursue any 
 other policy than that of passive acquiescence in their 
 imprisonment. 
 
 We shall now attempt to record the history of these 
 two discussions, the incidents that accompanied them and 
 the final release. 
 
 I. The Society of Friends issued a number of weighty 
 documents during the course of the war. One of these 
 was issued " To our Friends in Prison for Conscience' Sake " 
 by the Yearly Meeting held in May 1917, and is so short 
 and forcible that it deserves a place here, as an epitome of 
 the Quaker point of view. 
 
 *' Dear Friends, 
 
 " We thank God for the faithful witness which you 
 are bearing to the Truth, and to Christ's gospel of love. 
 We rejoice that strength has been given to you to bear 
 all hardships cheerfully and bravely. We stand by you 
 and long that you may know how closely we associate 
 ourselves with you. 
 
 u 
 
284 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 " We know that the sacrifice you are making will not be 
 in vain, but will be richly rewarded both in your own souls 
 and in the service and help of mankind. 
 
 " Such was the price paid by our forefathers, in their 
 more bitter days — in their great struggle for religious 
 liberty. 
 
 '* We rejoice to know that many of you have been able 
 like William Dewsbury to enter * prisons as palaces and 
 to esteem their bolts and locks as jewels/ and that you 
 have been upheld by the presence of One whom no bars 
 could keep out. 
 
 ** To you, we believe, has been given a notable place 
 amongst those who are saving the country from permanent 
 conscription, and it may be, the world also, from military 
 domination. We look forward to the time when, pre- 
 pared and tested by all that you now experience, you will 
 step into freedom to take your part, in a very special way, 
 in bringing the service of Christ into all our service for 
 the future, with its new hopes and new responsibilities. 
 
 *' Your faces are set towards a glorious day of love and 
 liberty in the light of God. Whether it comes sooner or 
 later depends in some measure on us all. We pray that 
 in the outward desert of prison life your souls may be con- 
 tinually refreshed by the upspringing of the living water — 
 the presence of the Christ of God. 
 
 " (Signed) John H. Barlow, 
 
 *' Clerk '* (i.e. Chairman). 
 
 It was not easy to get this letter into the prisons. It 
 was thought to be an encouragement in rebellion. 
 
 2. But a difference of opinion, which would hardly 
 have been expected by the outside public, and which may 
 be incomprehensible to many, arose as to whether it was 
 right for the Society, through its Committee or its declara- 
 tions, or through personal pressure upon the Government, 
 to make any direct official effort to liberate the imprisoned 
 men. What might be called the ordinary reasonable 
 view found voice in a Minute from Yorkshire Quarterly 
 Meeting in July 1917, addressed to the Meeting for 
 
PRISON: II 285 
 
 Sufferings. The Minute shows that there had been some 
 diversity of opinion, but the conclusion was, ** To urge 
 upon the Meeting for Sufferings the duty laid upon us, as 
 a religious Society which has always stood for civil and 
 religious liberty, to press for the absolute and unconditional 
 release of all these men." But one of the Yorkshire repre- 
 sentatives to the Meeting for Sufferings was John P. 
 Fletcher, who differed from the Minute, and wrote a letter 
 to that meeting from the military detention rooms at 
 Whitley Barracks, in Northumberland, to urge that no 
 such attempt should be made. He said that the actual 
 conscripts who had been forced into the Army needed our 
 sympathy even more. One conscript had said to him, 
 *' We would all be conscientious objectors if we had the 
 courage." He believed that the presence of C.O.'s among 
 the soldiers was an encouragement to such men. The 
 matter was discussed at great length at the Meeting for 
 Sufferings in September. It was found that most mem- 
 bers of the Service Committee agreed with John Fletcher, 
 and the meeting followed their view, though with much 
 difficulty. It had taken the same line after a discussion 
 the previous May. Finally that Committee appointed 
 three Friends, of whom one had been in prison, to write a 
 statement of their position. This they did in the Friend 
 for November 2nd. They said that the reasons why the 
 Society could not take action under the Yorkshire Minute 
 were : — 
 
 (i) Friends were too closely identified personally with 
 the sufferers to wish to complain too loudly about them. 
 It was better to leave that to others, such as the authoress 
 of *'/ Appeal unto Ccesar." 
 
 (2) Such an appeal, if accepted, would probably mean 
 the release of our own members only — or of religious 
 objectors only — which would be a fatal separation. 
 
 (3) Stronger than the above is the vital principle 
 that we are against war and conscription itself, and 
 demand their complete repeal rather than their *' just 
 administration." 
 
 (4) J. P. Fletcher's point in his letter above. 
 
286 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 (5) It would be wrong and impolitic to have the prisoners 
 released in advance of public opinion. It would embitter 
 the whole position. Albert Seery (not then a Friend) 
 wrote : " We are returning to prison to act as a bursting 
 strain on the surrounding bands of Militarism." 
 
 (6) We regard imprisonment as a triumphant oppor- 
 tunity for a widespread mighty influence. 
 
 (7) Nevertheless, Friends everywhere are giving the 
 fullest sympathy and help to conscientious objectors and 
 their relatives, and are doing all they can to form public 
 opinion.^ 
 
 This was signed by A. Barratt Brown, Edith M. Ellis 
 and Robert Davis on behalf of the Friends* Service 
 Committee. 
 
 This letter was supported by another from Mrs. 
 Alexander C. Wilson of Manchester. She and her husband 
 were spending all their strength in working for the cause. 
 She said that the exemption clause in the Act was in 
 advance of public opinion and therefore had not been 
 carried out, and dwelt emphatically upon the reward which 
 comes to those who suffer. 
 
 It could, however, hardly be expected that these lofty 
 views should not appear far-fetched and disappointing 
 to many both inside and outside prison. Personality was 
 being eaten away, as month after month passed in hunger 
 and humiliation within the ugly walls of their cells. It 
 was just at the hardest moment before dying men began 
 to be let out, and before taking more exercise was allowed 
 to some of the prisoners. Letters gradually saw the light 
 in the Tribunal urging that it was so wrong for men to 
 be suffering that all should try to alleviate it ; that no 
 one could " complain too loudly " about this great wicked- 
 ness ; that the release of the conscientious objectors 
 would greatly help to destroy conscription ; that logically 
 the Friends' Service Committee should advise Friends not 
 to appear before any Tribunal ; and that the imprison- 
 ment was partly a pacifist failure as well as a glorious act. 
 This is a summary of a letter from Thomas Talbot. The 
 
 » Also printed in the Tribunal. December 27, 191 7. 
 
PRISON: II 287 
 
 practice of the early Friends was quoted on both sides of 
 the discussion. Letters to the above effect were written 
 by Thomas F. Drayton and by Douglas R. Bishop, who 
 himself suffered a complete breakdown in prison. He 
 said that of eight men to whom he had shown a copy of the 
 letter in the Friend for November 2nd, seven were surprised 
 and even indignant at it ; that every form of persecution is 
 bad for the State as for the sufferers. Oswald Clark, in the 
 interval between his third and fourth imprisonments, 
 wrote in the opposite sense, supporting the Service Com 
 mittee's view, and desiring no release that should be due 
 either to a legal argument or a technicality, or to personal 
 influence with politicians, and being ready to continue 
 in prison till the people should desire to liberate the con- 
 scientious objectors as such. Another letter by Mr. Williams 
 appeared in the Tribunal in reply to this, pointing out 
 that before public opinion had changed many of the C.O.'s 
 would be beyond earthly release. In the following February 
 J. E. Hodgkin found that only about seven out of over 
 forty men in Durham prison agreed with the decision of 
 the Meeting for Sufferings, and three dropped attending 
 meetings. In April the Chaplains' Committee and the 
 Friends* Service Committee met jointly on the subject, 
 but though the feeling in favour of trying for release 
 appeared strong, nothing was done. The same want of 
 unanimity made another conference in May abortive. 
 Meantime hope through a policy of patience was being 
 lost in many of the fortresses of evil ; the day of utter 
 physical breakdown was coming nearer ; and rescue was 
 badly needed. 
 
 The matter came with great urgency before the Yearly 
 Meeting of 1918, on the Meeting for Sufferings Minute, 
 and by appeals to make efforts for release sent up by five 
 Quarterly Meetings. The Yearly Meeting sympathized with 
 this strong expression of feeling, and wrote an Appeal 
 to the Conscience of the Nation, which was distributed to 
 the number of 421,000 copies. As it was an appeal to 
 the people rather than to the Government, it was accept- 
 able to both sides in the controversy, as Yearly Meeting 
 Minutes often are. 
 
288 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 This story has been told here not because it had any 
 striking consequences, but to exhibit the spirit in which the 
 persecution was met by those most closely concerned. 
 
 Questions of policy of this nature, about acts helpful to 
 sufferers but by some held to be tainted by being arranged 
 with the Government, constantly arose in the N.C.F. Com- 
 mittee and throughout its membership all through the 
 period. In fact, there could be no clear line between what 
 you could or could not rightly do in conference with the 
 Government. 
 
 In July of 1916 the National Committee of the N.C.F. 
 formulated its policy in favour of working for the exemp- 
 tion of C.O.'s by political and other means. Disapproving 
 of this, J. P. Fletcher resigned from the Committee. In 
 the autumn the new Committee introduced the same 
 policy, and rejected a resolution, proposed by A. Barratt 
 Brown, which urged that the Committee should make no 
 effort, direct or indirect, to alleviate prison conditions, or 
 obtain for the prisoners exemption of any kind ; devoting 
 its energies solely to arousing the public conscience on 
 war and conscription for war. A. Barratt Brown, how- 
 ever, did not feel it most useful to resign at that time, but 
 finally did so in June 1917, by reason of the continuance 
 of the efforts of the National Committee in the direction 
 of mitigating the lot of the sufferers. To him it appeared 
 to relax opposition and to facilitate the work of conscrip- 
 tion. He maintained this position after himself suffering a 
 year in prison. This resignation, however, did not break 
 off Barratt Brown's friendly helpfulness to the Committee 
 and to the movement. Those who took the other view 
 thought that release (of course without compromise), would 
 go far to prevent conscription continuing after the war. 
 They noted that Sir George Cave, resisting release, said : 
 "To go further than we have gone . . . would imperil 
 very much now and in the future the system of mihtary 
 service which has been set up." 
 
 This policy was continued by the N.C.F. partly because 
 it was held that acquiescence in persecution meant per- 
 mitting the State to do something no less harmful to 
 itself than to the persecuted. It was held that to secure 
 
PRISON: 11 289 
 
 unconditional release would be the most effective means of 
 striking a final blow at conscription. It was argued that 
 the continuous imprisonment of C.O.'s was intended by 
 the Government as a means of overaweing the ordinary 
 soldier and maintaining the terror of military discipline for 
 the Army and the rest of the nation. So much, indeed, 
 was admitted by the Government, as recorded above. 
 Under such circumstances unconditional release was essential 
 to the overthrow of conscription, quite apart from the 
 propagandist value of constantly bringing the issue and 
 the facts before the notice of the public. 
 
 3. It was never easy for the prisoners to decide, all 
 through the struggle, how far they ought to go in protest 
 and refusal. From the time when it became clear that 
 the imprisonment was to be of indefinite length, a per- 
 sistent demand arose for some sort of protest in order to 
 hasten release. The differences of opinion which arose in 
 the pacifist organizations were all phases of this issue. 
 The points being generally matters of conscience, were 
 felt keenly, and disputed long. One of these was the 
 question whether the men in prison ought to do prison 
 work or to strike against it. The majority of prisoners 
 always regarded it as part of the punishment of prison, 
 which they were not bound to kick against. Others who 
 differed from them regarded it as a form of conscription, 
 saying that the Government which had tried first to con- 
 script them into the Army, and afterwards offered them 
 the Home Office scheme of compulsory labour, was carry- 
 ing out the same purpose of conscript service within prison 
 walls. The old " substitution " difficulty which had been 
 felt concerning work of national importance was not got 
 rid of in prison ; for if C.O.'s made mailbags, other 
 prisoners were enabled to make munitions. They also 
 said that to plead compulsion in prison was a course which 
 might have excused men from protesting against the Act 
 at all. It was also said that to do prison work was to 
 admit guilt. Intermittent strikes by individuals and groups 
 frequently occurred. 
 The National Committee of the N.C.F. took the matter 
 
 19 
 
290 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 into grave consideration in May 1917, upon the request 
 of its chairman then in prison. Hitherto they had been 
 against work-striking ; now they passed a Minute to say 
 that they were opposed to the organization of work-striking 
 in prison, but that the Committee would support those who 
 adopted the plan as a matter of conscience. Clifford Allen, 
 whilst urging the prisoners to remain perfectly loyal to 
 the National Committee, himself decided, on his third im- 
 prisonment, to decline for the future to do prison work. 
 He wrote, from a military camp on Salisbury Plain, a letter 
 to Mr. Lloyd George announcing and explaining his change 
 of action. 
 
 He defended the men in prison from the charges both 
 of cowardice and of a lust for martyrdom, pointing out 
 that many of them had been offered work of national 
 importance, which they had refused. For this they had 
 been — after, in some cases, brutal treatment — sent to 
 prison. They had further refused the offer of the Home 
 Office scheme, the conditions of which they had rejected — 
 particularly the promise not to engage in Peace work. He 
 pointed out that he and others were being sent back to 
 prison, with hard labour, for the third time, with a pros- 
 pect of an unHmited number of sentences to follow. He 
 claimed that their fear was not of physical, but of spiritual 
 death. In reply to the Government argument that the 
 test of genuineness must be a hard one, to prevent so many 
 claiming under it as to destroy the system of conscription, 
 Chfford Allen replied that out of nearly 5,000 prisoners 
 less than 150 had been rejected as fraudulent, and that 
 the victims had accepted successive imprisonments. The 
 course of the Government had become nothing less than 
 a deliberate persecution of genuine opinion. It was suc- 
 ceeding in exacting from the men in prison work similar 
 to that exacted in the Home Office Centres. He had there- 
 fore concluded to refuse to be involved in the Government's 
 scheme in any form, and so would refuse, at all costs, 
 to do any more work in prison. 
 
 On the following page of the Tribunal^ Dr. Salter put 
 the other side, urging all prisoners to avoid work-striking 
 
 I June 14, 1917. 
 
PRISON: II 291 
 
 as being sensational, and not so effective as the method 
 of all-persuasive reasonableness. He pointed out that work 
 was necessary to the preservation of sanity ; that, as 
 a matter of sheer fact, practically every CO. who had 
 hitherto carried out a work-strike in prison had become 
 insane, and that work in prison was even more necessary 
 for the maintenance of mental balance than work outside. 
 He believed that hard labour was simply part of the 
 penalty. He urged that only a few isolated men would 
 take part in it ; that the Quakers would not participate ; 
 but that if it were to succeed, it would have to be uni- 
 versal. The men were scattered in thirty-nine prisons ; 
 only a very dexterous secret organization could achieve 
 success, and this the National Committee had declined 
 to undertake. He prophesied that the attempt would 
 end in bitter defeat and humiliation, the break-up of reason 
 and morale, and the loss of usefulness in future life. He 
 pointed out also that this was the method adopted by 
 the suffragettes, now discredited. 
 
 Later, Fenner Brockway and other leading men in 
 prison adopted a policy of striking in one form or another, 
 for various reasons. For the last part of the period of 
 imprisonment the prisons were full of discussions on this 
 subject. Manifestoes on both sides passed from one gaol 
 to another, as openings arose when men were discharged 
 and re-imprisoned. Such is the value of a canny organiza- 
 tion. The number of work-strikers remained very smal 
 until near the end, as described at the close of Chapter VII. 
 Clifford Allen believes that the disturbances of that last 
 period helped to drive the Government to release the men. 
 
 There is sufficient evidence to encourage the view that 
 if obstruction had been efficiently and nationally organized 
 release would have come sooner, and that in any case the 
 obstruction which became more and more general towards 
 the end did materially shorten the period of imprisonment 
 for a large number of men. 
 
 Organized resistance to discipline might probably have 
 broken up the prison system ; as it did, in fact, when such 
 a policy was adopted unofficially by only 130 of the men 
 out of I JOG. The final decision of the Government to 
 
292 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 release the " two-year men " was, it is thought, caused by 
 the grave situation which arose in some of the prisons in con- 
 sequence of the determined resistance of a few of the men. 
 James H. Hudson, in gaol at Manchester, wrote a 
 memorandum in favour of a general strike to be organized 
 for May Day 1919, which was circulated to all the prisons. 
 He argued — 
 
 (i) That continued passivity in prison would not be 
 sufficiently powerful to arouse the pubHc conscience to 
 the tyranny and iniquity of conscription. 
 
 (2) That, by the Labour Movement, acceptance of 
 penalties might reasonably be regarded as acquiescence 
 in tyranny. 
 
 (3) That Labour desired active opposition rather than 
 passive and inert submission. 
 
 Against these suggested strikes was put forward a 
 document from a minority of the Winchester prisoners in 
 October 1918. It urged that — 
 
 (i) A strike was a sign of impatience, and would create 
 the opinion that men were acting without any guiding 
 principle. 
 
 (2) The cause would be damaged by a release gained 
 by such methods. 
 
 (3) The value of recognition of our principles depended 
 upon it being won by persuasion and not by " force." 
 
 It concluded : " The steady and convinced growth of 
 the true pacifist spirit amongst people in response to our 
 true pacifist spirit is real positive gain and, moreover, 
 makes no enemies. Do not let us be carried away by 
 mere policy and by the fighting spirit within us. Sub- 
 mission is never pleasant to an ardent spirit, but it is our 
 strongest weapon. Let us continue to trust to our appeal 
 to the conscience of the nation." 
 
 Hunger-striking was keenly discussed. This was never 
 put forward from responsible quarters, but it was adopted 
 by a number of men who unquestionably obtained earlier 
 release as a result. It is to be feared, however, that their 
 health was considerably impaired thereby, although on 
 
PRISON: II 293 
 
 the other hand the general physical and mental vitality 
 of large numbers were damaged whether they were sub- 
 missive or rebellious. In any case, whether one agrees 
 or not with the hunger-strikers, admiration for their high 
 moral and physical courage cannot be withheld. 
 
 The controversies here related are proper matters for 
 history. They make clear the consistent urge towards 
 unity and loyalty which the N.C.F. exerted. Not one 
 split occurred in the ranks at any time, and when finally 
 the general release came and the Fellowship regathered, 
 everyone who really counted was present either in person 
 or in spirit. 
 
 4. There was, all through the period, a small number of 
 men who succeeded for a time in escaping arrest and did 
 not object to doing so. A few contrived to cross to Ire- 
 land, others were lost sight of by the military without any 
 attempt at concealment on their part. Ernest E. Hunter, 
 for instance, spent two years openly working in the office 
 of the No-Conscription Fellowship without arrest, though 
 the place was constantly being raided by the police. 
 Maurice Whitlow, a Quaker chaplain, visited the gaol 
 regularly for three years, during two of which he was 
 liable to incarceration. A number of men whose health 
 had become precarious simply walked out of camp in the 
 intervals of their imprisonment and went home for a 
 holiday, sending their addresses, and content to await 
 arrest. A hut on the moors between Lancashire and 
 Yorkshire was a rendezvous of a few others who were 
 definitely on the run. 
 
 The Government regulations concerning such men were 
 drastic and, on the whole, comparatively effective. Any- 
 one who harboured a man who was wanted, or anyone 
 who gave him employment, was liable to a fine of £20 a 
 day or imprisonment. Extremely few employers would 
 risk such a penalty. A man's own parents were, of course, 
 liable to this, but in practice it was not often carried into 
 effect against them where there was no attempt at con- 
 cealment. An exception was the harsh imprisonment of 
 Mrs. WapHngton at Smethwick. 
 
294 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 Runham Brown organized very successfully a scheme 
 for the employment of such men as window cleaners, 
 cobblers, and doers of odd jobs, with no definite person 
 in the position of employer. The responsibility for each 
 branch of N.C.F. service was carefully concentrated on 
 one person, so that all might not be in prison together. 
 Miss Catherine Marshall calculated that she was at one 
 time liable to about 2,000 years' imprisonment for her 
 many offences against this regulation. 
 
 5. Methods which might well have been used by the 
 Government, had they so desired, to ameliorate the con- 
 ditions brought about by the failure of the Tribunals to 
 carry out the intentions of Parliament, were pressed in a 
 speech in the House of Lords by Lord Parmoor on 
 May 24, 1917. He said that the men should have been 
 put into the first division, where any Judge would put 
 political offenders, or people condemned because of their 
 opinions. Secondly, that their offence, according to all 
 the principles of civil law, should have been expiated by 
 one imprisonment, after which they should have been dis- 
 missed from the Army. He also pointed out that the 
 form of the Act precluded the prerogative of mercy. Any 
 man pardoned would at once be arrested again, and so 
 constitutional practice was violated. 
 
 The Archbishop of Canterbury, with a liberal flow of 
 hard words against the conscientious objectors, followed, 
 supporting Lord Parmoor on grounds of common sense. 
 Lord Derby gave the uncompromising answer of a dull 
 man, and Earl Russell replied to him. For two years more 
 the successive imprisonments went on. 
 
 The conscientious objector was, so far as he knew, in 
 prison interminably. The plan adopted, to begin with, by 
 the military courts was to reduce the first sentence to 112 
 days. I know of no single case of a surrender after this 
 first release. The men I knew never seemed to have con- 
 sidered it. They came back to go a second or third time 
 through the hardships of the first month. During that 
 time you have a lower diet to bring you down to an amen- 
 able mind, and to use up any fat you may have brought 
 
PRISON: II 295 
 
 in. You sleep on a plank without mattress for the first 
 fortnight. I imagine you do not sleep. Think of the 
 degrading slavery of the new experience ; ordered about, 
 horribly dressed, hungry, always sitting on a stool without 
 a back, never seeing a fire, denied for the first two months 
 a letter or a visit or any news of the outside world, and 
 trying to sleep on a plank. How many of us would sleep 
 much ? Later on the men, through the efforts of the 
 N.C.F., were excused going through this period more 
 than once. They were, in that detail, recognized as being 
 in again for the same offence. 
 
 When the military found that they were not breaking 
 the men's spirits, the reduction was abandoned, and two 
 years' hard labour became the standard sentence. It 
 represents the maximum heinousness of military dis- 
 obedience by soldiers in war-time. On its expiration a 
 man was received by a military escort before he passed 
 the prison gate, taken to his regiment, given a formal 
 order, which he disobeyed — and after a week or two in the 
 guardroom and a court martial he went back to prison for 
 two years more. 
 
 It is believed by the authorities that the suppression 
 of personality which is the effect of " hard labour " cannot 
 be carried on for more than two years without risk to life 
 or sanity. It is the severest punishment short, if it be 
 short, of hanging which can be given. For longer periods 
 the more tolerable conditions of penal servitude are 
 prescribed. The late Lord Justice Fry and the Recorder 
 of Swansea and Lord Parmoor have declared that they 
 never gave such a long sentence of hard labour to the 
 worst criminals. The conduct of the man who chose to 
 go to prison a second or third time was wonderful. He 
 came from long suffering under the dull heavy cruelty of 
 the cell. He knew that his life was being taken from him 
 piece by piece ; that his mind was being dulled ; that he 
 suffered from sleeplessness or indigestion ; that all that 
 was fair and happy for other men was denied him ; that, 
 servile and despised as he had been in prison and would 
 be again, he could escape at once by giving in and becoming 
 a soldier. I still marvel at the matter-of-course way in 
 
296 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 which these men would say good-bye to me, with the hope 
 that they would be sent back to the same prison, and we 
 should meet again. The terrible wear and tear of prison 
 denudation was held at arm's length by faith. They 
 endured as seeing the invisible : some of them would say 
 " Him that was invisible " ; others, perhaps even braver 
 because they had less help, could not say that. But all 
 deserve a place among the men of faith in the eleventh 
 of Hebrews. 
 
 The fact that the repeated sentences ran directly 
 counter to ministerial declarations might be expected, 
 from the lack of cohesion then become habitual in the 
 administration of the Coalition. But the disappointment of 
 their reasonable hopes was none the less terrible to the 
 prisoners. I well remember the blow falling when the 
 first man who had served two years was sent back. On 
 July 4, 1916, Lord Sandhurst stated in the House of 
 Lords, "If a man will not do national work, he will 
 complete his sentence of civil imprisonment and then be 
 discharged from the Army." This discharge in disgrace 
 was a regular part of the Army code, and might have been 
 utilized, as it actually was at the end, at any time, had 
 not the Government's policy carried out Mr. Lloyd George's 
 promise to be as hard as he could to the Absolutists. Lord 
 Derby, on November 14, 1917, in the House of Lords, 
 explained that there were to be no more reductions to 112 
 days, so " there will not be successive punishments, but 
 the punishment that is given in the first instance by the 
 court martial." Lord Derby, a long time afterwards, 
 explained that he had not meant what he said. It was 
 only a muddle. 
 
 The situation moved reasonable public opinion eighteen 
 months or more before the men were released. The Times 
 wrote on October 25, 1917 : — " When a man has deliberately 
 refused to avail himself of two alternative ways of escape 
 from prison labour ; when he has, more than once, of his 
 own deliberate choice, gone back to gaol ; when he shows 
 himself resolute to go back again and again rather than to 
 submit to that military service against which he asserts that 
 his conscience raises for him an insuperable barrier — when he 
 
PRISON: II 297 
 
 thus proves repeatedly his readiness to suffer for what 
 he proclaims to be his beliefs, is it either justifiable or 
 politic to go on with the punishment ? " 
 
 6. As time wore on men began to be released from 
 prison, broken, ready to die. The number who died 
 mounted month by month. Many more were made hope- 
 lessly consumptive, and some became insane. Anyone 
 with physical or nervous weakness to begin with was 
 pretty sure to collapse. 
 
 The conscience of many influential people was roused. 
 The fire of questions was kept up in Parliament by the 
 devoted band there, under the evasions of Ministers and 
 the mockery of the warlike who sat at ease. The 
 Manchester Guardian reported these questions and 
 admitted letters. The Daily News followed, as matters 
 grew worse, in airing the facts. The death roll of men 
 promised exemption by an Act of Parliament, who had 
 proved their honesty by dying for it, produced uneasiness. 
 
 Fenner Brockway wrote from Liverpool gaol towards 
 the end of the period that one man in six was in hospital, 
 that one in six of the remainder had been examined that 
 week by the doctor for serious loss of weight. He said 
 that three men had fainted in chapel on the last Sunday. 
 My own experience as chaplain is that the men generally 
 began to find their heads fuzzy ; power of concentration 
 failed them ; they read and read without understanding ; 
 their thoughts wandered. Their brains, in fact, were 
 starved and becoming inoperative. They sometimes had 
 not strength to walk round the yard for the prescribed 
 time. 
 
 Among the official bodies who protested against the 
 continuance of the persecution were many hundreds of 
 Trade Union branches, seventy local Trades Councils and 
 Labour parties, and the official Labour Party unanimously 
 at its Nottingham Conference. Protests were signed by 
 1,000 Anglican clergymen and 2,500 Free Church ministers, 
 and by many distinguished people. 
 
 The Manchester Guardian of March 21, 1918, said that 
 *' in the hands of those who care for justice and freedom 
 
298 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 of conscience lies the power to make this even yet a prime 
 question, and to secure that the law of the land shall take 
 the place of a senseless persecution of which the better 
 part of public opinion is becoming steadily more ashamed." 
 
 In June 1918, J. Edward Hodgkin wrote of a visit to 
 Durham : — 
 
 *' Visiting the prison after five or six weeks* absence, 
 I am struck by the marked effect which the continued 
 confinement and low diet is having on the men. Several 
 spoke to me of feeling depressed, and as if there were a 
 cloud over them. They do not respond or take the same 
 share and interest in the service as they used to do a few 
 months ago. ... I am uneasy about the mental con- 
 dition of . He assured us to-day that he knew the 
 
 war was over and that this information was being with- 
 held purposely by myself and the warders ; and in other 
 ways behaved very curiously and made erratic irresponsible 
 statements." 
 
 The protests of the men and women usually taken as 
 embodying the national conscience became by the end of 
 1917 loud enough to rouse the Government. 
 
 "WTiolesale release would have been the right thing. 
 For granting this, reasons good or indifferent could easily 
 have been discovered by the alert mind of the Prime 
 Minister, by the use of such processes — say a further refer- 
 ence to the Central Tribunal- — as might have saved the 
 face of the War Office. But that plan would not have been 
 popular, so in December 1917 a number of concessions 
 calculated to ward off death and madness were granted 
 to those men only who had already served the equivalent 
 of twelve months (reduced to ten for good conduct). The 
 younger ones might be reckoned on to endure that length 
 of time without great scandal. 
 
 The concessions were : freedom to talk on exercise, 
 and to walk about in groups of either two or three, at their 
 own choice ; to have two exercise periods per day, and to 
 have their own books sent in four at a time. Still no 
 writing materials and no change in diet. The latter 
 would have been a wonderful boon, for a last screw of 
 cruelty had been turned in the provision of food. As 
 
PRISON: 11 299 
 
 already mentioned, when rationing occurred throughout 
 the nation, and people generally had to limit their 
 consumption of some articles, the prison diet, already 
 calculated — even if digested — merely to feed a low flame 
 of life, was further reduced. Nothing shows the spirit of 
 the Prison Commission more clearly. The oatmeal, or 
 oatmeal and maize, of which the gruel or porridge was 
 made, the potatoes and meat of poor quality used, would 
 not have impoverished a wasteful Government much if 
 granted undiminished. 
 
 There were other concessions of less value. The men 
 might wear their own clothes, and many did. That, of 
 course, was a Government economy. And they might 
 hire another prisoner to clean out their cells at 6d. a day. 
 This every one scorned to do. The Commissioners were 
 of a different spirit from their captives, and never even 
 began to understand them. 
 
 Besides the grant of a fortnightly letter, the monthly 
 visit was allowed to be in a room instead of a cage, but 
 with a warder present as before. 
 
 These concessions, known as 243(a), had been originally 
 devised for the militant suffragists. There was a curious 
 and very characteristic niggardliness about them. The 
 books prisoners might read were not to have any bearing 
 upon current events. Current events, of course, might be 
 found disastrously interesting. The fortnightly letter was 
 only to be half the length of the monthly one they had 
 hitherto written ; and the monthly visit in a room was 
 only to last a quarter of an hour instead of the half-hour 
 one behind the wires. This surly provision was after- 
 wards relaxed. What an expression it was of the prison 
 mind ! Those whose health had been so broken in prison 
 that scandal might result from too numerous deaths were 
 to be liberated. CHfford Allen, declared by the prison 
 doctor to be within a few days of death, and Stephen 
 Hobhouse, had been set free under an old prison rule in 
 early December 1917, to be returned to prison when 
 recovered. Their deaths would have moved the public, 
 and they were not rearrested ; but we shall see that some 
 humbler unknown sufferers were allowed to stay till they 
 
SOO CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 died. Finally, it was recognized that the Tribunals had 
 sometimes refused absolute exemption between the first 
 and second Acts, up to May 1916, on the ground that they 
 believed that they had no power to grant it, under Justice 
 Darhng's decision. Tribunals were now, months of im- 
 prisonment having passed by, allowed to reconsider these 
 cases, frankly admitted to be cases of injustice ; but a 
 concession so difficult and troublesome to apply was not 
 availed of by these busy and hostile bodies. If they had 
 offered absolute exemption, it rested with the War Office 
 to act on it or not. Most Tribunals answered that they 
 had always known they had the power, nine did not 
 reply, one or two revised their decisions but did not 
 change any. Little was to be hoped for from these bodies, 
 to whose door must be laid the chief responsibility for 
 the imprisonments. 
 
 In Maidstone gaol seven men refused the privileges, 
 carrying the idea of no compromise to its extreme limit. 
 In that gaol the visits of thirty minutes every month were 
 in a private room if available. A man there wrote. 
 
 " The Governor objected to shaking hands, but some 
 of the warders would say nothing to it. The Governor 
 gives us as little as he can help, and we have as little to 
 do with him as possible. Till the end of March we were 
 kept a full year before being afforded privileges ; then 
 we spoke to the prison inspector and got this corrected to 
 ten months if full marks had been earned.*' 
 
 7. A last trial came to some of the Absolutists in 
 September 1918, when most of them had been in prison 
 for two years or more. 
 
 The Government, under growing pressure from the 
 leaders of thought in the country, realized that those who 
 spoke for the national conscience were being rendered 
 increasingly unhappy by the persistence of the imprison- 
 ment of the sufferers for conscience' sake, and decided to 
 ease matters for those who had actually served over two 
 years' hard labour. 
 
 The idea that the Act might be at last carried out by 
 their complete release did not find favour. The North- 
 
PRISON: II 301 
 
 cliffe and Hulton papers and Bottomley would have given 
 voice. So an attempt to mitigate the long suffering of 
 hard labour was made. Men were quietly transferred in 
 small groups to the gaol at Wakefield from other gaols 
 all over the country. 
 
 A well-informed contributor to the Manchester Guardian 
 of September 27th continues the story : — 
 
 " The early arrivals discovered the hesitation in the 
 mind of the Home Office. While they were congregating, 
 under escort, from the four comers of the land, the Home 
 Office was still wondering what it should do. They 
 descended on a gaol which was not ready to receive them, 
 and which, when it had taken them in did not know, in 
 the absence of instructions, how to treat them. But there 
 was food and shelter, and assured of these necessaries, 
 the inmates began to organize the life of the place accord- 
 ing to a model of their own. The Governor of the gaol, 
 having no instructions, had to let them do pretty much 
 as they liked. The staff of warders numbered less than 
 a dozen ; the prisoners were counted by scores. The 
 locks, which were taken ofl the cell doors when the other 
 conscientious objectors, those who had accepted the Home 
 Office scheme, were in the gaol as a work centre, have not 
 been replaced ; and their successors, within the limits of 
 the high boundary walls, have so far been free to do pretty 
 much as they have wanted. They have appointed an 
 advisory committee, with Councillor Walter Ayles of 
 Bristol for its chairman, and P. T. Da vies for its secretary ; 
 Scott Duckers of London, W. H. Thompson (a North 
 Staffordshire soHcitor), and T. W. H. Sara (a social 
 lecturer) are among its members. There is a house sub- 
 committee, which details the men required to do each 
 day's cooking and the rest of the kitchen work. The 
 warder in charge is * permitted to help * (I was told) if 
 he likes. There is also a labour sub-committee, which 
 arranges for the cleaning and tidying of the cells. The 
 prisoners, by the bye, call the lockless cells their private 
 rooms. They have only once been in conffict with the 
 prison authorities. This was last Tuesday, when the 
 Governor proposed to give them tasks. They refused to 
 
302 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 perform them, and when no punishment followed they learned 
 that the Home Office had left him without instructions. 
 
 " Finally the instructions were communicated to the 
 prisoners at a mass meeting. It would seem that, as a 
 matter of convenience, or perhaps expediency, the 
 prisoners' organization has a certain amount of ' recog- 
 nition.' The Governor, at any rate, asked Mr. Ayles to 
 make known the Home Office intentions. The Home 
 Office evidently hopes that the Absolutists, now that they 
 are all together and fortified by each other's companion- 
 ship, will undertake to do work at Wakefield which they 
 have refused to do for two years past when left to their 
 individual resolution. The Home Office ' terms ' are 
 that the Absolutists should work with regularity and dili- 
 gence, and then, in addition to concessions regarding 
 correspondence and visitors, they will be allowed three- 
 pence a day and the opportunity to spend these three- 
 pences (but not more) at a prison canteen, which will be 
 sanctioned if they run it themselves. The work expected 
 of them was not specified in the communication. The 
 making of mailbags is a customary prison employment, 
 and Wakefield gaol has a small foundry, and it used also 
 to have a ropewalk." 
 
 Finally the men issued a manifesto stating their 
 resolve not to co-operate with any of these schemes of 
 partial amelioration. As always, they showed that they 
 were not out for easy terms or for personal relief, however 
 great might be the temptation to worn and partially broken 
 men, but that they were determined to maintain their 
 testimony to the end. Their statement ran as follows : — 
 
 " H.M. Prison, Wakefield. 
 " In view of the great misunderstanding and misrepre- 
 sentation concerning the principles of the Absolutist con- 
 scientious objectors, we issue the following brief statement : — 
 
 '* (i) Our vital principle as Absolutists is not a refusal 
 to serve the community. It is that we cannot 
 accept either military service or any compulsory 
 work organized to facilitate the prosecution of 
 the war. 
 
PRISON: II 303 
 
 *' (2) Therefore we cannot accept any scheme of work 
 involving our actual or implied consent to the 
 carrying out of any such purpose. 
 
 ** (3) We are faced with a situation, submission to which 
 may involve the complete denial of our prin- 
 ciples, by implicitly introducing an element of 
 voluntary or semi-voluntary co-operation on our 
 part. 
 
 ** (4) It appears that the Government still misunder- 
 stand our principles, in that they take for 
 granted that any safe or easy conditions can meet 
 the imperative demands of our conscience. No 
 offer of schemes or concessions can do this. We 
 stand for the inviolable rights of conscience in 
 the affairs of life. We ask for liberty to serve, 
 and if necessary to suffer, for the community 
 and its well-being. As long as the Government 
 deny us this right, we can only take with cheer- 
 fulness and unmistakable determination what- 
 ever penalties are imposed upon us. We want 
 no concessions. We desire only the liberty to 
 serve. 
 
 '* Signed on behalf of the Absolutists in Wakefield Prison, 
 Walter H. Ayles, Chairman ; P. T. Davies, General 
 Secretary ; W. H. Thompson, Eric P. Southall, Henry 
 Sara, J. Scott Duckers, Geo. Horwill, Members of the 
 Advisory Committee. 
 
 " September 14, 1918." 
 
 Tens of thousands of copies of this manifesto, written 
 by men with no prospect of release before them, were cir- 
 culated by the No-Conscription Fellowship. It was thus 
 clearer than ever that no plan of concessions would meet 
 the case. These unconquerable men were then returned 
 to their prisons to continue their sentences. 
 
 8. The terrible strain was causing widespread unrest. 
 A hunger-strike was initiated in the prison at Newcastle 
 on February 18, 1918, " as a protest against the incom- 
 
304 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 petence and inhumanity of the prison doctor." ^ The 
 account given in the Tribunal, a periodical in which 
 accounts are carefully checked, states that the same tube 
 was used up their noses to feed all eleven men forcibly, 
 and that no attempt was made to wash it out between 
 cases, though one of them was believed to be suffering 
 from lung trouble. After strong protest, separate tubes 
 were used for each man. 
 
 " One comrade had a disease of the nose, and suffered 
 terrible agony through the doctor trying to force the tube 
 up his nostril ; another had a tear vein burst through the 
 violence of the operation ; all bled profusely from the 
 nose or throat, so roughly were they handled. Moreover, 
 on one occasion the doctor pulled a handful of hair out 
 of a man's head In his anger, and frequently used epithets 
 such as * dirty filthy scoundrel ' and the like." 
 
 On March loth Colonel Wedgwood asked a question 
 in the House on this subject, and Mr. Shortt denied the 
 truth of all the allegations " on the information he had 
 received " — no doubt ultimately coming from the prison 
 doctor. Our readers must form their own conclusions. 
 
 At this period hunger-striking was becoming common 
 in the prisons. It occurred at Maidstone, Winchester, 
 Wandsworth, Carlisle, Canterbury and Hull. The autho- 
 rities met it sometimes by forcible feeding, sometimes by 
 temporary release under the " Cat and Mouse Act," or in 
 both ways. The first men forcibly fed in Wandsworth 
 were denied water by the doctor. The water was taken 
 out of their cells and a jug of milk substituted. This, of 
 course, was food. The water given for washing was made 
 soapy, so that they could not drink it. In consequence they 
 suffered terribly from thirst, especially after each forcible 
 feeding. Colonel Wedgwood obtained a promise from 
 Mr. Shortt that this practice should cease.* 
 
 In November 1918 the Armistice was signed amid unex- 
 ampled rejoicing. We little knew the years of diplomatic 
 and economic war that were before us. The spirit of 
 the Government, now familiar in other connections, was 
 
 ^ Tribunal, February 27 and March 27, 1918. 
 » Ibid., March 13, 191 9. 
 
PRISON: II 305 
 
 manifest at once in their refusal to release the men in 
 prison or camp. While the war was on, and conscripts 
 daily reaching military age, the example of the men in 
 punishment might theoretically be of use to the war as 
 a deterrent to possible shirkers. But that baneful utility 
 was now done with. Industries needed restoration, and 
 everything should have been done to restore society. But 
 what prevailed was the idea that thus the " conchies " 
 would score off the returned soldiers. When the returning 
 men are counted by four or five millions, four or five 
 thousand liberated prisoners would have had an infinitesimal 
 effect on the labour market. Many had businesses of their 
 own, or posts awaiting them, and against the rest there 
 was still the war feeling. Few outside their sympathizers 
 would give a CO. work if an ex-soldier could be found for 
 it. Even now in 1922 the Post Office and some other 
 civil services and the public teaching authorities and the 
 railways refuse for the most part to reinstate Absolutists, 
 and some are still out of work. They have permanently 
 lost their careers. But no doubt the newspapers which play 
 the part of the dogs of war would have given tongue, and 
 their readers would have been influenced. The Govern- 
 ment took the safe course, and the miserable experience 
 of hope deferred was added to the ordinary miseries of 
 the prisons. Men continued to go out when their sentences 
 expired and were sent back for two years more, in time 
 of peace. 
 
 9. This continuation of imprisonment after enlistment 
 had ceased produced in Wandsworth gaol an outbreak 
 of rebellion on a large scale. The fact that the rebels 
 complained of the " lack of support by the respectable 
 element and challenged them to discuss the business " shows 
 the inevitable difference of opinion on such a course. On 
 October 16, 1918, we find that twenty men were already 
 on strike against prison rules — a few weeks before the 
 Armistice — so that the trouble cannot be entirely put down 
 to that, but to the general nervous situation produced by 
 protracted suffering. Quite independently of this many of 
 the strongest minds had become convinced that a strike 
 
 20 
 
306 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 and release were necessary for the cause — that suffering 
 had done its work. Others took the opposite view, as 
 has been recounted. A commendable attempt at recon- 
 ciliation was made at that time by a Prison Commissioner, 
 who offered to wipe out all their punishments and to give 
 them a fresh start if they would submit to regulations 
 and do prison work. It was not, however, enough to 
 reconcile them to their situation. " Of course they con- 
 tinued striking and forced an hour's talking exercise, and 
 then two, per day. I arrived at that moment. We then 
 asked for books, letters and visitors (these were all stopped), 
 but were refused. We then refused to come in from exer- 
 cise. Officers draw batons and get excited. This happens 
 at three exercises ; it is then knocked off. We had our 
 little concerts through the window, and a little tin-rattling 
 and door-banging. On December 4th we were suddenly 
 removed to the basement." ^ These cells were described 
 as damp and filthy, and as having been in disuse for years. 
 This act, like every form of coercion, only produced more 
 rebellion. At exercise time speeches were made, and 
 communication opened up through the windows with the 
 neighbouring wing in which soldiers were confined. Much 
 fraternisation followed mutual explanations. A number of 
 the cells had all the furniture in them broken to pieces. 
 The glass of the gas aperture in the cell walls and the glass 
 of the spyholes were broken in all the cells to make com- 
 munication easier. With his head in the gas recess, so as 
 to be heard in the ward generally, Guy Aldred, who is a 
 Communist, delivered a lecture on Bolshevism. Through 
 the cell windows a concert consisting of twenty items was 
 given, so that the people in the houses over the prison 
 wall could hear. The " Red Flag " and " The Inter- 
 national " were sung in the resounding central hall of the 
 prison when the men were going in from exercise, as well 
 as constantly during the time of exercise. The Governor 
 received several deputations ; one threatened to break 
 up the furniture in all the cells unless the men under 
 punishment were released. The latter threw their dry 
 bread out of the window, or left it uneaten. Finally, after 
 
 » T. H. Ellison's MS. 
 
PRISON: II 307 
 
 a week's hunger-strike, the strikers were released under 
 the " Cat and Mouse " Act.' 
 
 The fact is that prisons are not staffed in such a way 
 as to deal with a large body of desperate men, organized, 
 intelligent, trusting one another, and without fear of con- 
 sequences. When, however, the warders could deal with 
 a single individual their methods were these : — 
 
 On January 2, 1919, one of the C.O.'s in Wandsworth 
 had been very unwisely mocked at by the chief warder 
 because the main body of them were enjoying the privi- 
 leges won by their comrades on strike, and saying that 
 they, the quiet men, were afraid of enduring similar punish- 
 ments, but were hiding behind the strikers' backs. To 
 show the untruth of this, the CO. in question smashed 
 his cell windows, furniture, pots and pans, and declared 
 himself on work and hunger strike. He was pushed out 
 of his cell, seized by about seven warders, frog-marched 
 along the landing, being kneed in the back every few steps, 
 and half strangled, and punched on the back of his head. 
 They attempted to hurl him headlong down a flight of 
 steps, but he managed to grasp a rail and averted it. More 
 frog-marching, and a second attempt to hurl him down 
 from the landing resulted in a warder getting a nasty spill. 
 After much banging about he was put into a body belt, 
 with hands cuffed to his side, in a punishment cell. One 
 hand was released to enable him to take his tea. He 
 refused to do it ; the hand was locked up again, and he 
 was left for the night. Next morning the doctor told him 
 that he was a lunatic and was to be treated as such ; he 
 was put into a strait-jacket in a padded cell. A convict 
 was assigned to feed him, but he refused. The strait- 
 jacket was strapped too tightly and prevented his breath- 
 ing, cramping his shoulders so that he suffered terrible 
 pain, walking up and down and flinging himself at intervals 
 on a mattress, with vomiting and other sufferings. He 
 was kept twenty hours in the body belt, and twenty-three 
 and a half in the strait-jacket, with half an hour's respite. 
 He was refused, except after prolonged delay, all chance 
 of relieving nature, and his sufferings and the words used 
 
 « From the Spur. 
 
808 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 by the warders are unprintable here.^ After a week's 
 hunger-strike he was released under the " Cat and Mouse " 
 Act for a month, to recover and then begin again. It is 
 not surprising that a new Governor — Major Blake — was 
 appointed at Wandsworth, and his style may be gathered 
 from a letter descriptive of it, sent to Commander Wedg- 
 wood by E. W. Harby from the gaol. It stated that he 
 paraded fifty C.O.'s, saying, " I will not have these 
 stinking C.O.'s mixed with respectable men.*' Sewell 
 Harris, a well-known young Friend, replied to one out- 
 burst, " Thank you, sir,'* for which he was ordered into 
 irons, but this was not carried out in the punishment cell. 
 The Governor went on (according to the C.O.'s letter), 
 " To hell with the C.O.'s, to hell with them ! " Pointing 
 to the writer of this letter, he said, " Look at that swine ! " 
 The Home Secretary, Mr. Shortt at that time, denied the 
 statements contained in this letter. Major Blake's own 
 version of this is that when he reached the prison the 
 C.O.'s were in the hall making a great noise, singing the 
 ** Red Flag " and shouting rudely at him. He responded, 
 '* March these noisy devils out of here ; I won't have them 
 disturbing the decently behaved prisoners." The Major 
 explained that he restored order and got the rioters' 
 *' tails down." Then he says, " I went to Major Briscoe 
 and explained that I had acted illegally because I had 
 ' cursed and damned ' these fellows until I frightened 
 them." A Parliamentary enquiry under Mr. (now Sir) 
 Albion Richardson, M.P., was ordered into the case, from 
 whose report some of the quotations come. The report 
 dwelt on the Governor's good intentions and difficult task, 
 and was mostly written in whitewash. Commander Wedg- 
 wood, who was present at the enquiry, found that the 
 charges made by him in the House of Commons — based 
 upon E. W. Harby's letter — were supported with unani- 
 mity by all the twenty or thirty prisoners who gave 
 independent evidence, and denied by the Governor and 
 his warders with equal unanimity. Readers who know 
 the varying value of testimony can form their own 
 conclusions. Throughout February, punishments, hunger- 
 
 » Tribunal, January 23, 1919. 
 
PRISON: II 36d 
 
 striking, artificial feeding and removals to hospital were the 
 order of the day at Wandsworth. There was unwisdom 
 on both sides. 
 
 10. In January an extraordinarily influential memorial 
 was sent to the Prime Minister urging the release of the 
 1,500 men still in prison. It was organized by Miss Kinder, 
 one of the N.C.F. staff. The signatories were literary 
 and University men of national reputation. Labour leaders, 
 bishops and leading clergy of all denominations, repre- 
 sentative men and women in various walks of life. The 
 memorial was presented by the Rev. E. W. Barnes, Master 
 of the Temple, Colonel John Buchan, Professor Gilbert 
 Murray and Lord Parmoor. Apparently it produced no 
 effect. A local appeal, organized by Alexander C. Wilson 
 in Manchester, was signed by more than half the clergy 
 and ministers appealed to, by thirty-six city magistrates, and 
 fifty county magistrates in Lancashire and Cheshire. The men 
 who had been released under the " Cat and Mouse " Act 
 were constantly returning to begin the miserable round 
 of protest and punishment again. Some went back record- 
 ing their feeling that this would be their last arrest. The 
 next would be from the hand which, sooner or later, 
 arrests us all. 
 
 Complaints of the neglect of prisoners* health became 
 more numerous as the year 1918 went on. Philip Snowden 
 and Joseph King were the Parliamentary champions of 
 the sufferers, and did knightly service. But one would 
 gather from the replies of Mr. Brace and Mr. Macpherson 
 that the prison world was an abode of order, contentment 
 and fatherly care. Men like myself, who were in the prisons 
 once or twice a week, found ourselves sympathizing with 
 Mr. Snowden and Mr. King rather than with the reports 
 from officials which the Ministers read out as replies. 
 
 One of the grievances was that now that so many men 
 were undergoing their second or third year's imprison- 
 ment, their weight when they entered on a new sentence 
 was already reduced to its lowest safe minimum. But it 
 was, in accordance with prison routine, taken as their 
 base, or ordinary weight, and until they had lost consider- 
 
810 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 ably more they were not regarded as having lost weight 
 and needing more food. 
 
 Another trouble was that, after the concession with 
 regard to conversation and two periods of exercise per 
 day had been granted, this concession was withheld from 
 the men who were in hospital, who continued to have 
 only one period of exercise, and that in silence. This was 
 done purely to save trouble to the hospital attendants, who 
 would have had to be on duty three times a day instead of 
 once. I have known men go back to their ordinary hard 
 labour when they ought to have remained in hospital on 
 this account. Sir George Cave, however, refused Mr. 
 Snowden any satisfaction when he complained. His reply 
 was that the men at Liverpool, concerning whom the 
 question was framed, had complained only to the doctor 
 and had not carried it to the Governor. At the prison I 
 knew best, the Governor himself well understood the rule 
 and the reason for it, and that must have been the case 
 everywhere. But the warders were reduced in numbers 
 by the war, and the hospital patients suffered. 
 
 II. On April 2, 1919, at long last, the Government 
 announced that all kinds of prisoners under the Army 
 Act who had served two years would be released. This 
 would include the C.O.*s, though they were not treated 
 alone. The attempt to avoid an outbreak in certain 
 newspapers was continued by granting no dramatic or 
 spectacular or immediate release of the whole number. 
 The release was spread over several weeks, and took place 
 irregularly. A dozen were sent out here, a score there, 
 and no one knew when his turn would come. It was a last 
 trial of patience. Two years' imprisonment means in 
 practice for men of good conduct one year and eight 
 months, and no one knew at first whether the official two 
 years would be taken or an actual period of two years. 
 Finally it was decided that release should occur after an 
 actual twenty months' incarceration. 
 
 By the end of April nearly all the two-years' men were 
 out. When they were liberated another attempt was 
 made in the House of Lords to render more tolerable the 
 
PRISON: II 311 
 
 continued imprisonment of the others. The remarkable 
 feature of it was the intervention of Lord SaHsbury on the 
 side of mercy. As chairman of the Central Tribunal who 
 had examined the men in prison he had a real knowledge 
 of the Absolutists. But the Government could not take a 
 large view. 
 
 Those left were the oldest and the youngest, those who 
 were only conscripted at the last age extension and those 
 who had recently reached eighteen and had been in prison 
 less than twenty months. There was no sense in retaining 
 them, except to inflict punishment for adopting a course 
 provided for by Act of Parliament. On May 9th 650 were 
 still in prison. 
 
 As no popular clamour had followed the April release, 
 and as the Triple Alliance of Labour threatened direct 
 action if this and other points were not righted, the War 
 Office began in the second week of June to reduce the 
 remaining sentences on the following plan : — 
 
 First sentences were reduced to 112 days, second 
 sentences to six months from the date of the second 
 sentence, third sentences to nine months from the date of 
 the third sentence. 
 
 This extraordinary plan reveals the military mind. 
 The man who had already endured the most was to suffer 
 more still — on the theory that he was the greater villain. 
 Comment would be superfluous. During July, under this 
 order, the remaining men were liberated, one by one. On 
 July 30th Mr. Winston Churchill, with only slight inac- 
 curacy, said that all were out. The imprisonment had 
 lasted three years and a quarter. Some men, if their 
 health had lasted, had, with intervals in camp and guard- 
 room, suffered three years' hard labour. They were all 
 discharged from the Army for " misconduct," and were 
 threatened on the printed form with two years' hard 
 labour if they ever tried to enter it again ! This grim 
 joke might have been used by the War Office at any time 
 had it been inclined to mercy. These discharge papers 
 are much valued by their recipients, and will become 
 heirlooms. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 DEATHS 
 
 I. The first of those who died was Walter Roberts 
 of Stockport. He died, as has been mentioned in 
 Chapter VII, of high fever, contracted from being con- 
 stantly wet through in the rotten and condemned tents on 
 the muddy hill-side at Dyce. He was nursed in a stable, 
 and was only ill for five days, dying in a broken-down 
 cottage. His death — being the first — affected us all very 
 much. Fenner Brockway wrote about him in the Tribunal ^ 
 as follows : — 
 
 " I first met Walter Roberts on the eve of the hearing 
 of his claim for exemption by the Local Tribunal at 
 Bredbury. I was so attracted by his quiet strength and 
 transparent sincerity that I decided to put off another 
 engagement in order that I might be present at the 
 proceedings. I beheve Roberts was the first conscientious 
 objector to appear before a Tribunal. In all our subsequent 
 struggles he has typified to me the cause for which we 
 have been witnessing. 
 
 " The members of the Tribunal were aged and experienced 
 men. Roberts looked younger than his twenty years. 
 * Are you not very youthful to hold such decided opinions ? ' 
 the Chairman asked. ' I have been taught from my mother's 
 knee that to hate and to kill is contrary to the teaching 
 of Christ,' he answered, with frank simplicity. The mem- 
 bers of the Tribunal were dumbfounded. It was not so 
 much the words which struck them ; it was the serene 
 and confident bearing of the young man which conquered 
 them. They seemed conscious that they were in the 
 
 » September 14, 191 6. 
 312 
 
DEATHS 313 
 
 presence of a Power and a Spirit greater than the things 
 of this world. 
 
 " Often, in my mind, I have Hkened the scene to the 
 Gospel story of the lad Jesus confronting the wise men 
 in the Temple. Roberts sat facing the men in whose 
 hands his fate lay, with calm faith born of certainty of the 
 course he should pursue. His religion shone in his face. 
 Scarcely another question was put to him ; he was dis- 
 missed within three minutes. Four days later he heard 
 that all exemption had been denied him. 
 
 " Before the Appeal Tribunal at Stockport, Roberts bore 
 himself with similar nobility. When he had answered the 
 questions put to him, his father spoke passionately of the 
 Christian upbringing he had given his boy. * I and his 
 mother are responsible for the views he holds,' he pleaded. 
 ' We have taught him to love his enemies and to be kind 
 to all men.' It was of no avail. The Appeal Tribunal 
 upheld the decision given at Bredbury." 
 
 Fenner Brockway happened to accompany him also 
 on part of the first journey to prison. " In the carriage 
 was an obviously prosperous business man. * What a nice 
 young fellow !' he remarked about Roberts when we had 
 said good-bye to him and his comrades. ' It's a shame that 
 lads who think it wrong to fight should be treated like this.' 
 Afterwards I learned that my fellow-traveller was a muni- 
 tions manufacturer, on his way to London to interview 
 Mr. Lloyd George. ' If I get the chance,' he said, ' I will 
 tell him what I think about all this.' " 
 
 2. From the close of 1917 deaths, in prison or after 
 release on medical grounds, began to be numerous. The 
 earlier ones naturally shocked us the most ; later they 
 became commoner events. They were nearly all of one 
 type. A man was emaciated by want of exercise and 
 nourishment and by mental and physical suffering, so that 
 he was unable to resist influenza or bronchitis or pneu- 
 monia or consumption, when they attacked him. After 
 reading the accounts readers will judge whether medical 
 neglect ever gave the last push to the weakened patient. 
 
 Arthur Butler, the holder of a scholarship from Stock- 
 
314 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 port Grammar School, was classified A.i by the military, 
 and arrested in July 1916. He received his third sentence, 
 of two years, in May 19 17, was committed to Preston gaol, 
 and developed consumption. On November loth he wrote 
 that he coughed and spat blood and had pains in the chest 
 and shoulders. The doctor ascribed these to influenza. 
 His family reported to the Home Office that one of them 
 had died of consumption ; but without effect. The Home 
 Office — acting, of course, on local medical evidence — per- 
 sisted that Butler was only slightly unwell, and on 
 December nth assured an enquirer in Parliament that 
 there was no cause for anxiety. He died the next day, 
 Wednesday, the 12th. On the nth Butler's friends heard 
 that he was dying. The Home Office was approached 
 and his mother was allowed to see him. He was gasping 
 for breath, and, conscious that he was dying, begged that 
 his mother might remain. The Governor refused it as 
 against the rules. Late that night Butler said, " They 
 have been kind to me now, but it is too late." The prison 
 doctor whose conduct was in question was nevertheless 
 entrusted with the post mortem which the relatives demanded, 
 and that gentleman reported that death was due to 
 pneumonia. Butler had, however, complained previously 
 that he was as weak as a kitten through lack of food, and 
 a fellow-prisoner remarked that during the last month 
 " he looked really awful ; I hardly thought he was the same 
 chap." The jury exonerated the doctor. Arthur Butler 
 appears to have been one of the most precious of human 
 types thrown to the rubbish heap. 
 
 3. Arthur Horton of Manchester was seriously ill at 
 Shrewsbury on December 4, 1917, when Lord Curzon 
 promised that such men should be released, but no release 
 was granted him till January 5th, when he had become 
 too ill to be removed. He died on January i6th. He 
 was classified A.i on entering prison fourteen months 
 before. He had complained of under-feeding ; the cells 
 were cold and the men had to tramp round for hours to 
 keep warm ; but this made him dizzy, so he took down 
 his mattress and covered himself with rugs. He was for- 
 
DEATHS 315 
 
 bidden to do this. He developed a severe cough which 
 echoed through the prison, called by the doctor *' a little 
 cough." The doctor never examined him, but gave cough 
 mixture. Death was ascribed to " natural causes following 
 pneumonia." Charles E. Gillett of Worcester was the Quaker 
 chaplain at Shrewsbury, and wrote an account to Mrs. Percy 
 Bigland, from which the following extracts are made : — 
 
 ** I was met at the station by Elizabeth Horton, who 
 informed me that her brother passed away the previous 
 day. We went together to the prison and saw the 
 Governor. I asked if she might join us at our meeting, 
 but this was refused. I opened with a short prayer, ask- 
 ing for the Divine presence and comfort in our sorrow, 
 remembering the relatives and giving thanks for the life 
 closed. This was followed by a long silence of possibly six 
 minutes, when Albert Mann spoke very sweetly and nicely, 
 followed by E. E. Johnson. Then James H. Hudson spoke, 
 suffused with tears. * Enter ye in with thanksgiving ' 
 was the central thought. He said ' that A. H. remained true, 
 and deviated not at all. To us the sense was overpower- 
 ing now, and at first we felt apt to be bitter ; but this must 
 not be ; love must prevail.' I followed on with the thought 
 that here and now we had the opportunity of choice, and 
 the importance of its right exercise. Others present spoke 
 feelingly. At the close we all remained standing for a 
 short period before we separated. A message of sympathy 
 to the relatives was asked to be conveyed ; also a wreath 
 * from his comrades,' both of which I have written about. 
 I shook hands as they were going out. W. broke down, 
 clasping my hands, falHng on my breast sobbing as if his 
 heart would break ; all I could catch was ' my mother, 
 my mother.* After all had passed out I told the warder 
 I must see W. I could not leave him hke that ; so I went 
 to his cell and tried to comfort him, telHng him he must 
 bravely take up the work our comrade had laid down. 
 He said he would search for the Truth, and I left him 
 calmer, but found him prostrate in his cell. He has not 
 been well the last four or five weeks, and never having 
 had a letter in or out from his people, the horror of it must 
 have suddenly seized him." 
 
816 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 " The remains were laid out in hospital. On a window- 
 ledge were a few grapes ; the ward was all sweet and 
 clean. The jury at the inquest could see the grapes, never 
 tasted, and hear that two nurses were in attendance ; but 
 how misleading ! Doubtless everything was done that 
 could be done, when too late. Though I think the doctor 
 is much to blame, yet it is all part of a system, anti- 
 human. Under-nutrition weakened an otherwise strong 
 frame, and when, as A. H. said to me, he could not eat, 
 more than enough food was provided, but, from what I 
 could see, not tempting enough for an invalid. Why he 
 was kept in a cell so long I do not know, but put it down 
 to short-handedness ; I always understood that with pneu- 
 monia a steam kettle was a sine qua non. 
 
 " The Governor and all concerned were most kind and 
 considerate to his sister, and assured her there was no need 
 for her to stay for the inquest, as she was anxious to get 
 back to the old parents, and the warder sent round to 
 inform her again reiterated this view. 
 
 *' I do not know whether a personal representation to 
 the Prison Commissioners would have any value, but 
 before uttering much about it I feel that it is only courteous 
 that they should be informed. 
 
 " Rules I recognize there must be, but is the Governor 
 to be so tied hand and foot ? He looks to the doctor ; 
 the doctor works under regulations, and from what has 
 been told me by others, is — what shall I say ? — unsym- 
 pathetic, especially towards C.O.'s." 
 
 Horton, like others, had suffered by the diminution 
 of diet which followed the rationing outside. When the 
 bread was already at the margin of bodily maintenance to 
 reduce it seriously was enough to produce casualties of 
 this kind. Complaints that the proper weight was not 
 given were common from prisoners in various places. Some- 
 times the men demanded that it should be weighed, and 
 received thereby quite a great deal more.^ A Friend who 
 was in Wormwood Scrubs, in a letter to his wife in August 
 1916, reported : — " Food has grown rapidly worse these 
 last few weeks. We are suffering acutely ; we cannot 
 
 » See Tribunal, January 24, 191 8. 
 
DEATHS 817 
 
 rest or sleep for want of food. A great many are having 
 to give in ; they cannot stand present starvation." 
 
 4. Henry W. Firth of Norwich died at Princetown on 
 February 6, 19 18. He had served nine months in prison 
 at Wormwood Scrubs and Maidstone. At the latter prison 
 he became so ill that he applied on November 21, 1917, 
 for the Home Office scheme, but it was not granted till 
 December 31st, by which time he was a " mere bag of 
 bones." At Princetown he was put to work in the quarry 
 on totally unsuitable tasks. He constantly complained of 
 weakness and thirst and could never eat the dinner pro- 
 vided. On January 4th he gave up work at the quarry 
 owing to cold, and visited the doctor, who told him there 
 was nothing the matter with him, and he was sent back. 
 Three days later the doctor told him that he was very 
 selfish and must remember that the soldiers in the trenches 
 were cold. He tried again and again to get into hospital, 
 unsuccessfully. About January 23rd he was transferred to 
 a whitewashing party who worked all night, but he was 
 too ill to work. He was weary and dreadfully thirsty all the 
 time. He tried again to work the second night, but had to 
 be put into hospital. The next morning the doctor saw him, 
 but took no notice of him and gave him no medicine. Two 
 days after the doctor sent him out, on a Saturday. On 
 Monday, January 28th, he went to the quarry again — in 
 vain. He went to hospital on Wednesday, the 30th, and 
 on the 31st had cod-liver oil, the only medicine he received. 
 On Monday, February 4th, the Chairman of the men's 
 Committee interviewed the doctor, with the result that 
 he was allowed a milk diet. On Tuesday — at last — the 
 doctor saw the seriousness of his case and consulted the 
 visiting doctor, after which Firth asked if he could be 
 allowed eggs in his milk, but was told that eggs were 
 wanted for the men in France. He died on Wednesday. 
 The next day three eggs were sent for him. On the day 
 he died one of his friends again interviewed the doctor, 
 and asked if he should wire for Mr. Firth's wife. Afwire 
 was refused but a letter was permitted — too late, of 
 course. The verdict, as usual, made no accusation of 
 
818 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 negligence against the doctor. Throughout the Princetown 
 Settlement the greatest indignation was felt. Seven hundred 
 men struck work for the whole of a day. That the cook- 
 house men might join also, the others fasted. A memorial 
 meeting and a service were held, and the whole Settlement 
 the following day made a procession to the station with 
 the body. The train moved away to the singing of the 
 hymn ** Lead, kindly Light." The inquest was held irre- 
 gularly. An essential part of the publicity of the pro- 
 ceedings is that the jurors should be sworn in in the presence 
 of the parties interested, so that they might be challenged 
 by the representatives of the men's Committee, who were 
 instructing the solicitor who appeared for the widow. 
 They were not admitted until after the jury had been 
 sworn. The bias of five out of the seven jurors was 
 well known, and they would have been challenged. At 
 the end of the inquest the Press and the widow and the 
 men in the Settlement were put out of court, but the two 
 doctors whose conduct was impugned, and the prison 
 officials, remained with the jury. The doctor admitted 
 that the cause of death was diabetes, and that he must 
 have had it all the time.i The Home Oihce, in response 
 to the one day's strike, arrested C. H. Norman and I. P. 
 Hughes. This was after a visit from Major Terrell. 
 Probably seven hundred would have been too many to 
 punish at once. The two men were taken to Exeter gaol, 
 because they were supposed to have caused an act which was 
 in fact spontaneous. I. P. Hughes was afterwards allowed 
 to do work under the Home Office, but C. H. Norman was 
 left in prison till the end. The Government felt safer so. 
 
 5. Ernest England, a Leeds Quaker, was arrested in 
 June 1916, taken to York Barracks, and after a forcible 
 medical examination was released as being medically unfit. 
 When the Act was passed ordering the re-examination of 
 men of low category he was called up, arrested, and 
 handed over to the military. His mother, who attended 
 the court and after a day in town visited the railway 
 
 » The details of the evidence may be found in the Tribunal, February 21, 
 1918. 
 
DEATHS aid 
 
 station to see him taken away to York, was attacked by 
 illness at the station and her condition rapidly became 
 grave. A few days afterwards, on the morning of his 
 court martial, he received a telegram to the effect that 
 his mother was dying. MiHtary officers held out no hope 
 of leave to go home, but late at night, after the court 
 martial proceedings, a telephone message from the family 
 to the Brigadier-General in charge resulted in leave being 
 granted to return home for twenty-four hours under 
 escort. No trains were running at that late hour, and it 
 was necessary to find a taxi-cab at double fare for the 
 journey from Ripon to Leeds. He arrived a few hours 
 before the death of his mother. Following a telegram 
 from the escort, extension of leave was granted to attend 
 the funeral. On June 17, 1917, he was taken to Worm- 
 wood Scrubs for a two years' sentence. After what he 
 had gone through with a weak constitution, it is not sur- 
 prising that during the first night he was taken very ill 
 with internal pains. There was no chamber vessel in his 
 cell. He was refused one, on repeated appHcation. Nature 
 at last gave way. When the warder saw this he buried 
 the poor man's face in it, an act not to be characterized. 
 He suffered at Wormwood Scrubs for seventeen weeks, 
 and finally, under the doctor's advice, took on the Home 
 Office scheme, to save his reason. He was at Knutsford 
 from November 1917 to May 1918, at Wakefield till 
 August, and then at Dartmoor till the end of January 1919. 
 His letters from Dartmoor show him shivering with cold, 
 working in the snow with wet feet, and suffering from the 
 diet, After a day of hard shovel work tea consisted of 
 a thick slice of bread (6 ounces) and a scrape of margarine 
 (J ounce) and a mug of tea. Occasionally a httle treacle was 
 added. It is curious that he should write from Dartmoor, 
 '* Nearly all the chaps that go on the new scheme [to individual 
 employers] walk straight into the * 'flu ' ; quite a number 
 that I know have died." Six weeks later his enfeebled 
 frame succumbed to influenza at home on March 6, 1919. 
 
 6. Bennett WalHs, a Plymouth Brother, was on the 
 Home Office scheme at the Denton Road Board Camp, 
 
320 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 near Newhaven. On September 5, 1917, he stopped work 
 through indigestion, and on September 8th visited the 
 camp doctor in Newhaven. (The dates are of importance 
 in this narrative.) The doctor said he was suffering from 
 dental dyspepsia, due to septic poisoning from bad teeth. 
 He was given medicine and a diet, but no attention was 
 paid to his teeth. On September nth, as he was no 
 better, he got stronger medicine and was ordered port 
 wine, which was refused by the Agent. The doctor also 
 emphasized the necessity of having the bad teeth removed ; 
 but nothing was done. On the i8th the sick orderly 
 visited the Agent, who said he would send Wallis to Wake- 
 field to get his teeth attended to ; but nothing was done. 
 On the 20th the doctor ordered him a month's leave home 
 for dental treatment ; still nothing was done. On 
 September 26th the Agent finally gave leave for him to 
 go home. He had now been ill for three weeks. The 
 Agent said, notwithstanding Rule 18, that he had not the 
 power to send him home without the special permission 
 of the Home Office. It was too late to travel north that 
 day, but the next morning his condition was so critical 
 that the doctor certified him as unfit to travel, and ordered 
 him to go to hospital. He was very averse to this, and 
 hoped that if he waited till the next day he might be well 
 enough to go home ; nevertheless, in the evening an ambu- 
 lance came, and Wallis went into the Union Hospital at 
 Newhaven, under protest. One of the doctors told him, 
 " We don't want you to die here, old chap." The Master 
 of the Union described him as arriving in a dying con- 
 dition. This was the evening of the 27th ; he died in 
 the small hours of the morning of the 29th. 
 
 7. W. E. Burns was a belt weaver of Failsworth, near 
 Manchester, and was arrested on August i, 1916. He 
 accepted the scheme, and worked at Llandeusant, but was 
 threatened with arrest for taking part in a strike ; gave 
 himself up to the police, by whom he was handed to the 
 military officials ; was court martialled for disobedience at 
 Cleethorpes on November 11, 1917, and taken to prison to 
 serve two years. He began to feel shaky on his legs, and 
 
DEATHS 321 
 
 a comrade, W. E. Hopper of Jarrow-on-Tyne, testified at 
 the inquest that from February nth he had become 
 decidedly worse, and thinner in the face. He petitioned 
 to be allowed to return to the Home Office scheme, and 
 after that petitioned for transference to Manchester prison. 
 Failing both of these, he determined to hunger-strike. He 
 was forcibly fed for three days ; on the fourth day the 
 food — which was milk and cocoa — went down into the 
 lungs through the use of a tube which was too short. He 
 choked violently ; and this was followed by a choking 
 cough. The doctor admitted that this was the first case 
 
 of artificial feeding he had had at , and agreed that 
 
 the trouble would have been avoided by the use of a longer 
 tube. He died in the agonies of choking on March 14, 
 1918. The jury found that death was due to pneumonia 
 accelerated by forcible feeding, but added the usual formula 
 that no blame was attached to the doctor. 
 
 This incident is a repetition of the events which caused 
 the death of Thomas Ashe, a Sinn Feiner in Dublin. 
 
 8. Walter Bone of Birkenhead died of influenza in 
 Winchester prison on February 23, 1919. He had been 
 a year and a half in gaol and his health had been gradually 
 but completely shattered. He suffered from acute digestive 
 trouble and glands in the neck, and died very soon after 
 being discharged at the end of five or six weeks in the 
 prison hospital. A. W. Haycock was allowed to speak for 
 the widow at the inquest. He stated that the prison 
 officials had done what was possible, but Bone had been 
 murdered by the system. He also stated that on his dis- 
 charge from hospital the deceased had been put into a 
 cell vacated by an influenza patient. The coroner recalled 
 the Governor and the doctor, and the latter admitted that 
 this was true. The jury added a rider to that effect. ^ 
 
 9. Paul Leo Gillan died in Winchester prison on 
 March 16, 1918. His aged mother and two sisters had not 
 heard from him for ten months. He was not allowed to 
 write letters, being on work-strike. Suddenly a wire came 
 
 « Tribunal, March 6, 1918. 
 
 21 
 
322 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 to say that he was dead. On the day of his death the 
 Governor wrote to inform his mother that her son was 
 seriously ill and might be visited. Eight days before he 
 had written, in reply to an enquiry, that Gillan was alive 
 and fairly well. The enquiry was due to the mother's 
 strong and repeated intuitions that her son was dead or 
 seriously ill. The Governor's letter stated that he died 
 from heart disease, from which the medical officer reported 
 he had suffered for some time. Why then, it may be 
 asked, had he not been released under Lord Curzon's 
 promise ? 
 
 His history may explain it. He was a Roman Catholic 
 and a Sinn Feiner. He was so ill at Wormwood Scrubs 
 that he had accepted the Home Office scheme, and was 
 so weak when he reached Warwick that the Agent allowed 
 him to lie in bed and sew his mailbags there. After being 
 six months under the doctor at Warwick, he was trans- 
 ferred in March 1917 to Dartmoor. One morning he was 
 a quarter of an hour late for work through illness, and was 
 punished with loss of a fortnight's pay. 
 
 For writing a defiant letter in reply Gillan was returned 
 to the Army and thence to prison at Plymouth. There 
 he struck against work. As there was no opportunity to 
 attend Mass, he protested and was removed to Winchester 
 in February 19 18, where Mass was said. A friend of his 
 writes : — " Paul Gillan was a rebel of the first rank ; his 
 spirit was too strong for his poor worn body. Gillan was 
 a gallant gentleman." 
 
 10. We cannot record in detail further cases, but con- 
 clude with a list of all the men who died under imprison- 
 ment, before or after release, seventy-one in number — 
 one among the many rolls of honour of the war. The 
 first ten died in prison, the others in consequence, in nearly 
 all cases, of their treatment. 
 
 Among the deaths were a few suicides. The condi- 
 tions were too intolerable for life to these poor men, but 
 not so intolerable as to make them give in. One case was 
 that of a man who, worn and broken in nerve and body 
 by imprisonment, had finally given in under pressure from 
 
DEATHS 
 
 323 
 
 the court martial, but soon after in the guardroom found 
 a razor lying conveniently, and cut his throat. There is 
 little doubt that he felt remorse for not having held the 
 fort to the end.^ Suicide under sufferings like these can 
 hardly be accounted a weakness, much less a crime. Con- 
 science and despair stretched the powers of the mind 
 too far. 
 
 Bone, Walter 
 Bridle, O. S. 
 Burns, W. E. 
 Butler, A. . 
 Campbell, P. 
 Gillan, P. L. 
 Horton, A. . 
 Wilkinson, F. 
 Wilson, A. . 
 Winter, J. G. 
 
 Allen, Peter. 
 Allen, Tom . 
 Allen, Walter G. 
 Barlow, A. . 
 Battenham, F. 
 Benyon, H. . 
 Bowden, F. . 
 Brentnall, A. G. 
 Brightman, H. 
 Cainey, Thomas 
 Campbell, N. A. 
 Cobb, C. J. . 
 Crosby, Ernest 
 Dardis, G. H. 
 Deller, L. . 
 Dunbery, P. 
 England, E. 
 Eungblut, A. 
 Evans, J. LI. 
 Evans, R. G. 
 
 Birkenhead 
 
 Brighton 
 
 Failsworth 
 
 Stockport 
 
 Isle of Skye 
 
 London 
 
 Manchester 
 
 Dulwich 
 
 Blackburn 
 
 Cornsay 
 
 Nelson 
 
 Nelson 
 
 New Southgate 
 
 Mansfield Woodhouse 
 
 Downham Market 
 
 Swansea 
 
 Oldham 
 
 London 
 
 Camden Town 
 
 Manchester 
 
 Glasgow 
 
 Croydon (o) 
 
 Liverpool (12) 
 
 Risca 
 
 West Brompton 
 
 Blackburn (i) 
 
 Leeds 
 
 London, N.W. (2) 
 
 Cardiff (3) 
 
 Reading 
 
 » See Tribunal, July 26, 191 7. 
 
324 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 on, 
 
 Firth, H. W. . 
 Gouldsborough, H. 
 Hall, Percy 
 Haston, H. 
 Henderson, A. 
 Hirst, H. M 
 Hurst, A. 
 Hoad, H. 
 Hooper, R. 
 Hurley, W. 
 Hurst, H. 
 Jackson, Theodore 
 James, Albert L 
 James, H. . 
 Linscott, S. . 
 Malcolm, W. W. 
 Marriott-Dodingt 
 Martlewe, A. 
 Matchett, T. D. 
 May, W. . 
 Moss, — 
 Mountfield, J. 
 Parkin, W. H. 
 Parton, F. L. 
 Peddieson, A. 
 Phipps, H. . 
 Richmond, Royl 
 Rigg, J. A. . 
 Roberts, W. L. 
 Rudall, A. . 
 Slater, A. J. 
 Stafford, N.. 
 Stanton, W. 
 Statton, — . 
 Swettenham, W. 
 Taylor, J. . 
 Thompson, C. 
 Todd, G. . 
 WalHs, B. . 
 Whinnerah, G. 
 
 A. 
 
 Norwich 
 
 Blackburn 
 
 Old Dalby 
 
 Chesterfield 
 
 Dundee 
 
 Stalybridge 
 
 Southwark 
 
 Chart Sutton 
 
 Bradford 
 
 Camberwell 
 
 Manchester 
 
 (4) 
 
 Kingston (5) 
 
 Worcester 
 
 Newton Abbot (14) 
 
 Glasgow (6) 
 
 Hereford 
 
 York (7) 
 
 Bath 
 
 Edinburgh 
 
 Morley (8) 
 
 Manchester 
 
 Sheffield 
 
 Chi s wick 
 
 Glasgow (14) 
 
 Harringay 
 
 Brighton (13) 
 
 Barrow-in-Furness 
 
 Stockport 
 
 Newport 
 
 Glasgow 
 
 Hyde 
 
 Leicester 
 
 Cardiff 
 
 Liverpool 
 
 Silvertown (9) 
 
 Norwich (10) 
 
 Willesden (11) 
 
 Newmarket 
 
 Barrow-in-Furness 
 
DEx\THS 825 
 
 Whilmore, P. A. . . Coventry 
 Woodward, E. . . . Birmingham 
 Zachnies, C. . . . Glasgow 
 
 (o) A clerk by profession. Unpaid preacher and Sunday-school teacher. 
 Served five terms ; 3^ years in prison. Released from Winchester in the 
 last stage of consumption, and died three weeks later, March 17, 1919. 
 Why was he not released before ? He had also curvature of the spine, due 
 to carrying coals at Pentonville for ten weeks. (Tribunal, March 27, 1919.) 
 
 (i) Died in the Military Hospital at Bangor, May 1916. 
 
 (2) Removed from Wormwood Scrubs before the conclusion of his sentence, 
 and died at Epsom, June 191 7. 
 
 (3) Contracted consumption during his imprisonment at Cardiff and 
 detention at Newhaven Camp ; sent home from Wakefield in a dying con- 
 dition and died at home, May 19 17. A clerk and student for the Baptist 
 ministry. 
 
 (4) Died in Clipstone Camp, December 14, 1916. 
 
 (5) Died of consumption at Wakefield, May 17, 191 7, due to the cold 
 at Wormwood Scrubs. 
 
 (6) Released on furlough from camp and died at home, June 1917- 
 
 (7) Sentenced to death in France, June 1916. Worked under the Home 
 Office scheme at Dyce ; left it on September 12, 1917. Drowned in the 
 river Ouse. 
 
 (8) Died in York Military Hospital, March 191 7. Further particulars 
 refused. 
 
 (9) Died at Wakefield, January 20, 19 18. 
 
 (10) Drowned. August 2, 191 7. Had joined the Non-Combatant Corps 
 after serving one term in prison. 
 
 (11) Left Wakefield without leave and died at home, November 1917- 
 
 (12) Lingered till March 1921. Finally died in hospital from the effects 
 of imprisonment. 
 
 (13) An artist. Had disease of the heart, but declined medical examina- 
 tion on principle. Was discharged in six weeks. Died January 4, I9i7« 
 
 (14) Died at Red Roses Camp, Carmarthen, of influenza under terrible 
 conditions of crowding and neglect, Peddieson strove to nurse the others 
 in the epidemic, in spite of the Agent's obstructions and insults, till ho 
 collapsed himself. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 FINAL 
 
 I. The last attempt of the Government to exploit the 
 man power of the country was made during the state of 
 anxiety which accompanied the German advance in April 
 1918. Already in January of that year a Military Service 
 Act had been passed empowering the Government to quash 
 all exemptions on occupational grounds, whilst it raised 
 the age of compulsory military service to fifty-one years. In 
 April it was proposed to give the Government power by 
 Proclamation to withdraw certificates on grounds of health, 
 on grounds of conscientious objection, and on grounds of 
 domestic or business hardship ; that is, the power to quash 
 all the proceedings of the Tribunals was to be made 
 universal. Vigorous speeches against it were made by Mr. 
 Anderson, Mr. Snowden and Mr. Herbert Samuel, and the 
 Government gave way by admitting that the men who 
 had been excused under a medical certificate, and those 
 excused on grounds of conscience would both be useless 
 in the Army. Sir George Cave took the opportunity of 
 sneering at the C.O.'s, saying that ** many of them were 
 of weak physique and many of them were deficient in 
 other ways." 
 
 In the Daily News of April 7, 1919, appeared an odd 
 incongruous statement by the War Office as follows : — 
 
 " As a matter of fact the Army authorities themselves 
 recognize that the lot of the conscientious objector is a 
 hard one. They recognize that he has been the victim of 
 ineptitude. Their view is that many hundreds of these 
 men have been thrust into the Army whom the House of 
 Commons never intended should become soldiers. The 
 Tribunals, they consider, rejected the apphcations of 
 
FINAL 327 
 
 hundreds of these men whose consciences were sincere, 
 and to protect whom the conscience clause was expressly 
 framed by the House of Commons. The Army did not 
 want these men, and would have discharged them if it 
 could. But the legal view taken was that having been 
 made soldiers by Act of Parliament they could only be 
 unmade by a similar measure, and the Government was 
 unwilling to take that necessary step." 
 
 So our contention in this book and in all our literature 
 is admitted after all. 
 
 This belated confession, made uselessly on the eve of 
 release, is a flag of surrender run up from the headquarters 
 of all the evil. The assertion of War Office impotence is 
 manifestly false. The men were in the end released by 
 Government order, without legislation. They were dis- 
 missed in (nominal) contumely from the Army. Then 
 why not earlier ? The Government, under the influence 
 of the War Office, is responsible for the persecution, for 
 all the cruel developments of it, and for the broken good 
 intentions of Sir Herbert Samuel, Mr. Long and Lord 
 Sandhurst. By April 1919 the temptation to do wrong 
 from military fear had been removed, and the War Office, 
 thus liberated, began to do right. But the War Office's 
 representatives at the Tribunals had rarely failed to appeal 
 against any occasional just decision ; and long after the 
 few absolute exemptions had been granted, a general 
 attempt was made to revise them, as in the case of A. 
 Barratt Brown. 
 
 2. As time went on the amount of suffering to be 
 endured outside the prison walls grew. There were no 
 pensions here for those who had been wounded in the 
 fight ; no maintenance allowances for the families of men 
 in prison. There was also the task of providing a holiday 
 and the chance of restoration to health for the men released 
 from prison as physical wrecks. Isaac Goss, from June 
 1918, took charge of this very extensive task under the 
 Fellowship of Reconciliation, which worked it at the sug- 
 gestion of the Joint Advisory Council of the three organ- 
 izations. The men provided with hoUdays numbered 149, 
 
328 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 many of whom went to the convalescent home at Fairby 
 Grange in Kent, organized by Dr. Salter. No fewer than 
 900 garments had to be provided also for necessary 
 clothing. Meantime, the Friends' Service Committee 
 devoted itself to providing vocational and educational 
 training for the men who had to make a fresh start in 
 facing the battle of life. Miss Violet Tillard did excellent 
 work along with Mrs. Salter in this service of maintenance. 
 In June 1919 all the various relief organizations were 
 organized into one body called " The Joint Board for 
 Assistance of Conscientious Objectors and their Depen- 
 dents.'* Dr. Salter was the chairman, Edward Grubb 
 and Ramsay Macdonald the hon. treasurers, and Ernest 
 E. Hunter the hon. sec. Between June i, 1919, and 
 April 30, 1920, £7,185 were spent in direct rehef. 
 
 3. At this point may be mentioned a deprivation 
 which, though enacted before, did not come into force till 
 the end. On November 20, 1917, the House of Commons 
 carried a sub-clause of the Representation of the People 
 Bill in these words : — 
 
 " Any person who has been exempted from military 
 service on the ground of conscientious objection, or who, 
 having joined the Forces, has been sentenced by court 
 martial for refusal to obey orders, and who alleged con- 
 scientious objection to military service as a reason for 
 such refusal, shall be disquahfied from being registered or 
 voting as a Parliamentary or Local Government elector." 
 
 Wives of conscientious objectors disfranchised did not 
 lose their vote. 
 
 Amendments were carried to the effect that the dis- 
 qualification was to extend to five years after the war. 
 There were granted exemptions from disfranchisement to 
 men who had joined the Friends' Ambulance Unit, or 
 other similar bodies, or had satisfactorily performed work 
 of national importance under the Tribunals. Men were 
 required to prove their right to this exemption before the 
 Central Tribunal within a year from the close of the war. 
 Thus the class already favoured by circumstances in being 
 
FINAL 829 
 
 allowed work of national importance was still further 
 favoured. Men who had obtained absolute exemption 
 were disfranchised along with all the other conscientious 
 objectors, unless they had voluntarily engaged in work of 
 national importance and could prove it before the Central 
 Tribunal within the year above named. The war was not 
 technically over till September i, 192 1, and it would 
 appear as though the Central Tribunal will have to remain 
 in existence to grant these exemptions for a further year. 
 In all probabihty the whole disfranchisement will become 
 a dead letter. It will be difficult to enforce properly, par- 
 ticularly where men change their residence, and I imagine 
 that no one will really wish to enforce it. Nor do I think 
 that men disfranchised under such an unjust and insulting 
 law are bound to disfranchise themselves. 
 
 The debate was made memorable by a noble speech 
 by Lord Hugh Cecil. He pointed out vigorously the 
 impropriety under the Constitution of punishing retrospec- 
 tively those whose only offence had been to avail them- 
 selves of a legal right, expressly granted by Parliament. 
 I quote some powerful passages. 
 
 " Take, for example, one crime which sank, and deservedly 
 sank, into our hearts, and which roused us to passionate 
 indignation — I mean the execution of Miss Cavell. It is 
 not disputed that Miss Cavell was, according to the strict 
 law of the war, guilty of a war crime. Why did we say 
 it was inhuman and iniquitous to put her to death ? 
 Because, according to a higher law, she had a strong claim 
 to the respect and gratitude of the German Government 
 and people who put her to death. Precisely because there 
 was a higher law she ought not to have suffered as she did, 
 and precisely because we believe in that higher law we 
 uttered the cry of indignation at her death. Are we to 
 be told now, in the language of her murderers, that the 
 safety of the State is the supreme law ? No, sir. We 
 cannot make any such answer. We are Christians first 
 and Englishmen afterwards. Christianity can never com- 
 promise with any national claim. It must have its dis- 
 ciples all in all, soul and body, leaving no sphere out, and 
 
330 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 to reserve to the State any supremacy is to part company 
 with the Christian system altogether." 
 
 In reference to the disfranchisement of men court 
 martialled for disobedience under the plea of conscience, 
 he said : — 
 
 " That reminds me at once that there are a great many 
 other people who have been court martialled besides con- 
 scientious objectors. The disqualification is there care- 
 fully limited, and it must only be for refusal to obey 
 orders, and only if that refusal has assigned to it a 
 conscientious cause. There are also those who have been 
 insubordinate, and deserters, and all those who have been 
 sentenced for various military crimes and for crimes not 
 merely military but civil, those guilty of criminal vice of 
 the worst and most atrocious kind — all these may have 
 votes. All those who have been sentenced by civil Tri- 
 bunals, such as pickpockets, robbers, all those concerned 
 in fraud, acts of violence, and those animated by the most 
 odious lusts, the names of whose offences must not pass 
 honest lips — all those may have votes. And why not ? 
 There is, at any rate, nothing conscientious about them. 
 They are free from the damning taint of a strong but unen- 
 lightened conscience. Even if I accepted the basis of 
 my right hon. friend's argument, I should still feel this 
 amendment was a scandalous absurdity. If you are really 
 going to disfranchise persons because they are disobedient 
 to the State, you must certainly disfranchise all those who 
 have been disobedient by way of crime as well as those 
 who have been disobedient by way of a conscientious 
 objection. To draw a distinction by which you admit 
 all the worst people in the world, the thieves, the mis- 
 creants, and only exclude the conscientious objectors, will 
 not commend itself to the religious bodies of this country. 
 
 " I am most anxious that this country should maintain 
 the proposition that there is a higher law, that we view 
 with admiration any appeal to that higher law, and that 
 we will not listen to the doctrine that the State's interest 
 
FINAL SSI 
 
 is to be supreme, but, on the contrary, that we will make 
 our authority conform to the high standard and keep the 
 State within its proper function, and within its proper 
 scope. 
 
 " Belief in the State cannot help us to bear the suffer- 
 ings or control the passions of the war. It is a barren faith, 
 as well as a degrading faith. It does but encumber us 
 and shut out from us that higher world in which we ought 
 to live. It is like a mist that hangs over the surface of 
 the earth, beyond which the sunlight and the sky of 
 the higher life shine serene. I was taken up in an aero- 
 plane on a misty day, and all was hazy and dark below. 
 We passed through, and there was the sun shining in 
 strength and the sky radiant and brilliant ; the mists were 
 no more than a white carpet beneath our feet. So we 
 ought to rise, if we are to face the dangers and difficulties 
 of this war, above the belief in the doctrine of the State. 
 We ought, on the contrary, to maintain that the State 
 must conform to this higher law." 
 
 The disfranchisement was carried through in spite of 
 speeches of great value in the House of Lords from the 
 band of men of weight who during the war redeemed the 
 character of the Upper House and made it a better echo 
 of the right-thinking part of the nation than the House 
 of Commons. The speeches there on January i6, 1918, 
 by Lord Parmoor, the Marquess of Crewe, the Marquess 
 of Lansdowne, Lord Sheffield, Lord Harries and Viscount 
 Bryce were of real historic value. 
 
 4. By November 1919 the time had come for the con- 
 cluding Convention of the No-Conscription Fellowship, 
 held on the 29th and 30th in the Friends' Meeting House, 
 Devonshire House, Bishopsgate, the place where the Fellow- 
 ship had met in April 19 16 to decide on the great question 
 of Alternative Service. Four hundred delegates and many 
 hundreds of members were present. The hour had come to 
 close down. It was like a mighty homecoming. The 
 men were not so exuberant as in the days when the fight 
 was young ; they had been sobered by their experience ; 
 
8^2 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 many were damaged physically, and not quite used to the 
 noise and rush of the outside world ; but their deter- 
 mination was imshaken, and they would have gone through 
 the same trial again if the occasion had arisen. The Con- 
 vention had a twofold purpose, one to reassemble C.O.'s 
 from all over the country, to exchange greetings and 
 experiences and to feel the joy of reunion ; the other to 
 discuss ways and means of avoiding sectionalism and of 
 reabsorbing the conscientious objector in the ordinary 
 work of the world. That the N.C.F. fight should have ended 
 by producing men with grievances would have been a 
 tragedy indeed, and the essential task of the Convention 
 was to prevent that and to turn men's minds away from 
 prison and suffering to the fuller life without. This was 
 the dominant note of Clifford Allen's speech from the 
 chair, which may stand here as the farewell utterance of 
 the No-Conscription Fellowship by the man who was best 
 qualified to utter it : — 
 
 *' Three years ago there assembled in this hall a very 
 notable gathering. It represented men who held every 
 variety of religious and political opinion. We were on the 
 eve of a memorable experience. We were setting out on 
 a voyage of discovery ; discovery not only of the working 
 of conscription, which was new to us and the British people, 
 but a discovery of our own ideas. We stood here in silence 
 and made a pledge. That pledge was to resist conscription 
 and the military power. 
 
 " To-day we reassemble. We have survived the test, 
 and I suggest to you that that fact is in itself of very 
 great significance. It demands from us humility. I am 
 not prepared to accept that criticism which urges upon 
 us what I conceive to be a false and sentimental humility ; 
 but, on the other hand, it seems to me that every one of 
 us must be only too conscious of how terrible is the com- 
 parison between the anguish of those who have died and 
 been mutilated in the war and the test to which we have 
 been subjected. Although it is an established fact that 
 prison has greater terrors for the soldier than the trenches, 
 not one of us would dare to compare our suffering with 
 
FINAL 333 
 
 that of the men who were actually engaged in warfare. 
 Many of them are dead, but we have still the opportunities 
 of life before us. Our lives are now forfeit. 
 
 " Let me recall for a moment the mood of the world 
 in 1916. The human race was in the grip of contrary 
 instincts. On the one hand were bitterness, hatred and 
 terror, so that men were afraid to be isolated from the life 
 of the nation. On the other hand you had from countless 
 individuals who believed in the war what I suppose is 
 really the most wonderful exhibition of self-sacrifice and 
 unselfish heroism of which history has record. Above all 
 things men were held by a world spell, and that was the 
 spell of the mihtary machine. Fearless men, keen-minded 
 men, gentle men, beheved it their duty to bow before that 
 machine. Others held it to be infallible and irresistible. 
 We, like others of our generation, were called upon to 
 become part of this world adventure ; we were challenged 
 by the community to bow before the military power ; we 
 were expected to engage in war and acquiesce in conscrip- 
 tion. It is not possible for any man or woman to estimate 
 the mental and spiritual struggle of facing that challenge 
 unless they have in fact been potential conscripts. I know 
 that often we expressed ourselves with arrogance, but I 
 beg our friends to realize that situated as we were — cut 
 off as a minority from the community, brought before 
 Tribunals where we were placed always on the defensive, 
 always on the lookout for traps set for us and our creed — 
 we were forced to become self-conscious, so that it became 
 difficult to say what we wished to say in a convincing and 
 genuine fashion. 
 
 " Once we were involved in this resistance, we pursued 
 many different hues of pohcy. The choice of those pohcies 
 depended upon the emphasis we laid on the incentive of 
 an individual consciousness of right and wrong and the 
 incentive of a citizen's duty. Whenever we tried to 
 organize consciences we blundered, but it is a significant 
 fact that every section of conscientious objectors achieved 
 one object in common ; all broke the spell of the mihtary 
 machine. 
 
 " It matters not whether we were in the Non-Com- 
 
334 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 batant Corps refusing to bear arms, whether we took 
 alternative service, whether we became part of the Home 
 Office scheme, or whether we were Absolutist and remained 
 in prison — all of us shattered the infallibility of Mihtarism. 
 That, to me, is a mighty achievement, and I am not wilhng 
 to allow any false sense of humility to prevent my glorying 
 in it. 
 
 " We are proud to have broken the power of the mili- 
 tary authority. We have witnessed its brutalities. We 
 have seen the cruel degrading of human personality upon 
 which its discipline depends. We have seen how it leads 
 to contemptible forms of punishment — often men are 
 ' crucified ' to gun wheels as a means of breaking the 
 human spirit. We have seen how it deprives its victims 
 of that most sacred right, free judgment on right and 
 wrong ; how the system makes men hate each other, bully 
 each other, despise each other, till they become so 
 dehumanized that they can be made even to kill their 
 fellow working men at home. We have defeated it ; we 
 will defeat it again if conscription should be continued. 
 
 " So much, then, for our resistance to conscription. 
 What positive views had we for this negative action ? 
 Such views as we hold were by no means static ; they 
 have been constantly developing and changing, and I 
 think it would be true if I were to say that probably the 
 opinions we hold are rather the result of our experience 
 than its cause. That experience has made clear to us 
 ideas which we only partly understood when we deter- 
 mined to refuse mihtary service. 
 
 " I will deal only with two main groups of opinion. 
 Some of us hold the view, based either upon religious 
 opinion or philosophic creed, that all warfare is not only 
 wrong but must be abstained from. It is our behef that 
 war is evil not so much because of the suffering it involves 
 — others preach that — but because it depends for its 
 process and very existence upon a fundamentally wrong 
 conception of the relationship of human beings to each 
 other. Our basis contains a much-criticized phrase : * The 
 sanctity of human life.' I do not wish on this occasion 
 to argue the merits of that phrase, but what we lueaAt 
 
FINAL 335 
 
 by it was this : that Pacifism is a philosophy which teaches 
 men to respect each other. It is because our attack upon 
 war arose from this fundamental philosophy as to the 
 relations between human beings that we could not permit 
 other arguments to sway our decision. 
 
 " We believe that you cannot decide this issue by con- 
 senting to weigh up the comparative justice of each 
 successive war. That method will never compel our 
 statesmen to put real zeal into framing policies which will 
 preserve peace. They must have a defined conviction 
 that war is fundamentally wrong because it places men 
 in an immoral relationship to each other. Then and then 
 only can the will to peace really inspire our foreign policy. 
 It is only by such conviction that our statesmen will come 
 to insist upon the only practical policy — that of proposing 
 to all nations mutual and simultaneous disarmament. 
 
 " Together with our fellow-pacifists we declared the 
 foreign policy of our country to be a dangerous policy 
 before the war. We were not heeded. War came. We 
 believed it to be our duty as a minority to maintain our 
 position and to preach the gospel of peace in season and 
 out of season. Such a minority will constantly fail ; it 
 will be constantly overwhelmed by the tide of warlike 
 passion ; but it must stand apart, not idly, but seeking 
 peace. It is clear that such action must be unpopular, 
 and not the cleverest tactician among us can make it 
 acceptable to public opinion in time of war ; but as the 
 ages go by that minority will increase, and we must hope 
 that each war will produce a larger and larger number of 
 people in all lands who will desire to create the machinery 
 of peace. 
 
 " Other members held an opinion which was different 
 and yet similar. They were concerned chiefly with con- 
 scription. They agreed that war was a terrible thing, 
 but could not bring themselves to say that on all occasions 
 should men abstain from it. None the less, they were 
 profoundly convinced that pubHc opinion throughout the 
 world should be urged to agree that engaging in war must 
 be left to the free judgment of the individual. The State 
 may compel our lives in many directions, but it has no 
 
336 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 right to deny men freedom in deciding for themselves this 
 issue of hfe and death. It involves actions that are so 
 fundamental, and results that are so irreparable, that only 
 the most passionate belief in the righteousness of a cause 
 can justify a man in giving up his life or inflicting death. 
 It is a fatal debasement of human dignity to force men to 
 do these things against their will or without conviction 
 as to the justice of their actions. In these conscript days 
 it will only be when Governments are aware that they must 
 depend for support upon the voluntary consent of their 
 peoples that they will exercise some measure of caution 
 in developing those foreign pohcies which lead to war. 
 
 ** If you examine the opinions of these two groups of 
 resisters you will see that there is a common philosophy 
 beneath. In each case it is a belief that no international 
 policies and no political or religious creeds can ever achieve 
 happiness for the world which do not recognize the dignity 
 and value of human personality. We in our prison cells 
 have therefore expressed consciously or unconsciously that 
 vision of the future of the world which inspires the new 
 Labour movement. And thus, strange though it may 
 appear, we are linked by our negative action with the 
 most vital ideas motiving men's actions to-day. 
 
 " Why do I say this ? Let me explain. In the old 
 days Social Reform was concerned with material readjust- 
 ments in the economic system ; it did not challenge the 
 relationship of master and man. It kept the incentive of 
 profit-making which causes men to exploit each other ; 
 it was therefore prepared to tolerate poverty. And all 
 because no recognition was given to the value of human 
 personality or the importance of respect between human 
 beings. To-day the most vital social forces in the world 
 stand for a contrary opinion. It is true that they are 
 still concerned with wages and hours, but those demands 
 are playing only a small part in their programmes. The 
 cry of the working classes to-day is for responsibility, for 
 a new status, for the opportunity to be free servants of 
 the community, for the chance of carrying into the era of 
 Peace the spirit of National Service they learnt in time 
 of war. The responsibility of man to man is the key-note 
 
FINAL 337 
 
 of the new social outlook, and that is precisely the ideal 
 for which we have stood. 
 
 " If this be a true description of the views that have 
 inspired our resistance, I think it is clear to all of us how 
 definitely our negative action has taken the form of positive 
 and constructive social service. And yet these ideas may 
 be admirably conceived and our achievement be memor- 
 able, but if, now that men are willing to hsten, we fail to 
 live out our lives in service, the world will become once 
 more disillusioned. It did not heed what we said when 
 it was suffering. It is prepared to Hsten now. We have 
 declared that hate destroys and love is creative. But 
 men are in a cynical frame of mind and need convincing 
 of this. They are rejecting many of their old poHtical 
 myths ; they are amused with religion. It is true that 
 they need new political programmes, but they need far 
 more a new motive which will inspire their lives, and we 
 have a chance now to take no small part in rebuilding 
 constructive hope in the world. 
 
 *' I cannot see how we could avoid the charge of dis- 
 loyalty to our nation, but I would now plead that we may 
 be considered genuine in our citizenship, beheving, as we 
 did, that if we remained faithful we might help in pre- 
 serving those very ideas of liberty for which the nations 
 had gone to war. Our fellow-pacifists, who by reason of 
 sex or age were not personally liable to military service, 
 were devoting their lives to advocating these same new 
 conceptions of national well-being and international co- 
 operation, of justice between nations built upon a righteous 
 peace. We were younger ; we had not their experience 
 or their influence, but we had a chance of giving some 
 evidence of personal sincerity and willingness to suffer 
 for the ideas which they were spreading. It seemed to us 
 to be the highest contribution we could make. Perhaps 
 we did it clumsily, perhaps we did it in much the same 
 spirit of pride in which the miHtarists of each nation waged 
 war ; but we did beheve that our stand was a genuine 
 expression of citizenship. 
 
 " There have been times when I wondered if the struggle 
 was worth while. But the certainty of hope for me lies 
 
 22 
 
338 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 in this : it was not some outworn isolated creed that we 
 cherished. We have discovered in our prison cells that 
 very notion which is to-day challenging the old world 
 order — the notion that men will only feel obHged to serve 
 the community, of which they are a part, when they have 
 come to respect each other's liberty. 
 
 " We were in prison. To-day we are free, but the world 
 is still in prison. It can be released by the spirit of uncon- 
 querable love. ' Ye that have escaped the sword, stand 
 not still.' 
 
 " I now submit to you the following resolution, and I 
 suggest that you should adopt it standing : — 
 
 " Throughout the war we have stood for the brother- 
 hood of man, and in the name of that ideal have resisted 
 conscription. We now reaffirm our unity of aim with 
 those in all countries who have given their lives that they 
 might serve the cause of freedom, but declare our belief 
 that it is not by bloodshed that freedom can be won or 
 Militarism destroyed. 
 
 " We acclaim the new hope of human liberty now 
 challenging ancient tyrannies in industry within the State 
 and between the nations, and dedicate the liberty we have 
 regained to such service as shall contribute to the heal- 
 ing of the wounds inflicted by war, and to the building 
 of a world rooted in freedom and eniiched by labour that 
 is shared by all. 
 
 " It is in this spirit that we go forth to meet new tasks, 
 confident that through its long and bitter suffering mankind 
 must yet come into the way of love.'* 
 
 The great meeting, stirred by the memory of the reso- 
 lution of the Convention three years before, adopted this 
 dedicatory resolution by standing in silence. 
 
 The assembly also stood while the names of our dead 
 comrades were read — then sixty-nine in number — who 
 had been faithful to the end. 
 
 Chfford Allen himself was broken in health. The gaol 
 had fixed upon him, never robust, its distinctive disease — 
 consumption. His first imprisonment lasted 88 days, his 
 second 147 days, and his third, under a two years' sentence, 
 
FINAL 839 
 
 lasted from June till December 1917, when he was released, 
 utterly broken in health. He has since been in sanatoria 
 abroad, a shadow of himself. Considerably restored, he is 
 now (1921) back in England, and enjoying improved health, 
 which we hope may long continue. 
 
 The Convention had been preceded by long and careful 
 discussion. A representative gathering was held at 
 Jordans, where the questions at issue were privately 
 thrashed out from all points of view. The columns 
 of the Tribunal were opened for discussion. There were 
 those who held that the No-Conscription Fellowship must 
 be preserved as an entity at all costs. Their view was 
 natural and backed by sentiment. During the years of war 
 the N.C.F. had meant very much to all its members. Few 
 organizations, indeed, have received such affection. The 
 idea of disbanding was like a cold douche to warm hearts 
 and loyal souls throughout the country. Others, however, 
 saw the situation shorn of sentiment, and in its naked 
 reahty. Men had united on one specific issue — resistance 
 to war service and all that it implied — but beyond that 
 unity there were conflicting loyalties, varying views on 
 social affairs, and different rehgions. To have continued 
 the N.C.F. in its then existing form would have meant 
 one of two things : either it would have become a cockpit 
 for heated altercation on social ideals, and when one side 
 or the other had won, they would have been in possession 
 of an organization which had no relation to its past, and 
 was of very little use to the present ; or it would have 
 consisted of a few people with divided loyalties, and 
 gradually would have petered out — hke many another 
 useful society which struggled on after its specific work 
 was done. 
 
 The continuance of the N.C.F. was also otherwise 
 undesirable. Difficulties had already arisen over the limited 
 Statement of Faith. It was felt by many that if resistance 
 to conscription had to be organized again it had better 
 be on a wider basis, one which would include every 
 possible kind of resister, and one which did not embarrass 
 him with formulas and definitions. This meant that it 
 would be necessary to reshape the movement in the future. 
 
340 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 There were two main tendencies : (i) The anti-con- 
 scriptionist from any reason ; (2) the pacifist first of all. 
 They were not opposing tendencies, they merged and over- 
 lapped, but each had its distinct function, and to attempt 
 to join them in a cast-iron organization would have meant 
 disaster. 
 
 It was for these reasons that the National Committee 
 laid before the concluding Convention a series of resolutions 
 which read as follows : — 
 
 " That this Convention declares its belief that all 
 systems of conscription can only be sustained by the 
 denial of liberty of conscience, and that it is not within 
 the rightful jurisdiction of a State to deny any man the 
 right of free judgment in offering his life or to compel him 
 to inflict death on others. 
 
 " It further appoints a Committee to initiate a new 
 organization to oppose conscription no matter by what 
 kind of Government it be imposed, or for what purpose, 
 which shall associate all those who will resist conscription, 
 and shall get into touch with appropriate people in other 
 countries with a view to the establishment of an inter- 
 national organization. 
 
 " That this Convention appoint a Committee to take 
 steps (a) to establish a new society whose object shall be 
 the spread of the pacifist doctrine of life and resistance 
 to all forms of Mihtarism, and (b) to get into touch with 
 people of like belief in this and other countries with a 
 view to the establishment of an international organization 
 of which it shall function as the British section." 
 
 These resolutions, moved by Fenner Brockway and 
 seconded by Dr. Salter, led to a long and animated dis- 
 cussion, of which a pressman said : — " It assumed a more 
 intense tone than on the previous day, every speaker 
 giving evidence of a depth of sincere conviction, but no 
 conference the writer has ever attended (and they are not 
 a few) was ever conducted with greater good temper." 
 Eventually the vital decision was taken on an amendment 
 advocating the continuance of the N.C.F. ; 171 votes were 
 given for this amendment and 244 against. The specific 
 
FINAL 341 
 
 work of the N.C.F. was done, but its members went out 
 into the world strengthened and inspired to make better 
 and finer contributions to the great society of the future. 
 The resolutions were adopted and indicate the line of 
 policy laid down should the question arise again. 
 
 No printed words can convey an adequate picture of 
 the closing scenes. There were not only the business 
 sessions of the Convention above described, there was 
 the Saturday afternoon when Ramsay Macdonald, Maude 
 Royden, Dr. F. B. Meyer and Mrs. Swan wick came to tell 
 the men what the world thought of their stand, to sum 
 up gains and losses and administer praise and blame. 
 There was the great reunion at the Central Hall, when 
 1,500 people sat down to supper. At the central table sat 
 six London Labour Mayors, one an ex- Army officer (Major 
 C. R. Attlee) and another a CO. (J. J. Vaughan). There 
 were the great demonstrations which brought the Con- 
 vention to an end, with speeches by Clifford Allen, Philip 
 Snowden, Robert Smilhe, Dr. CHfford, Bertrand Russell, 
 Captain Gill and Lord Parmoor. Last, but not least, 
 there were the groups of C.O.'s billeted all over London, 
 in private houses, institutes and hastily improvised hostels, 
 sitting up far into the night living over again their experi- 
 ences, teUing tales of guardroom and prison, renewing 
 old acquaintance, and happy in a reunion which would 
 be a treasured memory in the days to come. So the 
 N.C.F. passed to wider service, and left behind a record 
 of work well done and a goal achieved. If its epitaph 
 has to be written, it might well be found in the 
 words that Bertrand Russell addressed to its concluding 
 demonstration : — 
 
 '* The N.C.F. has been completely victorious in its 
 stand for freedom not to kill or to take part in killing. 
 The whole power of the State has not been able to compel 
 the members of the N.C.F. to kill or help in kilHng. In 
 winning this victory you have won an even greater 
 victory ; you have won a victory for the sense of human 
 worth, for the reahzation of the value of each individual 
 soul. It is that, above all, that we must assert and put 
 
842 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 before the world, that sense that each human soul, each 
 individual growing and living, has within him something 
 sacred, something that must not be warped and destroyed 
 by the imposition of outside forces/' 
 
 The Fellowship did not entirely vanish. Three Watch- 
 ing Committees were appointed, to act together or separ- 
 ately, as need might arise, viz. : — 
 
 The Anti-Conscription Committee. 
 
 Clifford Allen, A. Fenner Brockway, W. J. Chamberlain, 
 Guy Aldred, Catherine E. Marshall, H. Runham Brown, 
 Ernest E. Hunter, Charles G. Ammon. 
 
 The Pacifist Union Committee. 
 
 CHfford Allen, A. Fenner Brockway, W. J. Chamberlain, 
 Dr. Alfred Salter, C. H. Norman, Edward Grubb, Joan 
 M. Fry, J. Rowntree Gillett. 
 
 The Committee to Oppose Military Training in 
 
 Schools. 
 
 Joan Beauchamp, W. J. Chamberlain, J. P. Fletcher, 
 John Langdon-Davies, Theodora Wilson Wilson, John W. 
 Graham, James Maxton (Glasgow), Stanley B. James. 
 
 5. I have now brought the story to its conclusion. With 
 what summary thought will my patient readers leave it ? 
 It has been a definite attack upon conscience by the State. 
 
 Is conscience so common and so cheap that the 
 nation can afford to flout it and try to destroy it ? It is 
 the most costly and the most precious national asset. 
 Lives of parental devotion and years of strong self-control 
 have gone to its making. For its strength and purity 
 Christ lived and died. For its sake all churches and 
 chapels have been built and clergy have been ordained. 
 In the long run, on it and not chiefly upon force depend 
 the soundness of our business life, the security of our 
 civilization, and all the hope of the world. The alternative 
 to it is the rule of blood and iron — Machiavelli, Nietzsche, 
 Bismarck. With the good and great of all ages looking 
 
FINAL 343 
 
 down upon us, let us not now, in a day of panic, loose the 
 ancient anchorage and sail away into the dim twilight of 
 the gods. 
 
 The nations have fallen down and worshipped the false 
 god of Force : and Futility, the shadow of Force, has fol- 
 lowed them all the time. It would be a slur on the nobler 
 Paganism to call Force a Pagan god. He, or It, resembles 
 rather those dim shapeless figures, dull and dreaded, whom 
 bright Zeus and his shining children overthrew : Chaos 
 and Old Night, Earth, the grip of Necessity, the Furies, 
 and blind Fate. 
 
 Against all this, in a day of violence, arose the quiet 
 denials in the Tribunal committee rooms and in the 
 camps. The brave men of this record have, in their youth, 
 borne the testimony of a lifetime, which will always give 
 them strength and standing in future service. We give 
 them thanks and honour. 
 
 For the first time on any considerable scale a Govern- 
 ment at war has been met by flat disobedience, followed 
 up by the weighty weapon of passive endurance. It will 
 be a lesson to Governments, as Carlyle thought that the 
 execution of Charles I read a lesson to Kings. 
 
 I have endeavoured to write with charity and com- 
 prehension about the motives of the governing bodies 
 whose deeds — in themselves evil deeds — I have described. 
 But so long as I live my love and reverence will abide 
 towards those young men who bore the banner of love 
 and peace all through the heat of the long day. 
 
STATISTICS 1 
 
 I. In the Tribunal the total number of members of 
 the No-Conscription Fellowship in its early days is given 
 as about 15,000. This and all other figures in this chapter 
 concern Great Britain only. But this figure was compiled 
 by adding totals sent up by the various branches, some 
 of whose records may have been loosely kept, and may have 
 included people attached to the movement who were not 
 of military age or who were not actually subscribing 
 members. It may be taken roughly as a somewhat liberal 
 estimate of those who, at the first blush, rose up against 
 conscription under this, the central organization. But 
 there were many conscientious objectors outside the ranks 
 of the No-Conscription Fellowship, members of the Friends* 
 Ambulance Unit already abroad, other Friends working 
 with the War Victims' Committee, and a number from 
 the smaller Christian bodies whose testimony depended 
 upon a literal observance of Bible texts. These would 
 generally be outside the Fellowship. Moreover, there were 
 a few outside all organizations. We have, therefore, no 
 reliable knowledge of the actual number of men who rose 
 up against conscription. 
 
 One can well believe that, amongst those who agitated 
 with the Fellowship, may have been men of low ideals or 
 feeble temperament who refused to face the consequence 
 of resistance. It is impossible to imagine that a real 
 shirker would go far in the direction of popular shame and 
 indefinite imprisonment. Many could take to the com- 
 parative safety of the Non-Combatant Corps or work of 
 national importance. (Thoroughly conscientious men, of 
 course, also accepted these, as mentioned below.) Others 
 
 I A few facts which have already been mentioned, are also embodied 
 here, for Statistical completeness. 
 
 944 
 
STATISTICS 345 
 
 would prefer the Army to the gaol. So that the men with 
 whom this history is concerned had been sifted, and were a 
 selected body. 
 
 But in several entirely creditable ways the original 
 number was reduced. Mankind is not divided by any 
 hard and fast line into martyrs and cowards. It was not 
 uncommon to hear men say that the prospect of leaving 
 mother or wife nearly destitute prevented them taking 
 the stand they would otherwise have taken ; and one 
 must admit, if not the validity, at least the force of this 
 plea. Those of us who have not been tried in this way 
 should not be the first to cast a stone. 
 
 Next, there were men who belonged to exempted 
 trades. These were very numerous in colliery and railway 
 centres. I Frequent instances occurred of men who were 
 not exempted, when they otherwise would have been but 
 for their claim on grounds of conscience. This shows the 
 particularly Satanic temper of safely placed employers at 
 this time. This course did not ease the wheels of govern- 
 ment nor provide a soldier for the Army, but it punished 
 by prolonged imprisonment the man with the sensitive 
 conscience, and so achieved its object. 
 
 2. We now reach the men who went before the Tribunals 
 and were satisfied with the exemption they received. 
 Some, no doubt, had appealed from selfish motives, and 
 when they were rejected accepted the Army. It is very 
 doubtful, however, if many of these were members of the 
 N.C.F. Unfortunately the Tribunals have, so far as I 
 know, collected no record of the total number of men who 
 appeared before them on conscientious grounds. It would 
 be difficult to collect ; some men appealed on more than 
 one ground, and the habit at the Tribunals of giving 
 temporary exemption and compelling the men to come 
 
 "^ A few men, like Dr. Fairbairn of Hampstead and Dr. MacCallum from 
 Argyllshire, refused the immunity their profession afforded them, and, 
 declining all privilege, went to prison with the rest. Similarly, J. H. Hudson 
 of Manchester was offered the chance of exemption subject to continuing 
 his profession as a teacher, but declined to recognize the Acts to that extent. 
 There were a few other similar cases, those of Hugh Gibbins of Birmingham, 
 Dr. E. B. Ludlam of Cambridge, and others. 
 
346 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 up again would add to the complication of counting. But 
 before we reach the men who were arrested we must take 
 into account the very considerable number of genuine 
 men, both inside the N.C.F. and outside it, who accepted 
 the verdict of the Tribunal. 
 
 The number of those who received absolute exemption 
 was very small ; such judgments date from the early days 
 of the Tribunals, before they had been induced by mili- 
 tary influence to make a universal rule against granting 
 complete exemption. Even these were appealed against 
 successfully in many cases. The men who were exempted, 
 so far as I have heard, were nearly all men engaged in 
 religious work but not strictly in Holy Orders : secretaries 
 of religious societies, local preachers, and a few well-known 
 Quakers. J. Edward Hodgkin received from his friends 
 and acquaintances on the Tribunal at Darlington exemption 
 conditional on retaining his present views — an odd way 
 of avoiding absolute exemption. Exemptions were granted 
 to the members of the Friends' Ambulance Unit while 
 working at the front. These numbered 640 altogether ; 
 not all of them were Quakers, and not all were conscientious 
 objectors. Conscription found them already abroad to 
 the number of from three to four hundred. The Govern- 
 ment naturally accepted their voluntary and unpaid ser- 
 vices, and after that was very particular that no one but 
 actual Quakers should take that alternative except through 
 Tribunals which continued to offer it. It was, in fact, an 
 alternative occupation, not an absolute exemption. Vis- 
 count Peel stated in the House on April 2, 1919, that there 
 had been 600 complete exemptions. This is an incom- 
 prehensible figure. It includes, of course, the Ambulance 
 Unit, inaccurately, and very few besides. Neither the 
 N.C.F. nor anyone else knew or knows of many complete 
 exemptions, which were maintained. 
 
 Next come the large number of men who were allowed 
 to do work of national importance and were willing to 
 accept it. Of these, 440 were enrolled in the Friends* 
 Ambulance Unit's " General Section " and were employed 
 chiefly in agriculture, but also in teaching and some other 
 employments. The Tribunals developed a habit of offering 
 
STATISTICS 347 
 
 a man work in the Friends' Ambulance Unit to an extent 
 beyond the available funds of the Unit, and to men who 
 were unsuitable for the hard physical work involved. But 
 the Unit's good reputation with the Government enabled 
 it to organize these men in various home employments — 
 and very useful service it was. It may, however, be 
 doubted — such was the ignorance of some Tribunals — 
 whether in all cases they were aware of the kind of work 
 to which they were sending the apph cants. The Unit 
 also employed about 300 men in various hospitals in 
 England, doing the work of servants and orderlies. These 
 hospitals were : — At Haxby Road, York, a large building 
 belonging to Rowntree & Co. and built by them for the 
 dining and recreation of their workpeople ; at Uffculme, 
 Birmingham, formerly the residence of Richard Cadbury ; 
 at King George Hospital, Stamford Street, London ; ^ 
 and at the " Star and Garter " Home for incurable cases 
 at Richmond. This gives a total of 1,400 men altogether 
 under their control. Of these we may estimate that not 
 less than 1,200 were conscientious objectors. In this total 
 are included those who worked at the administrative office 
 of the Unit. 
 
 Besides these forms of work of national importance 
 there were 3,964 men who worked under the Pelham Com- 
 mittee, and an undetermined but considerable number 
 under the direct oversight of the Tribunals. Among the 
 Pelham Committee cases were 1,400 Christadelphians. They 
 were exempted by the Army Council on condition of doing 
 
 » This represented an attempt to work a military hospital along with the 
 military authorities. It showed the catholic spirit of trust which inspired 
 the Unit's leaders. But the no young men who went to work there were 
 not met in the same spirit ; there were another 120 orderlies not belonging 
 to the Unit. At the best the work was hard and distasteful, and all the 
 routine drudgery and dirty work was put on the Unit men. Charwomen's 
 work in a huge building six stories high, with three miles of corridors and 
 twelve lifts, was not exactly a form of shirking. Finally the men's food was 
 stolen ; and at length the Unit withdrew its men in December 1916, after 
 five months. There had been a hostile demonstration against them on the 
 night of their arrival ; after that the persecution came from the non-com- 
 missioned officers, and was not stopped when the Commandant was appealed 
 to. But Mr. Pettifer, the head of the Unit men, could not do that often. 
 The plan must be regarded as a mistake. The nurses and medical staffs 
 were very sorry when their most trustworthy and considerate assistants 
 were withdrawn. 
 
848 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 " work useful for the prosecution of the war." They and 
 some others were thus the nearest of all conscientious 
 objectors to the Government position. The authorities 
 interpreted the words liberally ; the difficulty of most 
 C.O.'s, in fact, was to find work that was not of that 
 character. Subsequently the Army Council withdrew its 
 certificates and left the Pelham Committee to issue their 
 own. I 
 
 There were about 3,300 men altogether in the Non- 
 Combatant Corps of the Army. This was formed to occupy 
 men who had been granted non-combatant service and 
 had accepted it. It must be distinguished from the 
 ordinary Labour Corps. 
 
 3. We now approach the reliable statistics collected 
 with great pains by the Conscientious Objectors' Informa- 
 tion Bureau. They record that 6,261 men resisted the 
 Acts and were arrested. 
 
 The number of men who have been court martialled 
 is 5,739 ; of these 655 were court martialled twice, 521 
 three times, 319 four times, 50 five times, and 3 six times. 
 Of the 6,261 men who were arrested, 267 were discharged 
 from the Army for medical reasons ; but most men refused 
 medical examination, preferring not to accept that way 
 out. They preferred not to obey a military order when 
 it was to their personal advantage to do so. 
 
 4. Taking all these classes into account, I venture the sug- 
 gestion that the number of genuine conscientious objectors 
 who faced the Tribunals or otherwise refused to join in the 
 war may have been 16,100. In this I include those — 
 chiefly from the Christadelphians, the Plymouth Brethren, 
 and similar sects — who felt it consistent with their beliefs 
 to accept work in the Non-Combatant Corps or in the Royal 
 Army Medical Corps. That these men were genuine 
 became apparent later on when authority with a crass 
 mihtary mind endeavoured to drive them into ordinary 
 military work. 
 
 » Information from T. Edmund Harvey, a member of the Committee, 
 whose report is not published. 
 
STATISTICS 
 
 349 
 
 There was also a sprinkling of men who evaded arrest and 
 succeeded in escaping, or who were unmolested by mistake. 
 
 The estimated total number of about i6,ioo is reached 
 as follows, the round numbers are only estimates. Those 
 completely exempted are too few to count in this list. 
 
 Arrested 
 
 6,261 
 
 Pelham Committee's cases 
 
 3^964 
 
 Friends' Ambulance Unit 
 
 1,200 
 
 War Victims' Rehef Co. ... 
 
 200 
 
 Working directly under Tribunals 
 
 900 
 
 Non-Combatant Corps .... 
 
 3,300 
 
 Royal Army Medical Corps . 
 
 100 
 
 Evaded the Act 
 
 175 
 
 16,100 
 
 5. The number of men arrested who later on accepted 
 combatant or non-combatant service was 351. This figure 
 represents a last sifting of all the men who gave in. Again 
 I say, Let no one who has not been similarly tried cast a 
 stone at them. Probably their spirits as well as their 
 bodies were enslaved in the Army, and their lot became 
 altogether miserable. Victims of more brutaUty than they 
 could bear, they gave away their souls, and so made the 
 colonels and sergeants happy. That 94 per cent, of those 
 who began resistance held through to the end is a great 
 testimony to their quality. 
 
 The plan adopted by the Government was thus to let 
 the shirker and the coward — or, to speak more justly, 
 the men of less courage and weaker will — off easily, and 
 to punish most severely of all those whose honesty — if 
 not more real than that of some others — was at least more 
 obvious, and more severely tried. Thus the purpose of 
 the conscience clause was reversed. 
 
 6. We will now classify the 6,261 men who were arrested, 
 taken from the Information Bureau records in their latest 
 and most accurate form.^ 
 
 I Careful revision has taken place since the figures were provided for 
 the N.C.F. Souvenir. 
 
350 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 Absolutists (subject to deduction in para- 
 graph below) i»543 
 
 Home Office men 3,750 
 
 Men who accepted combatant or non-com- 
 batant service 351 
 
 Rejected and discharged on medical grounds 267 
 
 Deserted 21 
 
 Released owing to special circumstances . 12 
 
 Deported 2 
 
 Evading or on indefinite furlough at time of 
 
 general release 45 
 
 Records incomplete 270 
 
 6,261 
 
 6. The total number of Absolutists (subject to a 
 deduction below) may be classified as follows : — 
 
 843 were released on completion of sentence amounting 
 
 to two years or more (April 1919) 
 221 were released under the commutation of sentences 
 
 scheme (July 1919). 
 334 were released on medical grounds in accordance with 
 Lord Curzon's statement of December 4, 1917. 
 (Five of these men subsequently died.) 
 55 records are incomplete. 
 49 deserted from their units while awaiting further 
 
 court martial. 
 14 died in addition to the five mentioned above, eleven 
 
 actually in prison. 
 19 were released on account of exceptional circumstances. 
 8 were discharged on medical grounds prior to Lord 
 Curzon's statement. 
 
 1,543 
 
 From this number of Absolutists should be deducted 
 men who were kept in gaol until the final release, from 
 other causes than their refusal of the Home Office scheme. 
 There were 158 men up to July 30, 1917, who were deemed 
 
STATISTICS 351 
 
 " not genuine " by the Central Tribunal, in spite of their 
 voluntary suffering, and who may or may not have been 
 Absolutists in principle. These men, thus denied the 
 chance of the Home Office scheme, were, so far as I knew 
 them, men who had refused to go before the Tribunals, or 
 in whose proceedings some irregularity had occurred, or 
 who were theoretical anarchists, matters which had nothing 
 to do with their genuineness. Of the three I knew in 
 gaol, one had declined to acknowledge the Tribunals, one 
 had shown some inconsistency in his religious affiliation, 
 and one had apparently argued with the Central Tribunal. 
 There were also in prison till the end 96 men who had been 
 returned to prison for some breach of rules under the Home 
 Office scheme, or had voluntarily returned from the 
 scheme to prison for reasons which have been given in 
 Chapter VII. Among these reasons was the Absolutist 
 reason. There were also 31 men who had returned to 
 prison for reasons unknown. From the above total of 
 1,543, then, some number less than 285 — the total of 158, 
 96, and 31 — should be deducted, in order to obtain the 
 number of Absolutists. 
 
 Sir George (now Lord) Cave stated in the House that 
 up to November 3, 1917, 192 Heme Office men had been 
 returned to the Army or to prison, and 78 had voluntarily 
 left. These figures are rather higher than those returned 
 at the end. Some of them may have been released by 
 illness or by death, or may be among those whose record 
 with us is imperfect. 
 
 My conclusion would be that there were not more than 
 1,350 Absolutists, one in twelve of the total number of 
 C.O.'s. Whether we agree with their doctrine or not, 
 they certainly bore the brunt of the suffering, and they 
 have inflicted the most damaging blow upon conscription. 
 
 The men who were released on medical grounds were 
 men so broken down that the doctor's opinion was that 
 continuance in prison would imperil their lives or their 
 permanent health. 
 
 The men who died after arrest, at a time of life when 
 few men die in the ordinary way, was 71. The number 
 who lost their reason was 31. So the number who 
 
352 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 bore the last martyrdom possible to man was just over 
 one hundred.^ 
 
 In the Souvenir of the N.C.F. are published some figures 
 roughly indicating the nature of the conscientious objection 
 of the men arrested. 
 
 The total number of members or attenders at meetings 
 of the Society of Friends of whose imprisonment particulars 
 are known was 279. Of these, 142 were Absolutists, 102 
 Home Office men, and 35 unclassified. The total number 
 of Socialist objectors of whom particulars are known was 
 1,191, of whom 452 were Absolutists, 613 Home Office 
 men, and 126 unclassified ; 805 of the Socialist Objectors 
 were members of the I.L.P. The relative smallness of 
 the number of Quaker objectors is partly due to the small- 
 ness of the total number of the Society, to the fact that 
 they were better treated by the Tribunals, that many of 
 them before conscription came in had entered upon relief 
 work abroad, and that 32 per cent, of the available young 
 men in the Society entered the Forces. In all religious 
 bodies there are some nominal members, particularly 
 in one with hereditary membership. Most of those 
 who enlisted were of this type. There were among the 
 C.O.'s a small number from every known religious body, 
 and of course many who belonged to none. 
 
 I There is a curious discrepancy between some of these figures and those 
 which were given as official by Viscount Peel on April 3, 19 19. He made 
 out that at that time there were only 404 two-years' men in prison, whereas 
 Lord Parmoor's figures, provided by the N.C.F., gave 773. Subsequent 
 research revealed that the difference was due to the fact that the Govern- 
 ment did not include in their figures the men still in prison who had been 
 regarded as not genuine by the Central Tribunal, nor, naturally, did it include 
 those who had died, or who had been released as broken down in health, 
 or those who were temporarily in the guardrooms, or on furlough under 
 the " Cat and Mouse Act," or on indefinite furlough. These were found 
 to account for the above difference in numbers. Similar considerations 
 cover the discrepancies in the number of deaths. Of the 59 deaths which 
 had at that time occurred, the Government only recorded 9 who had 
 died in prison, and 24 in the Home Office camps. Lord Peel gave 20 
 certified insane, as against our 31. The latter, however, included a number 
 who were sent to military insane hospitals or who were actually afflicted 
 without being certified. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 The main subject of this book is the record of the 
 resistance to conscription in Great Britain. But the story 
 in the colonies and abroad is also very instructive ; so 
 some attempt is made here to give a brief sketch of it so 
 far as it is known, and on a scale necessarily much smaller 
 than that of the record at home. Our colonial and foreign 
 friends will, I trust, allow for this need for brevity. 
 
 I. Australia. 
 
 AustraUa escaped conscription during the war. The 
 Commonwealth refused in 1916 to follow Mr. W. M. Hughes 
 in his agitation for the compulsory service of grown-up 
 men. But for the last ten years there has been in both 
 Austraha and New Zealand a system of compulsory mili- 
 tary training for boys between fourteen and eighteen years 
 of age. This was brought about by influence from the 
 Government of the mother country, and it was not con- 
 cealed that it was intended by the military as a model for 
 us at home to follow. This resulted in the imprisonment 
 of many thousands of boys, and in unceasing police-court 
 proceedings due to widespread attempts at evasion, of 
 which doubtless only a portion was due to conscientious 
 objection. A large book has been pubHshed by John F. 
 Hills and J. Percy Fletcher, recounting the story of the 
 agitation which they and others have continuously main- 
 tained against this miUtarizing of free colonies. Of course 
 it began mildly, but it grows. There is an attempt at the 
 present time to extend compulsory training to a period of 
 seventy days for the first year. The promise that it shall 
 be correspondingly diminished in future years is not 
 
 23 m 
 
354 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 generally accepted at its face value, and everyone believes 
 that the stipulation that the service is only for home defence 
 would snap in a moment in time of war. 
 
 It is difficult to exaggerate the importance, to the future 
 of these wide lands of the South, of the result of this 
 conflict with Militarism. To the Empire as a whole it is 
 hardly of less importance whether the colonies are to be 
 united to the Empire and to one another by a union of 
 hearts or by union in military operations. The people 
 there are frightened by talk of the danger of an invasion 
 from Japan and the necessity of maintaining a " white " 
 Australia. It is curious to note that any attack by Japan 
 would be a naval attack upon the Austrahan capital cities, 
 for meeting which a land army would not be of any use. 
 It is further curious to note that the Japanese Navy — her 
 only possible weapon of attack — has been to a large extent 
 built in British shipyards and in the yards of Vickers, 
 Maxim & Co., a British firm who have a branch in Japan. 
 In addition, fifty skilled aeroplane officers have this year 
 been lent by our Government to Japan to establish for 
 her an air force. Relieved, therefore, from any genuine 
 fear of Japan, we can only conclude that the Austrahan 
 levies would be useful for imperial purposes in any part of 
 the world, to enforce exploitation, to put down rebellion, 
 or to extend the Empire. 
 
 The full story of this Australian campaign of peace 
 does not come within the scope of this book, either in time 
 or in place, so we must be content thus to summarize a 
 long story of efforts and sufferings. 
 
 2. Austria. 
 
 (a) German Austria. — The Social Democrats as a political 
 party were Marxists, and accepted defensive war, i.e. of 
 course any actually waged war as described by those who 
 waged it. Their object was to substitute a popular 
 militia for the Imperial Army, and they were openly hostile 
 to Pacifism. Thoroughgoing peace sentiment was held in 
 Austria by scattered groups and individuals who followed 
 Tolstoy and Kropotkin, theoretical " anarchists " and 
 
THE MOVEMENT ABROAD 355 
 
 Christian communists. There were about 2,000 of these in 
 all, kept together by a fortnightly journal, Wohlstand fiir 
 A lie (Welfare for All), edited, in German, by Pierre Ramus. 
 He is a Nazarene, a body which, like the Quakers in Eng- 
 land, refuses all oaths. On this ground, in the years of 
 peace, this paper outspokenly repudiated the Army and 
 the Oath of Allegiance. It existed from December 1907 
 till the outbreak of war. Its last article, calHng for a general 
 strike against the war, came out on July 24, 1914, the very 
 day before martial law was declared. This happy accident 
 saved the life of the editor, but he was incarcerated in 
 military prisons, with short interruptions, till the fall of 
 the Imperial Government. The readers of the paper were 
 organized in a Federation called the " International Anti- 
 Mihtarist Association," founded in 1904 by the late Domela 
 F. Nieuwenhuis, with whom a brisk correspondence was 
 kept up. It was anti-militarist, anti-nationalist, against 
 violence of all kinds, and fearlessly outspoken ; but, like 
 similar bodies elsewhere, did not become a mass movement. 
 
 All the members of the Federation were faithful to 
 their principles, refused military service and were im- 
 prisoned to the number of many hundreds. A full account 
 of the persecution was written by Pierre Ramus in his 
 book Friedenskrieger des Hinterlandes (Warriors of Peace 
 behind the Front), a series of articles reprinted from 
 Erkenntniss und Befreiung (Conscience and Emancipation), 
 the paper he has run at Vienna since the war. The leaders 
 and speakers of the movement were Johann Magerer (artist), 
 Josef Mottitschka, Josef Mojzes, Adolph Grossmann, B. 
 Mandl, L. Barral. All have been long years in prison and 
 otherwise maltreated. Grossmann was put into a lunatic 
 asylum, though quite sane. Mojzes was sentenced to five 
 years' hard labour as a disobedient soldier, for he was 
 " deemed '* to have sworn because he had heard the 
 oath administered. The conclusion of the war saved his 
 hfe. 
 
 Since the war the Conscientious Objector Movement in 
 Austria has increased. Lists are being collected by Mrs. 
 Olga Misar and others of those who pledge themselves not 
 to serve in the " coming " war. 
 
356 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 (b) Bohemia. — Before the war the Young Czechs were a 
 patriotic anti-mihtarist organization, counted by many 
 thousands. At every conscription booth they would appear 
 in mourning, or would sing peace songs or they would 
 absent themselves. They included men of varying con- 
 viction, from Christian non-resisters to anti-German patriotic 
 rebels. When the war broke out men in masses refused 
 to swear. This was put down by martial law, relentlessly 
 — one in five or one in ten of the recalcitrant regimental 
 bodies were shot. The people were taken unprepared. 
 There was no real Peace organization. The Socialist leaders, 
 as in Austria, were not pacifist, and supported the war. 
 Thus a movement composed of anti-conscriptionists of all 
 types was extinguished in blood. 
 
 (c) Hungary. — In this purely agricultural country there 
 prevails great Christian piety among the peasants. There 
 are many villages wholly inhabited by Nazarenes. They 
 were always at issue with the Government over conscrip- 
 tion in time of peace. There were also Nazarenes among 
 the intellectuals, such as Dr. Skarvan, who refused to 
 practise for the Army. The Government forces fell upon 
 the Nazarene villages and devastated them : men were 
 killed in hundreds, or executed for refusal to serve. There 
 is no accurate record of the numbers or the details of this 
 Terror, which was at its worst during the first weeks of 
 the war. By the end of October 1914 the Hungarian 
 Government became alarmed or scandalized at causing so 
 much bloodshed, and stopped the persecution. The 
 Supreme Military Court decreed that Nazarenes were to 
 be allowed to serve in ambulance, sanitary and non-com- 
 batant work. A private executive order added that they 
 were to be put into the most dangerous places, in the firing 
 line and in cholera hospitals. i Apparently some felt free 
 to accept this non-combatant service. The oath, which 
 was a strong point with them, was exacted by the Govern- 
 ment. But the military have not kept to the law, but 
 
 » This is confirmed by Dr. Stern of Zagrat, Jugoslavia, who told J. P. 
 Fletcher that he saw, in the fifteenth month of the war, an order in a 
 military hospital that the Nazarenes were to be given the hardest cases to 
 look after. 
 
THE MOVEMENT ABROAD 857 
 
 have broken it all the time, Herr Ramus says in " many 
 thousands of cases." A Commission of Investigation has 
 been examining these cases since the Republic was founded. 
 One instance may be given. Maxa Dilber served first as 
 a driver for civil purposes, was transferred to the ranks, 
 refused to handle a gun, and for ** insubordination " was 
 shot. Some were hanged, when they should legally 
 have been shot. Also many Nazarenes were Absolutists, 
 refused all work connected with war, and were sent to 
 prison. 
 
 All these particulars from countries in the old Austrian 
 Empire have been kindly sent me by Pierre Ramus, editor 
 of Conscience and Emancipation, and a conspicuous bearer 
 of this pure and noble testimony. His narrative, coming 
 from the central source, is of deep if painful interest. His 
 address is Klosterneuburg, Schiebstattegraben 237, Vienna. 
 
 There are still (in September 1921) a number of Naza- 
 renes in a Hungarian prison, estimated at about two hundred. 
 The reason of their continued imprisonment at the hands 
 of the reactionary Government is not known. Friends 
 are trying to reach them. 
 
 The Hungarian anarchist and anti-militarist, H. Vil- 
 lianyi, now a refugee from the White Terror, writes that 
 the Liberal writer Karl Eotvos has written, in the form of 
 a work of fiction, an account of the Nazarene martyrdom. 
 He says that there were also thousands of refusals to serve, 
 on grounds of political principle, that the courts were con- 
 tinually busy with passing sentences of death ; but that 
 many also escaped, always on the run from village to 
 village. Before the war there were anti-militarist propa- 
 ganda among students and other intellectuals. When the 
 war broke out they distributed in the barracks tracts 
 inciting to refusal to serve. A young man and a young 
 woman received five years' imprisonment for this ; and 
 the organization was stamped out, till the Republic was 
 founded. 
 
 Dr. Stern of Zagret in Jugoslavia reports that the 
 Nazarenes exist there also, and suffered, like those in 
 Hungary, under the old Austrian Empire, the extreme of 
 cruelty. 
 
358 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 3. Canada. 
 
 Conscription in Canada was authorized in the summer 
 of 1917. The Act contained a conscience clause, available 
 only for members of any organized religious denomination, 
 well recognized in Canada, whose tenets forbade com- 
 batant service. Exemption was from combatant service 
 only. The penalty was imprisonment on summary con- 
 viction with hard labour, for not more than five years. 
 Printed matter in opposition to the Act was to be sup- 
 pressed, and author and publisher fined or imprisoned. 
 Members of religious bodies who were exempted were to 
 be disfranchised. Chapter IV contains a narrative of the 
 sufferings of certain C.O.'s who were shipped to England. 
 
 4. Germany. 
 
 From Germany, at the beginning of the war, came 
 reports that some hundreds of Christian C.O.'s had been 
 summarily shot. The story lacks detail and confirmation. 
 Most of the German Socialists supported the war, but a 
 number of distinguished intellectuals, such as Professor 
 Foerster of Munich, Professor Nicolai of Berlin (who was 
 imprisoned). Dr. Quidde, Professor Sieper, and the famous 
 Professor Plinstein, maintained an outspoken opposition to 
 all war. 
 
 It is very difficult to hear of any actual cases of shooting, 
 though officers may at times have taken the law into their 
 own hands at the front. Enquiries made at the Quaker 
 Embassy at Berlin and of the secretaries of Peace 
 Societies in Germany and Holland have brought no cases 
 to light. A public enquiry in the pages of Menschheit has 
 led to no response. A common plan was to offer the 
 objector non-combatant service, and if he refused, to get 
 rid of him by declaring him insane. This happened to 
 one of the former staff of Vorwarts, who was confined as 
 a lunatic, and also to a lawyer named Dr. Daniel at 
 Stuttgart, who was, however, left at large. Apparently the 
 objectors were so few that the question was not prominent. 
 Herr Rottcher, secretary of the German Peace Society, 
 gives two CO. cases only as personally known to him. 
 
THE MOVEMENT ABROAD 359 
 
 There, are however, some, though not many, Naza- 
 renes in Germany, and besides them the sect of the 
 " Adventists " is fairly strong, and contributed a great 
 many conscientious objectors. 
 
 Since the war the Nie Wieder Krieg (No More War) 
 Movement has become a great popular force, and can 
 collect thousands in processions and public meetings. 
 
 From G. W. Meyer of Bremen I learn that a number 
 of C.O.'s were confined in the fortress of Spandau, and 
 others in a camp near the Danish frontier, where the 
 military endeavoured to break their resistance by scarcity 
 of food and other bad treatment. G. W. Meyer himself 
 had been an officer in the Army till the Treaty of Brest- 
 Litovsk convinced him that the German Government was 
 not striving for a peace of reconciliation. He fled by way 
 of Russia to Finland, in order to work for such a peace. 
 Endeavouring to pass to Norway via Murmansk, he was 
 captured by the British and interned in England for a 
 year. Since his return to Germany after the Armistice, he 
 has been organizing the '* No More War " Movement, 
 which has obtained many thousands of signatures to an 
 uncompromising declaration to that effect. He says : — 
 *' Our movement is really the result of the brave stand 
 which the British C.O.'s have taken during the war." 
 Thus the spirit of peace as well as the spirit of fear spreads 
 from land to land. 
 
 5. Holland. 
 
 There are in Holland a great many Mennonites and some 
 other small pacifist sects, but the bulk of the seven hundred 
 men who went to prison up to the summer of 1921 were 
 working-class International SociaHsts. The Peace organ- 
 ization is large. It issues literature, translates English 
 books, and held during the war — so long as it was allowed 
 — open-air meetings. It issued a proposal for an Inter- 
 national League, and showed the true Dutch spirit of 
 courage and independence. All told, there were some 
 five thousand refusals of miHtary service in Holland. 
 
 The remarkable thing about Holland is that imprison- 
 
360 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 ments for anti-militarist work were still going on in 1921. 
 J. Giesen of Heerenweg 14, Utrecht, is the secretary of the 
 International Anti-Militarist Union, which held a large Inter- 
 national Congress at The Hague in March 1921, of which 
 I have seen an impressive photograph. The Union main- 
 tains an organ, De Wapens Neder, now in its seventeenth 
 year, and issues circulars internationally. Conscientious 
 objectors continue hunger-striking in prison, where from 
 thirty to forty were still, in the summer of 1921, confined. 
 The circular for July 192 1 may be quoted as typical of 
 the Union's work and the need for it : — 
 
 " B. de Ligt, president of the International Anti- 
 Military Bureau, has been imprisoned owing to his pro- 
 paganda for the liberation of H. Groenendaal, a refuser of 
 military service, who is on hunger-strike, and for the libera- 
 tion of all the refusers of military service throughout 
 the world. Albert de Jong, my co-secretary, has been 
 imprisoned for the same reason. Henri Delecourt and so 
 many other comrades in France are in prison for anti- 
 mihtary actions. Bajatierra in Spain and a lot of others. 
 Syndicalists, etc., are in prison owing to acts of anti-mili- 
 tarism and revolutionary Syndicahsm. Danes, brave com- 
 rades, continue to be kept in prison owing to their 
 refusing military service, and continue hunger-striking. 
 Linn Gale, our correspondent, was made a prisoner in 
 Mexico and is kept a prisoner in U.SA." 
 
 This is the only information which has reached me 
 which refers to conscientious objectors in France, though 
 there are now several strong and active peace associations 
 there. 
 
 6. New Zealand. 
 
 If anyone had hoped that the British colonies, which 
 are often thought of as progressive communities, free 
 from conservatism and the vested interests of ancient 
 institutions, would have shown more regard for individual 
 conviction than the mother country, such a hope was 
 wholly disappointed during the war. Indeed, it is very 
 remarkable how events in New Zealand paralleled events 
 in England. 
 
THE MOVEMENT ABROAD 361 
 
 Besides the religious and the Socialist objectors, there 
 were there also the Irish and the Maori objectors, repre- 
 senting hostility to the Empire by conquered races. By 
 the treaty which closed the last Maori war, sixty years 
 ago, the Maoris were expressly exempted from British 
 military service. So it was written on a large scrap of 
 paper. At the outbreak of war. Sir James Allen, Defence 
 Minister, without consulting Parliament, promised to send 
 8,000 men, and to maintain them by a monthly reinforce- 
 ment of 1,000. Later on these forces rose until about 
 2,400 men were drafted every four weeks. A General 
 Election came at the height of the war fever, in December 
 1914, followed by a Coalition Government, with a tiny 
 Opposition of four Labour members. Then began a Press 
 campaign in favour of conscription, in order that " we 
 might keep our obligation to the Empire,'* just as we at 
 home had to keep our obligation to France. Then came 
 a National Register, with solemn protests by the Govern- 
 ment that it had no reference to conscription. Oddly 
 enough, however, men between nineteen and forty-five were 
 asked whether they were willing to join the Forces. 78,000 
 declined to be sent abroad, though some of them would 
 take service at home ; 120,000 were willing to go abroad, 
 but only 34,000 of these were single men without dependents 
 and therefore likely to be summoned. The Labour Party 
 held a great anti-conscription conference, representing 
 two hundred organizations, in January 1916, corresponding 
 to the similar Labour movement here. Nevertheless, 
 conscription was ordered by Parliament in June. 
 
 The Bill was fought at every stage by the tiny Labour 
 minority. As in England, the existing Parliament twice 
 prolonged its own life. The municipal halls, as usual 
 here, were closed against Labour meetings called to dis- 
 cuss conscription. About half the platform speakers of 
 the Labour movement were put into prison. Government 
 shorthand writers and detectives dogged every Labour 
 leader. The entire correspondence of pacifists and others 
 was opened and delayed with the stupidity familiar here. 
 The miners struck ; and to get them back to work they 
 were practically guaranteed against conscription. 
 
862 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 In its final form the Act included a conscience clause 
 for the benefit only of men who, before the war broke out 
 and continuously since, were members of a religious body 
 whose doctrines forbade military service, and who con- 
 scientiously accepted those doctrines. This relieved only 
 the members of the Society of Friends, the Christadelphians, 
 and one or two other small bodies. Even they had to 
 be medically examined, and to attest ; and the exemption 
 was only from combatant service. They had to agree to 
 perform non-combatant service under the Act. 
 
 The next stage is also an echo of what happened here. 
 The Catholics objected to the conscription of their priests ; 
 the Government feared them, and finally exempted all 
 clergy — not by law but by individual certificates. The 
 severest penalties, up to three years' hard labour, were 
 ordered, as in England, against anyone — including parents 
 — who harboured, and anyone who employed, C.O.'s. They 
 were also " deemed " to be soldiers. In New Zealand 
 there is much wild country, and many men fled to the 
 wilderness and, amid the winter snows and the summer 
 bush-fires, and under the pursuit of informers, maintained 
 a precarious existence. The sentences — as happened in 
 England — began short and went on to two years' hard 
 labour, when it was found that the men could not be broken. 
 The incident of the sudden deportation of fourteen men 
 by night has been recorded fully in Chapter IV along with 
 their experiences. The Government did not attempt it a 
 second time, under pressure from New Zealand opinion — 
 or probably from the British Government. I have referred 
 in that chapter to the book Armageddon or Calvary, from 
 which this record has chiefly been compiled. 
 
 Altogether between three and four hundred men were 
 imprisoned in New Zealand.^ This is more in proportion 
 to population than anywhere else. As in England, the 
 sentences were repeated, in some cases two or three or 
 four times, and, as in England, they were for extremely 
 variable periods. Six of the Baxter sons, five of the Cody 
 
 ^ The Government reported that 445 persons had been imprisoned by 
 court martial in the three years 19 18-1920, of whom 226 received a sentence 
 of two years. A very large majority of these were C.O.'s. 
 
THE MOVEMENT ABROAD 363 
 
 sons, and three of the Wright sons suffered under variable 
 sentences. The imprisonment of Mr. C. P. Webb, M.P. — 
 a leading Labour man — is somewhat analogous to the 
 imprisonment of Mr. Morel and the Hon. Bertrand Russell 
 in England. Mr. Webb is still disqualified for public office 
 for ten years. 
 
 The military methods which were used in England 
 were paralleled at the Wanganui Barracks, under a lieutenant 
 whose character may be deduced from the fact that when 
 in a governing position at Samoa he had become involved 
 in trouble with native women. A court martial had 
 acquitted him of serious immorality, but he was found 
 guilty of having thrashed a half-caste woman with a stick. 
 This man now proceeded to break in the C.O.'s. They 
 were already suffering punishment for refusing to be 
 soldiers, and for continuing to refuse to drill they were 
 sentenced to two hours' pack drill. A weighted pack of 
 80 lbs. was put on the prisoner's back, a rifle fastened to 
 his side by handcuffs, and he was ordered to march round 
 the yard. Refusing to do this, he was pushed from behind, 
 kicked on the heels, in two cases a rope was fastened round 
 his neck and he was pulled along. In three cases the 
 men's hair was pulled out in dragging them along ; when 
 they got to the corners they were pulled or pushed against 
 the wall, so that their faces were raw and bleeding, and 
 spots of blood were found afterwards about the walls. 
 When they fell down they were kicked and water was 
 thrown upon them, and the time they were on the ground 
 was deducted from the two hours of their punishment. 
 One man was dragged for some distance along the ground. 
 The prisoners were kept going like this round and round 
 ceaselessly till they were completely done up, and yielded. 
 There were four cases of this kind, and they each stood it 
 for about three-quarters of an hour. 
 
 I am quoting from the findings of a magisterial report 
 which with great unwillingness and delay was finally pro- 
 duced by the Government. A lengthy military court 
 martial was afterwards held " in order to enable the 
 Heutenant to clear his character," and so far as the court 
 martial had weight with anybody, it did clear him. This 
 
364 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 verdict was very astonishing to anyone who reads the 
 evidence in the ten days of the trial. The responsible 
 bully and his staff were removed from the barracks, but 
 he was given another post. 
 
 Finally an Act was passed ordering the publication of 
 a complete list of military defaulters, with the view to 
 boycotting them in the future. There were 2,000 Europeans 
 and 117 Maoris on this list. They were all still liable to 
 prosecution. They were also deprived of civil rights for 
 ten years. In these ways, and in the more limited nature 
 of the exemption permitted, New Zealand was worse than 
 the mother country. 
 
 An important document was issued by a number of 
 leading Friends, protesting against the privileged position 
 they received under the Act. Nevertheless twenty-one 
 members and attenders suffered imprisonment, refusing 
 alternative service. Eleven were declared medically unfit, 
 but it was suspected that the unfitness was spiritual 
 rather than physical. Twelve served with the R.A.M.C. 
 or on similar work. 
 
 The religious objectors were not generally placed on 
 the defaulters' list, and an attempt was made by the Govern- 
 ment to ease the situation by encouraging the imprisoned 
 men to plead religion. Instead, therefore, of taking the 
 pleas which they had offered before the Tribunals, and 
 which were already on record, the Commission, consisting 
 of two ministers of religion, an inspector of prisons and a 
 tame Labour man, went round the prisons in much the 
 same way as the Central Tribunal sat in Wormwood Scrubs 
 to proclaim men genuine. The plea of religion was accepted, 
 and even welcomed, by this body. Anyone who refused to 
 come before them was put down as '* irreligious," just as 
 the corresponding people in England were put down as 
 not genuine. 
 
 The Government's system of alternative service was 
 farm work at Levin in the North Island, but very few men 
 availed themselves of this. The road to it was by a 
 statement under which a man promised to do any non- 
 combatant work he might be set. The prison treatment 
 was very much easier than it was in England. The C.O.'s 
 
THE MOVEMENT ABROAD 365 
 
 were not in the ordinary prisons, except a few who were 
 considered dangerous and extreme. These were abominably 
 treated at the prison at Mount Eden, Auckland. The 
 other C.O.'s were at the Borstal prison at Invercargill or 
 in huts at a high elevation in the country at Waikeria, 
 Roto Ira, and Kaingaroa ; and for Maori prisoners, at 
 Narrow Neck. The men did outdoor work, clearing the 
 scrub or farming ; they had plenty of food, and their 
 friends could send them books, periodicals, or parcels of 
 food, and could pay visits. The cold and the lack of good 
 medical attention were the principal hardships. 
 
 The colony has also suffered since 1909 from the com- 
 pulsory training of boys from fourteen to eighteen years 
 under the Territorial and Cadet system. Under this scheme, 
 which is supported by Conservatives and Liberals and 
 opposed by Labour, as many as 7,030 police prosecutions 
 took place in one year, and in hundreds of cases the lads 
 were imprisoned. 
 
 Prosecutions for what was called sedition — that is, for 
 opposing conscription — affected most of the prominent 
 Labour leaders, of whom at least twenty-eight suffered 
 imprisonment. One notable prosecution was that of Harry 
 Urquhart, MA., teacher at a Technical College and 
 mission worker, who wrote a pamphlet called Men and 
 Marbles, describing the morahty of the conscription 
 ballot. The Judge said that this was so well written that 
 the writer was dangerous at large. There was one prose- 
 cution of parents — Mr. and Mrs Price — " for concealing 
 their son." They received six months* imprisonment, but 
 the mother was released before her time was up. 
 
 The whole New Zealand story is a profound disap- 
 pointment for those who have hoped much from Democracy 
 and from Women's Suffrage. 
 
 7. Russia. 
 
 The Russian genius for religion has produced, at all 
 epochs of which we have a record, a number of sects hold- 
 ing the faith and enthusiasm of Christianity in pristine 
 purity. These bodies have generally arisen among the 
 
366 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 Russian peasantry without external suggestion, and they 
 illustrate on a large scale the truth that the gospel which 
 may be hidden from the wise and prudent can be revealed 
 unto babes. Such bodies are the Stundists, the Doukho- 
 bors, Novo-Israel, and the various societies grouped under 
 the general name of Molokans. The German Mennonites 
 in the Ukraine form a well-marked community. There are 
 pacifist Baptists in the Caucasus and, among the intel- 
 lectuals, groups of Tolstoy ans. There are also bodies who 
 bear the name of Quakers. These sects number several 
 millions altogether. 
 
 Under the Czar's Government the C.O.'s were usually 
 imprisoned, even to the extent of fifteen years* hard labour. 
 There was a sensational trial of seventeen young Tolstoyans 
 before the fall of the monarchy. The men were acquitted 
 after several days' trial. The President of the Court — a 
 well-known Lieutenant-General — wrote afterwards to the 
 Press, saying that he had been converted by the defence 
 of the young men, and had become a Tolstoyan himself. 
 A Friends' Relief worker, named Frank Keddie, reported 
 at the beginning of 1919, somewhat vaguely and with no 
 definite note of time, that " perhaps a few C.O.'s were shot, 
 but the majority flogged and then given — if they would 
 accept it — some non-combatant work." 
 
 The important fact about the Russian situation is that 
 the Bolsheviks alone among the Governments of the 
 world have both frankly recognized a conscientious objec- 
 tion and organized a not unsympathetic treatment of it.^ 
 Lenin was approached by a Council of delegates from many 
 religious groups under the chairmanship of the well-known 
 Vladimir Chertkoff, an intimate friend of Tolstoy. The 
 Soviet Government replied by a decree on January 4, 
 1919, stating that those who declared themselves unwiUing 
 to undertake mihtary service on account of their religious 
 convictions might serve their fellow-creatures for an 
 equal term in hospitals for contagious diseases or in some 
 other work of public utility, at the choice of the individual 
 concerned. The above Council of Religious Groups, with 
 
 * Tfihunal, September 18, 1919, based on a booklet entitled The New 
 Russia, by Paul Birukoff, published by the I.L.P. 
 
THE MOVEMENT ABROAD 367 
 
 Chertkoff as chairman, along with the Communes of 
 Moscow, were to report on the validity of the objection 
 in each case. Thus, for the first time, a sensible sympa- 
 thetic body was appointed to adjudicate on these cases, 
 assisting for this purpose the National Tribunal. Lenin 
 declared that the Government was, in principle, itself anti- 
 militarist, and could not persecute those whose conscience 
 compelled them to refuse to be soldiers. 
 
 Finally, the Absolutist position was fully recognized. 
 The decree proceeds : — ** Under exceptional cases, the Joint 
 Council of Religious Groups and Communes may have 
 recourse to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, 
 with a view to securing complete freedom from service, 
 without the substitution of any other service, if it can be 
 shown that such substitution is incompatible with religious 
 convictions ; the proof to be taken from writings on the 
 question and also from the personal life of the individual 
 concerned." 
 
 Mr. Birukoff states that during the Great War, before 
 the rule of the Bolsheviks, about a thousand refusals to 
 fight on conscientious grounds were registered by the 
 authorities, and the men put in prison. The Revolution 
 set them free, but the renewed war against the Allies and 
 the home reactionaries raised the question once more, 
 resulting in the decree above described, which marks an 
 epoch. 
 
 At the Zurich Women's Conference some not very clear 
 account was given in broken English of a Russian sect 
 expelled over the border into Austria and driven to the 
 trenches with their muskets tied round their necks. 
 
 Clifford Allen reports that during his visit to Russia he 
 was very warmly received by Chertkoff and the pacifist 
 group. They told him that even under the Bolsheviks 
 about fifteen C.O.'s had been shot — a sign of the limited 
 power of the central government. One difference from 
 our ways was very noticeable. Here no CO. organization 
 would have undertaken the invidious task of sitting as a 
 tribunal and punishing rejected men. The Russian C.O.'s 
 had controversies which almost exactly tallied with ours. 
 One difference was that absolute exemption did not 
 
368 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 release a man from the universal obligation to com- 
 pulsory labour. 
 
 Albert P. I. Cotterell writes in the Friend of January 6, 
 1922, that he has met in Buzuluk, in the province of 
 Samara, members of a sect who are called Quakers, and 
 who have a strong family likeness to the Quakers of 
 England and America, from whom, according to their 
 tradition, they originated. They number about a million. 
 In the Czar's time 609 of them refused military service 
 and were usually imprisoned for doing so. Some had 
 been shot. Kerensky, on March 11, 1917, knocked off 
 their chains and told them to go and register. They 
 refused, and preferred to stay in prison, but were released 
 nine days later. The Soviet Government had completely 
 released them from military service, but had, in one hard 
 case at least, been unable for a time to control a local 
 authority. They finally, however, discovered and released 
 the imprisoned man. 
 
 8. Scandinavia. 
 
 (a) Denmark. — The organization here describes itself as 
 composed of anti-militarists who were prepared to take 
 the consequences. They were chiefly Sociahsts and Syndi- 
 cahsts. It was founded during the war, and its members 
 were imprisoned. They hunger-struck, were forcibly fed, 
 and many subsequently released. The maximum sentence 
 was one and a half years. Some continue hunger-striking, 
 as noted above by J. Giesen. 
 
 (b) Sweden. — There was no organization, but there have 
 been large numbers of C.O.'s. 
 
 (c) Norway. — Religious objectors, irrespective of denomi- 
 nation, were granted absolute exemption if they could 
 satisfy a military court of the genuineness of their claim. 
 The Government provided a system of alternative service. 
 Sociahsts were advised by their leaders to enter the Army 
 in order to carry on propaganda and form Soldiers' 
 Councils like the Soviets. Some refused to do this, and 
 we have heard of one man being sentenced to twenty- 
 four days' imprisonment. 
 
THE MOVEMENT ABROAD 869 
 
 9. Switzerland. 
 
 So far as we know, there were only isolated cases of 
 conscientious objection here. One which was published in 
 Le Chretien Libre was of an encouraging type. Jean 
 Baudraz, a schoolmaster, was condemned to imprisonment 
 as a pacifist CO. But Swiss opinion was so roused that 
 the General remitted the sentence, and when the military 
 accused several pastors of being responsible for this 
 eccentricity, four ministers wrote a strong and beautiful 
 letter endorsing his action and supporting it by their own.^ 
 
 10. The United States. 
 
 The story of conscription in the United States is too 
 long to be treated fully here. It is, besides, to form the 
 subject of a volume to be written, along with Roger 
 Baldwin, by Norman Thomas, associate editor of The Nation 
 of New York, and centrally concerned in the move- 
 ment. 2 From him I have received a great part of the 
 substance of these pages, and some is in his actual language. 
 Some is from MS. communications, which were printed 
 in the Tribunal. The Quaker part of the story is from 
 material in chapters v., viii. and ix. of A Service of Love 
 in War Time, by Rufus M. Jones, an account of the work 
 of the American Friends' Service Committee, of which he 
 was from the beginning, and still is, the indefatigable 
 chairman. 
 
 Conscription in America began with national registration 
 on June 5, 1917, it being found at the beginning of the 
 war that the voluntary system was not providing enough 
 recruits. In July a draft of 687,000 men was ordered 
 under a Selective Conscription Act. The men were selected 
 by lot under Local Boards, with certain powers of appeal. 
 There was some opposition in Congress to the passage of 
 the law, but it was easily overthrown under the pressure 
 of the war-mind and of the supreme influence of the Presi- 
 dent. The Secretary for War added his personal assurance 
 
 » Tribunal, November i6, 19 16. 
 
 » A critical book on the subject by Mr. Kellogg, an army officer, already 
 exists. 
 
 24 
 
t 
 
 370 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 that brutalities such as had occurred in Great Britain 
 would be avoided. We shall see how this was kept. The 
 penalty for not registering was not more than a year's 
 imprisonment in a civil prison. 
 
 At the beginning, the pacifist movement rose up against 
 conscription hopefully and with considerable apparent 
 strength. Socialist parties and Trade Unions and pacifists 
 formed themselves into Leagues against Conscription and 
 against Militarism, and were strongly supported from the 
 Universities, particularly from Columbia University, New 
 York City. It reminds one of the early hopeful days of 
 the corresponding organizations in England. But on 
 neither side of the sea would we then estimate the flood 
 of frantic and feverish opinion in a nation at war, driven 
 by the need for victory. 
 
 While many evaded registration, very few were coura- 
 geous conscientious objectors. The usual poUcy for honest 
 objectors was to register, but to state that they were 
 objectors. According to the War Department about 65,000 
 made claims for non-combatant classification, presumably 
 on the grounds of conscientious objection. Of these, 
 20,873 were afterwards inducted into service. Most of the 
 rest would have been if the war had lasted longer. 
 
 Only about 4,000, however, persisted in their claim 
 for exemption from either combatant or non-combatant 
 service. It is a striking fact that in America the number 
 of objectors of all sorts was so small. They would have 
 to be multipUed by ten to reach the Enghsh proportion 
 to population, and by a very large number to reach the 
 proportion in New Zealand. 
 
 The rapid conversion to Militarism of men who had 
 intended to be objectors was due to the pressure of pubHc 
 opinion. Even more than in England, people in America 
 become mob-minded. Most men were converted by their 
 friends before they got to camp. Others were converted 
 in camp by ridicule, persuasion or fear. When C.O.'s began 
 to go to camp the War Department issued a secret order 
 providing that they be treated leniently, and segregated 
 under officers of " tact and consideration." It must be 
 said from the beginning, that an honest effort was made 
 
THE MOVEMENT ABROAD 371 
 
 to break men down by persuasion and force of camp senti- 
 ment rather than by actual brutaUty. However, as time 
 dragged on, this pohcy ended. Soon the weaker men took 
 ordinary combatant service, while another group were 
 easily satisfied by non-combatant service. Some of the 
 C.O.'s took Medical Corps service of a rather difficult and 
 dangerous type. 
 
 The American Conscription Act gave or purported to 
 give exemption only to members of recognized reHgious 
 sects who bore an official Peace testimony, releasing thus 
 from actual fighting Quakers, Mennonites, Dunkards and 
 a few others. 
 
 As in England, conscription found Friends in America 
 already active with relief work. They also had felt that 
 their abstinence from fighting should be accompanied by 
 voluntary national service. Only three months intervened 
 in America between the declaration of war and the draft 
 law for compulsory service, as against seventeen months 
 in England. So that the unit that hoped to join the War 
 Victims' Relief service of English Friends in France had 
 not yet sailed. In the same month of July as the first 
 draft was made one hundred young men, carefully selected 
 from a much larger number of applicants, assembled at 
 Haverford College to learn French and to train for sanitary 
 or other service. The first difficulty was to ^et permission 
 for them to go to France. 
 
 The draft law, in its exemption clause for special 
 religious sects, concluded with the words ** no person so 
 exempted shall be exempted from service in any capacity 
 that the President shall declare to be non-combatant/' 
 On reflection, one sees that this curious piece of literature 
 means that the President — which in practice meant the 
 War Office — should decide what they would permit an 
 exempted man to do. As in England, the military inter- 
 pretation of the Act went a long way to nullify it. The 
 Provost-Marshal ruled that the men were to go with other 
 men of their quota to a mobilization camp, where their 
 duties were still left indefinite. It was also laid down that 
 they were still in the military service of the United States. 
 The President persistently delayed his decision as to what 
 
372 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 kind of work would be accepted by the Government. This 
 was done for the same reason as severity was practised 
 in England, in order to frighten possible claimants. The 
 Friends* Service Committee was in constant and active 
 communication with Washington, where the unwilling 
 wheels went round very slowly, and where every officer 
 was fully occupied with carrying on the war itself. Finally 
 the members of the Haverford Unit were nearly all 
 exempted by the Local Boards, corresponding to our 
 Tribunals, and it sailed to Europe in September ; its 
 voyage, the forerunner of a long series of similar sailings, 
 accompanied by heavy transmissions of money. Both 
 processes are still going on. The men left behind were 
 held as soldiers, yet they were not soldiers, nor treated as 
 soldiers. The position was impossible. Although for many 
 months the War Department tried to protect these men, 
 the method they adopted made " hazing " of a rather 
 brutal sort wellnigh inevitable. 
 
 Nearly all the young Friends left behind, if drafted, had 
 gone to one of the camps as ordered. Their lines of action 
 were varied and uncertain, corresponding to the variety 
 we were familiar with in England. Some refused to drill, 
 others consented to that but refused to carry arms. One 
 accepted uniform but drew the line at the cap, which was, 
 to his mind, a military emblem. Some refused all orders, 
 including the salutation of officers. They had, indeed, gone 
 so far in obedience that the right line was difficult for each 
 of them to find. Disobedience was followed in due course 
 in many camps by brutality. At Camp Cody, S. W. S. 
 (one would like to know the names of these brave men) 
 was beaten cruelly, and the corporal gouged his thumbs 
 into his eyes whilst blood from his nose was made to run 
 down his clothing, and he was kicked and knocked down 
 during the process. For some weeks his eyesight was 
 injured, but was ultimately restored. He was threatened 
 with twenty-five years' imprisonment if he did not change, 
 and the threat was a perfectly genuine one. He says : — *' I 
 have been stripped and scrubbed with a broom, put under 
 the water-tap with my mouth held open, had rope round 
 my neck pulled up choking tight for a bit, been fisted. 
 
THE MOVEMENT ABROAD 373 
 
 slapped, kicked ; I carried a bag of sand till I could hardly 
 hold it and go, and then under a shower bath until pretty 
 chilled. If this knowledge will do no good for others, thou 
 may just burn this letter and let it go." . . . "I earnestly 
 desire I may not falter to the weakening of the cause. I 
 do not want my parents to know how I have been used 
 until the battle is over." 
 
 At Camp Dodge, W. R. refused to salute, received hard 
 labour, and refused to labour, particularly in the way of 
 extra drills. He was kept in one corner of the guard-house, 
 and not allowed to communicate with the others. He ate 
 when the others had finished eating, often had only two 
 meals a day, got no exercise ; and letters and visits were 
 cut off for the most part. A Friend who finally got into 
 the camp reported : — '* W. R. showed a beautiful spirit ; 
 he was very broken, and could hardly talk most of the 
 time." 
 
 During the long months in camp, some of the most 
 brutal things occurred, many of which have never been 
 satisfactorily brought to light. One man committed 
 suicide, not as an act of cowardice, but as, in his opinion, 
 a dramatic protest against his treatment, which he hoped 
 might Hghten the lot of those who followed. Other men 
 were prodded with bayonets, immersed in filth and the 
 like. Assistant Secretary of War Keppel himself admitted 
 that some of the objectors in camp received " pretty rough 
 treatment." This was a mild statement. The ill-treat- 
 ment was usually worse if the man was a foreigner, that 
 is, did not speak English well, and of course there were/ 
 many such. 
 
 At length the President's ruling on non-combatant 
 service was issued, in March 1918. This service included 
 medical and ordinary non-combatant work in the Army, 
 but not Friends' Relief Work, nor any work of national 
 importance outside the Army. The men in the camps 
 who refused it, and who constituted the large majority of 
 the objectors, were to be segregated in the camps, " and 
 placed under the command of a specially qualified officer 
 of tact and judgment, who will be instructed to impose 
 no punitive hardship of any kind upon them, but not to 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
874 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 allow their objections to be made the basis of any favour 
 or consideration/' It was thus hoped that persuasion 
 and weariness of the idle futility to which they were con- 
 demned would bring many round ; it had some effect in 
 that way. Disobedience, however, frequently occurred as 
 military orders clashed with conscience, and some of the 
 cruelties that followed are detailed below. The segregation 
 included all sorts of conscientious objectors, not only those 
 who claimed a sectarian objection. 
 
 G. L. was sentenced to thirty years' imprisonment, and 
 placed in military confinement in the Hole at Leavenworth 
 for three weeks. For the first week he was chained to the 
 door of his cell for nine hours a day, his arms were thrust 
 through the bars and handcuffed on the outside. In spite of 
 a small leak of compromise, through lack of mental clear- 
 ness, the majority of the men held out. The Friends' 
 Service Committee worked for them all the time, and some 
 prison visiting was organized. The impossibility of the 
 position was finally brought home to President Wilson, 
 who, along with his Ministers, was all the time afraid of 
 dealing justly and following the spirit of the Act, for fear 
 it should induce others to become objectors. 
 
 An attempt was made, without success, to have the 
 arrangements of the C.O.'s placed in the hands of a Com- 
 mittee of the Society of Friends, the Mennonites and the 
 Dunkards. The only country, however, which has dared 
 to follow this plan is the Bolshevik Government in Russia, 
 as is mentioned above. 
 
 Ultimately it was decided that the conscientious objectors 
 were to have ** furlough " granted for agriculture or for 
 relief work in France. The Act passed the Senate on 
 March 9, 1918. A Board of Inquiry of three persons was 
 sent round the camps to decide on the sincerity of the 
 victims, apart from their religious affiliation. This corre- 
 sponds to the Central Tribunal's wonderful sittings at 
 Wormwood Scrubs. It is very curious to note how the 
 military mind operated in analogous fashion on the two 
 sides of the sea. The American Board was composed of 
 serious, high-minded and kindly disposed men. By the 
 beginning of July practically all the Quaker conscientious 
 
THE MOVEMENT ABROAD* 875 
 
 objectors received, and accepted, this furlough, and went 
 to Haverford College and to a large farm at Rosedale, to 
 train for Europe. 
 
 What then about the Absolutists ? Rufus Jones says 
 of Friends that " a tiny few declined to accept any way 
 out/* Norman Thomas says there were none among 
 Friends, but it is easier to miss a fact than to create it, 
 and one named G. H. Hallett has since visited England. 
 The contrast between this and the Absolutist attitude of so 
 many Friends in England startles one at first sight. The 
 difference was due to the fact that Friends in America are 
 much more separate from the Socialist movement than is 
 the case in England. Also there was no such body as the 
 No-Conscription Fellowship in America, binding all the 
 men together. This shows us how strong was the guiding 
 and unifying effect of the Fellowship upon the movement 
 in England. 
 
 It must also be remembered — and it is extremely 
 important — that the work offered in America was worthy 
 and adventurous service for the help of humanity in the 
 war-stricken lands, and cannot be paralleled with the 
 miserable fiasco of Dartmoor. Besides its utility, the work 
 offered in France had the charm of travel and novelty to a 
 man who became also a member of a unit composed of 
 his own friends. The lamentable part of it, of course, 
 was that the Sociahst Absolutists were left alone to fight 
 conscription regarded as a public issue, not as a purely 
 individual testimony. 
 
 The President's order provided that objectors who 
 would not accept non-combatant service should not be 
 punished therefor, nor be made to don the uniform if they 
 did not wish to. This order made comparatively little 
 difference in camp, and in some cases seems never to have 
 reached below the Divisional officers. There were many 
 hitches in the machinery, and some men admitted to farm 
 furlough were still kept for months in camp, where they 
 received extremely bad treatment. 
 
 Moreover, impatient Army officers, without waiting for 
 the Board of Inquiry, had court martialled and sentenced 
 conscientious objectors to twenty and thirty-year terms as 
 
876 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 disobedient soldiers. Mennonites particularly were victims 
 of this policy. At the end of the war it was discovered 
 that over a hundred men, mostly Mennonites, were confined 
 in Fort Leavenworth who by any reasonable interpretation 
 of the President's own orders should have been admitted 
 to farm furlough. 
 
 The men provided for by this executive order did not 
 include the genuine Absolutist who felt that he could not 
 take even farm furlough. In the summer of 1918 these 
 men were one by one court martialled as disobedient 
 soldiers and in many cases sentenced to death. But such 
 sentences were promptly commuted, usually to twenty or 
 thirty years' imprisonment. 
 
 So it came to pass by the late summer of 1918 that 
 there were in the United States the following groups of 
 conscientious objectors who were suffering more or less 
 severely : — 
 
 (a) Objectors still segregated in camps awaiting the 
 
 determination of their case. 
 
 (b) Objectors who had refused to register and were 
 
 confined in civil prisons. 
 
 (c) Some hundreds of objectors sentenced to the military 
 
 prisons for long terms. These men included those 
 sentenced contrary to the spirit of the President's 
 order, and the genuine Absolutists. 
 
 Their sufferings were terrible. The tortures practised 
 at Frenston, at Fort Leavenworth, at Fort Riley in 
 Kansas, and on Alcartaz Island were not one whit less 
 — indeed, rather worse — than those recorded from military 
 prisons abroad in Chapter IV of this book. I am thankful 
 to be able after reflection to spare the reader any complete 
 recital of such doings. 
 
 Two typical extracts should perhaps find place. The 
 following extract is taken from a diary kept at Fort 
 Riley :— 
 
 "... Kaplan, after refusing work, was similarly 
 questioned by the officer, and likewise said that he could 
 not stand ' attention,' nor do any work of a military 
 nature. Thereupon his arms were tied, a rope fastened 
 
THE MOVEMENT ABROAD 877 
 
 round his neck, the free end being thrown over a rod 
 above and held by one of the guards. He was ordered 
 to stand ' attention.' Upon his refusal his feet were 
 kicked from under him by the officer of the day and 
 the prison sergeant ; and finally the latter took the 
 free end of the rope from the guard and pulled it, 
 lifting Kaplan off his feet. When the latter 's eyes 
 began to bulge and his tongue to stick out, he was let 
 down and asked if he would do some work. He again 
 refused. The rope was then taken from his neck and 
 fastened round one arm, between his elbow and shoulder. 
 The rope was again pulled, and Kaplan lifted from 
 the ground. The pain was intense, the arm was being 
 forced out of joint, and he emitted loud, agonizing 
 cries, imploring them to shoot him rather than torture 
 him thus. While in this position he was again asked 
 whether he would do some work, and he again refused. 
 The Lieutenant then ordered that the hose be turned 
 on his face. The force of the stream of water tended 
 to hinder his breathing, and he began to choke. Asked 
 now whether be would agree to work, he finally said he 
 would polish up around his cell, whereupon the officer 
 ordered him to be released." 
 
 The victims in the next case were Ivan Susseff and 
 four other Russian Molokans. 
 
 " The Colonel gave orders to bring a fire hose. The 
 spirit of God supported us and we were ready even to 
 be shot down. When they found out that none of us 
 would obey their orders, they commanded to turn on 
 the water and put the fire hose against our faces. After 
 being tortured like that for two hours, half dead we 
 were dragged back to prison, where we thanked God 
 for His mercy. 
 
 " A soldier told us to prepare our meal, but we 
 refused and did not eat for eight days. At last the 
 doctors came and told us we were going to Fort Riley. 
 As we could not move, many soldiers packed up our things 
 and put us on wagons, which carried us to the station. 
 Now I am in the hospital and the others are in prison. 
 
878 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 " When we got here they began to torture us again. 
 They dragged me hke an animal with a rope round my 
 neck. They peeled the skin off my neck. They shaved 
 my head. They cut my ears. They tore my shirt to 
 pieces and wanted to put me in a uniform. I did not 
 count how many times they beat me. They pulled 
 the hairs off my head like feathers. I was motionless. 
 I only prayed God to take me from this world of 
 horrors. 
 
 *' Good-bye, my dears. Pray God to give me strength 
 to stand all the pains of my soul and body.'' 
 
 The Russians did not yield to torture. 
 
 With the end of the war conscientious objectors, still 
 segregated in camps, were rapidly demobilized. The terms 
 for those who had refused to register automatically expired. 
 The only real problem left concerned men serving twenty 
 or thirty-year sentences in military prisons. And that 
 problem was peculiarly severe, for some of them felt obliged 
 for conscientious reasons to decline to work under military 
 orders, even in prisons. Shortly before the Armistice the 
 solitary cells at Fort Leavenworth were filled with such 
 men. Their treatment was brutal in the extreme. They 
 were kept in dark cells hardly bigger than closets and 
 manacled in a standing position for eight or nine hours a 
 day. They were kept constantly on a diet of bread and 
 water. So severe was the censorship of mail that it was 
 practically impossible to get out news of their fate. 
 Finally, as a last desperate resort, a few American con- 
 scientious objectors, led by Evan Thomas, also refused to 
 work in order to call attention to the evil.^ At last news 
 began to leak out, and slowly enough public sentiment 
 was aroused sufficiently to compel the Government, first 
 to revoke the practice of manacling prisoners in solitary 
 cells, and later to secure confinement in a special stockade 
 for conscientious objectors whose spirit could not be broken 
 by the solitary cells. These changes took place in the 
 
 * One of the most consistent of these objectors was Howard Moore, 
 awarded a hero medal for having rescued a girl from drowning. He was 
 in solitary confinement when the award was made ! 
 
THE MOVEMENT ABROAD 379 
 
 period between December 5, 1918, and January 5, 1919. 
 From that time on the lot of the conscientious objector 
 was on the whole more free from brutality ; but there 
 were many lapses, during which in one military prison or 
 another objectors were brutally treated. The War Depart- 
 ment reviewed the sentences of men who ought in the 
 beginning to have received farm furlough, and they were 
 released. So that little by little the only conscientious 
 objectors confined came to be the genuine Absolutists. 
 
 While the great majority of conscientious objectors 
 acted on religious grounds, the majority of the Absolutists 
 acted on political, economic or humanitarian grounds. 
 The War Department for a long time tried to distinguish 
 between objectors to all war and objectors to this war, 
 but it was a principle which as time went on proved more 
 and more difficult to sustain. 
 
 During 1919 the efforts of the sufferers' friends outside 
 were directed towards a general amnesty. This both the 
 President and the Secretary for War refused to consider. 
 They pretended to deal with each case on its merits ; an 
 impossible task, which resulted in most glaringly unfair 
 discrimination. They protested that they would never 
 yield, but little by little they yielded, letting men out on 
 the most haphazard methods. It should be added that 
 all conscientious objectors profited by the reduction of 
 extreme sentences imposed on military prisoners during 
 the war. 
 
 The Socialist wife of a millionaire received a long sentence 
 for advocating a policy of peace in a way which was quite 
 commonly done in England. Even persons who had not 
 invested in the war loans — and became conspicuous thereby 
 from not wearing the investor's badge — were mobbed and 
 boycotted, and dismissed from their posts. The rage and 
 intolerance of the people knew no bounds, stimulated by 
 the Hearst newspapers, which went one worse than the 
 corresponding papers in England. Popular prejudice was 
 so strong that the Government dared not release its 
 prisoners except by driblets. Most remained in until after 
 the liberation in England ; and to the end it was done 
 slowly and unostentatiously. 
 
380 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 By the summer of 1920 all were out of prison except 
 a group who had been transferred from Fort Leavenworth 
 and were confined in a sort of detention camp near Salt 
 Lake, Utah, and another smaller group at Fort Alcartaz 
 prison, near San Francisco. Towards this remnant the War 
 Department hardened its heart, and it was only late in 
 November 1920 that the last of them was discharged. 
 The latter part of their confinement was under decent 
 conditions. The most dramatic event connected with 
 their release was the hunger-strike of Benjamin Salmon, 
 a Roman Catholic, an objector to war on religious and 
 economic grounds. To bring matters to a head he hunger- 
 struck and was mechanically fed from July 13th to the 
 liberation. 
 
 Some peculiar share of responsibility for this savage 
 record must fall upon the singular obduracy of President 
 Wilson and Secretary for War Baker. Both these gentlemen 
 had been Liberals. Mr. Baker had been known as a pacifist. 
 
 Far more melancholy was the failure of the Church 
 to grasp the issues involved. Even less than in 
 England was there any considerable body of Church senti- 
 ment in behalf of justice. It was not the Churches who 
 led even in the protest against brutahty. And it would 
 be the testimony of everyone who was concerned with the 
 position of objectors that, with few exceptions, representa- 
 tives of the Churches and the Y.M.C.A. were harder to 
 deal with than military officers themselves. Labour also 
 in America was slower than in England to ask for amnesty, 
 although on the whole Labour awakened before the Church. 
 
 To summarize : — There were in the United States four 
 thousand conscientious objectors known to the miUtary. Of 
 these all but five hundred accepted non-combatant or alter- 
 native service, alternative service being on farms or in the 
 Friends' Reconstruction Unit. Many of these men suffered 
 severely in camps before they were granted such service. 
 Five hundred men were imprisoned in military prisons, the 
 great majority of whom were religious objectors. These, 
 however, were released as a rule more rapidly than the 
 objectors on other grounds, and it was the latter whose 
 cases came most prominently before the pubUc. 
 
AUTHORITIES 
 
 The bibliography of this recent story consists of fugitive 
 literature, in periodical, leaflet, pamphlet and booklet 
 form, with a few small books. 
 
 The Tribunal — the organ of the No-Conscription Fellowship ; 182 numbers, 
 from March 8, 1916, to January 8, 1920, containing 736 closely printed 
 quarto pages — is the chief authority. It came out weekly till near 
 the end, when such regularity ceased to be necessary. It is to be feared 
 that few complete sets survive. They should be bound and preserved. 
 
 The News Sheet, the organ of the Home Office Camps for private circu- 
 lation, ran to at least sixteen numbers before it was suppressed. They 
 bear no date, but contain four excellent cartoons. 
 
 The C.O.'s Hansard, published by the N.C.F, A well got-up reprint of 
 events of interest in the House, taken from the uncorrected daily Han- 
 sard. The seven numbers issued retrospectively cover from January 5, 
 1916, to July 15, 1916. The ninety currently issued numbers cover 
 from July 17, 1916, to April 10, 1919. They are in 2 vols, and contain 
 1,152 pp. 8vo. 
 
 The Friend, the Quaker weekly (Leominster), gave accounts of Tribunals, 
 letters from prison, and other matters, from March 10, 1916, to Septem- 
 ber 12, 1919, in a long supplement. It is of the highest value. 
 
 BOOKS. 
 
 I Appeal Unto C^sar, by Mrs. Henry Hobhouse, with introduction by- 
 Professor Gilbert Murray. (George Allen & Unwin. 191 7. is.) This 
 had a great sale. 
 
 Prisoners of Hope, by Dr. Arthur S. Peake. A collection of articles in 
 the Primitive Methodist Leader (September-December 191 7). (George 
 Allen & Unwin. is. 6d.) 
 
 Handed Over, by J. Scott Duckers, an autobiographical account, with 
 foreword by T. Edmund Harvey, M.P. (C. W. Daniel. June 191 7. 
 IS. 6d.) 
 
 On Two Fronts, an autobiographical account by T. Corder Catchpool, edited 
 by his sister, with foreword by Dr. J. Rendel Harris. (Headleys. 19 18. 
 
 2S.) 
 
 Made Free in Prison. Letters written from prison by E. Williamson 
 Mason, with an introductory note by Edward Carpenter. (George Allen 
 & Unwin. 1918. Cloth, 3s. 6d.) 
 
 Friends and the War. Addresses at a Conference at Llandudno, September 
 1914. (Headleys. is.) 
 
 881 
 
382 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 Armageddon and Calvary, by H. E. Holland, M.P. (See Appendix on 
 New Zealand.) 
 
 An English Prison from Within, by Stephen Hobhouse. Preface by Prof. 
 Gilbert Murray. (George Allen and Unwin. is.) 
 
 Mr. Sterling Sticks It Out. A novel by Harold Begbie, of which the 
 history of the hero is based more or less on that of Stephen Hobhouse. 
 (Swarthmore Press. Cloth, 6s.) Suppressed by the Censor during the 
 war. 
 
 N.C.F. Souvenir, 1914-1919. An attractive illustrated brochure of 86 pp. 
 edited by Fenner Brockway. (5, York Buildings, Adelphi, W.C. 2. is.) 
 
 Carols of a Convict. Humorous parodies written in prison by Allan M. 
 Laing. (Headleys. is. 3d.) 
 
 The Recruit. A one-act play written in a Guardroom and about Guard- 
 rooms, by Fenner Brockway. (National Labour Press, is. id.) 
 
 All are in paper backs if it is not stated otherwise. 
 
 The pamphlets and leaflets have been very numerous 
 and valuable. They run to hundreds. 
 
 I have also had access to the Minutes and Papers of 
 the N.C.F., the Friends* Service Committee and the 
 Chaplains' Committee, to several MS. diaries and to 
 extensive verbal information first hand, and I have drawn 
 also upon my own experience. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Absolute Exemption, 84, 86, 346 
 
 Absolutists and Alternativists, 192, 
 213-220, 234, 252 
 
 Absolutists, number of, 351 
 
 Advising C.O.'s, 75 
 
 Albright, W. A., 271 
 
 Aldred, Guy, 306 
 
 Alexander, Horace G., 162, 170 
 
 Allen, Clifford, 11, 40, 92, 173; 
 Address at Conference, 176; at 
 First Convention, 189, 191, 192, 
 193 ; on Home Office Scheme, 225, 
 226 ; letter from prison, 260-264 ; 
 on work-striking, 290 ; liberated, 
 299 ; final speech, 332-338 
 
 Alternative service, 161 ; Guild, 207 
 
 Ambulance Unit for Italy, 159 
 
 Ammon, C. G., 135, 242 w. 
 
 Andrews, Maurice, cruelties to, 139 
 
 Anti-Conscription Committee, 342 
 
 Appeal Tribunals, 85 
 
 Appeal to the Conscience of the Nation, 
 287 
 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, 294 
 
 Armageddon or Calvary, 127, 130, 132 
 
 Army Order X, 148, 187 
 
 Asquith, Mr., 52; speech, 53, 112, 
 113; on Home Office Scheme, 
 222-224 ; letter to, from National 
 Committee, 227-229 
 
 Attesting, 73 
 
 Ayles, Walter H., 93, 192 ; at Wake- 
 field, 301 
 
 Backhouse, Edward, 170 
 Baker, Philip J., 157 
 Ballachulish, 241 
 Ballantyne, Garth, 126-133 
 Barlinnie Barracks, 150, 151 
 Barlow, John Henry, 165, 166 
 Barnes, Rev. E. W., 309 
 Barritt, Cornelius, 120, 122, 125, 234 
 Barrow, Harrison, 165, 166 
 Basis of Testimony, 36-39 
 Baxter Brothers, New Zealand, 126- 
 133 
 
 Beardsworth, Mr., 138 
 Beauchamp, Miss Joan, 199, 200 
 
 201, 202 
 Beaumont, F., 137 
 Beavis, H. Stewart, 93, ig8, 234 
 Benson, Mr. George, 138 
 Bigland, Mrs. Percy, 167 
 Bigland, Percy, 168 
 Bilthoven message, 206 
 Birkenhead Park, outrages at, 138 
 Birukoff, 366, 367 
 Bishop, Douglas R., 85, 287 
 Blake, Major, 308 
 Bodkin, Sir Archibald, 197, 201 
 Bolsheviks, 366 
 Bone, Walter, death of, 32 1 
 Booth, the spy, 238 
 Boothroyd, B. J., 192 
 Boulogne, 120-124, 146 
 Brace, Mr., M.P., 209, 223, 235, 243, 
 
 244, 248 ; Committee, 251, 309 
 Brierley, Mr., stipendiary, 69 
 Briggs, Mark, 126-133 
 Brightmore case, 140-143 
 Briscoe, Major, 244 
 Brockway, A. Fenner, 11, 82, 93, 
 
 172 ; Mrs., 172, 173, 192 ; letter 
 
 from, 258-260 ; work-striking, 291 
 Brooke, Lieut. -Colonel, 144-146 
 Brotherhood Church, riots at, 139 
 Brown, A. Barratt, ir, 84, 93, 192 ; 
 
 poem, 281 ; 286 ; resignation, 288 
 Brown, H. Runham, 96, 198, 294 
 Broxburn, 240 
 Bryce, Viscount, 250 
 Buchan, Colonel John, 309 
 Burns, W. E., death, 320, 321 
 Butler, Arthur, 313, 314 
 
 Canadian C.O.'s in England, 133, 134 
 Cartmell, Sir Harry, 85 
 Catchpool, T. Corder, 94 
 Catherall, A., 135 
 
 Cave, Sir George, 209, 244, 310, 326 
 Cecil, Lord Hugh, 112; speech, 
 829-331 
 
 888 
 
884 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 Central Fund, 207 
 
 Central Tribunal, circular from, and 
 
 reply, 79, 80, 86, 216, 230 
 Challenge to Militarism, 165 
 Chamberlain, W. J., 84, 191, 192, 
 
 202, 271 
 Chancellor, Mr., M.P., 209 
 Chaplains' Committee, 167-170 
 Chaplains, list of, 169, 170 
 Charlesworth, Ernest, 241 
 Chertkoff, 366 
 
 Childs, Brigadier-General, 64, 135, 190 
 Christ before a Tribunal, 106-109 
 Christadelphians, 34, 347 
 Christmas cards in prison, 169 
 Clark, Oswald, 94 ; poem, 282 ; 287 
 Clark, Roderick, 94, 265 
 Clark, Roger, 162 
 Cleethorpes, brutality at, 140 
 Collins, Sir Stephen, 57 
 C.O.'s Hansard, 208 
 C.O.'s Information Bureau, 186 
 C.O.'s sent to France, 111-126 
 Compulsory registration, 175 
 Conditions of release from prison, 
 
 230, 231 
 Conference of the N.C.F., November 
 
 1915. 176-182 
 Conscience, 42, 43 
 Conscription, worth while ? 62, 63 
 Convention of the N.C.F., first, 
 
 April 191 6, 188 
 Court Martial Friend and Prison 
 
 Guide, no; in France, 122 
 "Court martial friends," 186 
 Courtney of Penwith, Lord, speech, 60 
 Crawshaw, James, letter from, 143, 
 
 144 
 Cruelties in America, 372, 373, 376- 
 
 378 
 Crusader, 205 
 
 Daily News, 297, 326 
 
 Darling, Justice, 73 
 
 Dartmoor, 168 ; diet, 210. 234-240 ; 
 
 groups at, 235 n. ; Press stunt, 
 
 237 ; spies suspected at, 238 ; 
 
 cost of, 240 ; and slacking, 246 ; 
 
 grading at, 247 ; mob riots, 248 
 Darwen, men from, brutally treated, 
 
 136 
 Davenport, Frank, 241 
 Davies, P. T., 303 
 Deaths, 312-325 ; list of, 323 
 Debs, Eugene, 37 
 Declaration by Friends, 1914. I55 
 Deportations, 111-126; New ^ea- 
 
 landers, 126-133; Canadians, 133, 
 
 134 ; others. 135 
 
 Derby, Lord, 112, 294, 296 
 
 Derby Scheme, 51, 176 
 
 Devlin, James, 138 
 
 Devonshire House, Bishopsgate, mob 
 
 at, 1391 ; 71, 188, 331 
 Disfranchisement, 328 
 Ditton Priors, arson at, 140 
 Divided loyalty, 212 
 D.O.R.A., 140, 164 
 Dryer, Oliver, 206 
 Duckers, J. Scott, 215, 216, 303 
 Dukes, Mr., 138 
 Dunkirk, 158 
 Dyce, 232, 233 
 
 Egypt, violence in, 150 
 
 Elliott, Sir Thomas, 223 
 
 Ellis, Miss Edith M., ii, 161, 165- 
 
 167, 286 
 Ellison, T. H., 306 
 Emergency Committee, 160 
 England, Ernest, death of, 318, 319 
 Everett, Ernest, 194, 258 
 Exemption Clause, 53 
 
 Fairby Grange, 328 
 
 Fellowship of Reconciliation, 161, 
 
 183, 204-206 ; in Scandinavia, 
 
 206 ; in America, 206 ; against 
 
 Capitalism, 206, 327 
 Field Punishment No. i, 114, 120, 
 
 122 
 Firth, Henry W., 317-318 
 Fletcher, John P. J., 192, 285, 288, 
 
 353 
 Friends' Ambulance Unit, 83, 84 ; 
 
 General Section, 97, 347; 167- 
 
 159 ; York Hospital, 347 ; 
 
 Uffculme, 347 ; " Star and 
 
 Garter," 347 ; King George 
 
 Hospital, 347 
 Friends' Service Committee, 157, 
 
 160, 161, and passim. 
 Friends' Yearly Meeting of 1915, 
 
 160 ; January 1916, 162 ; May 
 
 1916, 163 ; May 1918, 165, 287 ; 
 
 May 19 1 7, 171 ; Epistle, 283 
 Fry, Lord Justice, 295 
 Fry, Miss Joan M., 11, 134, 167 
 Fuller, Mr., 197 
 
 Gabarree prison, 150—152, 154 
 
 Gales, Edwin L., 208 w. 
 
 Gamage, Mr. A. W., 216 
 
 Gardner, Miss Lucy, 205 
 
 Gibbins, Hugh, 94 
 
 Giesen, J., 358 
 
 Gilbert, Edwin, 231, 244 
 
 Gillan, Paul Leo, death of, 321, 322 
 
INDEX 
 
 385 
 
 Gillett, Charles E., 315, 316 
 
 Gillett, J. Rowntree, 125 
 
 Gore-Booth, Miss Eva, 102 
 
 Gosport Barracks, 139 
 
 Goss, Isaac, 327 
 
 Gray, Jack, cruelty to, 143, 144 
 
 Griffith, R. A., 244 
 
 Grubb, Edward, 183, 190, 192, 204 
 
 Gwilliam, A. L., 192 
 
 Hallett, G. H., 375 
 
 Harby, E, W.. 308 
 
 Harfleur, 120 
 
 Harmsworth Press, on Dartmoor, 
 
 237, 246 
 Harris, Henry, 168 
 Harris, J. Theodore, 207 
 Harvey, T. Edmund, M.P., 53 ; 
 
 speech, 55, 59 ; speech, 77; 114, 
 
 208, 217 
 Harwich circular redoubt, in 
 Haycock, A. W., 321 
 Henriville Camp, 124 
 Herbert, Dorian, 137 
 Hereford Barracks, 139 
 Herford, Professor, 277 
 Herford, Hugh V., 208 n. 
 Hicks, Mr. Joynson, M.P., speech, 54 
 Hills, John F., 353 
 History of the F.A.U., 159 
 Hobhouse, Mrs., quoted, 41, 276, 277 
 Hobhouse, Stephen, 94, 258, 264 ; 
 
 liberated, 299 
 Hodgkin, Henry T., 82, 204, 206 
 Hodgkin, J. E., 272, 287, 298 
 Holland, H. E., M.P., 127 
 Home Office Compounds, 242 
 Home Office Scheme, 221-261 ; reply 
 
 to, by the J.A.C., 224 
 Hornsea Camp, cruelty at, 143, 144 
 Horton, Arthur, 314-317 
 Horwill, George, 303 
 Hounslow Barracks, cruelty at, 136 
 Howard, Geoffrey, 112 
 Hudson, J. H., 96, 192; on work- 
 striking, 292, 315 
 Hughes, I. P., 318 
 Hunter, Ernest E., 11, 202, 204, 
 
 242 «., 293 
 
 I.L.P., 58, 60, 173, 210 
 Industrial Conscription, 61, 62 
 
 Jesus Christ, central message, 36 
 Joint Advisory Council, 161 and 
 
 passim, 183, 186 
 Joint Board for Assistance, 328 
 Jones, Morgan, M.P., 96 
 Jones, Rufus M., 369 
 
 Jordans, 157 ; on continuation of 
 N.C.F., 339 
 
 Keddington, 233 
 
 Kierman, Harold, 99 
 
 King George Hospital, 347 
 
 King, Joseph, M.P., 58, 60, 208 ; on 
 
 diet, 210 ; on spies, 238, 309 
 Kinloch-Cooke, Sir C, M.P., 239 
 Kinmel Park, 113, 137, 147 
 Kirwan, L. J., 127, 133 
 Knutsford, riot, 233, 248-260 
 
 Labour Exchange, 162 
 
 Labour Leader, 171, 210 
 
 Labour Party, 297 
 
 Lambert, Richard, 208 
 
 Langdon-Davies, B. N., 73, 206 
 
 Lees-Smith, Mr., M.P., 208 
 
 Liberation, 310, 311 
 
 Lincoln, Bishop of, 74 
 
 Literature Department of the N.C.F., 
 
 187 
 Liverpool gaol, 297, 310 
 Llanddeusant, 241 
 Llanon, 241 
 Lloyd George, Mr., M.P., speech, 78 ; 
 
 on Absolutists, 221 
 Long, Mr., M.P., speech, 58 ; circular, 
 
 67, 83, 112 
 Long, Robert J., 170 
 Ludlam, Dr. Ernest B., 95 
 Lyme Regis, 248 
 Lyndhurst, 248 
 
 MacCallum, Dr. J. C, 240 
 
 Maclean, Sir Donald, Chairman of 
 
 Tribunal, 69 
 Macdonald, J. Ramsay, M.P., 58, 
 
 60, 207, 209 
 Macpherson, Mr., 135, 209, 309 
 Maidstone gaol, 300 ; hunger-strike, 
 
 304 
 Mainwaring, T., 194 
 Manchester, 75, 87, 207, 208 n, 
 Manchester Guardian, 60, 142, 147 ; 
 
 on First Convention, 188 ; on 
 
 Dartmoor, 235-237, 297 ; on 
 
 Wakeiield, 301 
 Manifesto from Wakefield, 302, 
 
 303 
 Mann, Albert, 315 
 Maoris, 364, 365 
 Marshall, Miss Catherine E., 11, 82, 
 
 185, 192, 198, 204, 294 
 Marten, Howard C, 11, 115 ; diary, 
 
 116-126, 148, 231, 235 «., 238 
 Mayors, A. J., 238 
 Mee, John, 207 
 
 25 
 
386 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 Meeting for Sufferings, November 
 191 4, 155 ; Peace Committee, 
 156, 170, 171, November 19 15, 
 162 ; December 191 7, 164, 194 
 
 Mellor, Judge, 69 ; and Pelham 
 Committee, 99 ; at Knutsford, 
 249 
 
 Memorial Hall, 176 
 
 Mennell, Robert O., 82, 93, 162 
 
 Mennonites, 358, 366, 371 
 
 Message to Men and Women, I'ji 
 
 Meyer, Rev. F. B., 123 
 
 Meynell, Francis, 192 
 
 Military prison, 117, 11 g, 121, 
 129-131 
 
 Military representative, 66, 84 
 
 Military Service Act II, 52 ; last, 
 326 
 
 Military Training in Schools, Com- 
 mittee on, 342 
 
 Millwood, Ernest V., 135 
 
 Molokans, 366, 377 
 
 Morrell, Philip, Mr., M.P., 77, 208 
 
 Murfin, F. J., 234 
 
 Murray, Professor Gilbert, 112 ; on 
 Absolutists, 217, 309 
 
 Mustapha Camp, Alexandria, 150 
 
 Nathan, Sir Matthew, 223 
 
 National Committee of the N.C.F., 
 182 ; prosecuted, 191, 192 ; letter 
 to Mr. Asquith on alternative 
 service, 227-229 
 
 National Council against Conscrip- 
 tion, 73, 187, 206 ; for Civil 
 Liberties, 206 
 
 National Labour Press, 194 
 
 National Registration, 161 
 
 Nazarenes, 355-357 
 
 Newcastle, hunger-strike, 303, 304 
 
 Newhaven, 193, 233 
 
 Newman, Major, 239 
 
 Newman, Sir George, 157 
 
 New Zealanders sent to France, 
 126-133 
 
 News Sheet of F.O.R., 205 ; at 
 Dartmoor, 245, 247 
 
 No-Conscription Fellowship, 171- 
 204 and passim ; final Con- 
 vention 331-342 
 
 Non-combatant service, 213, 348 
 
 Non-resistance, 44 
 
 Norman, Mr. C. H., 144-146, 173, 
 247» 318 
 
 Northern Friends' Peace Board, 156 
 
 Occupations of National Importance, 
 
 lOI 
 
 Orchard, Dr., 204, 205 
 
 Outhwaite, Mr., M.P., 54, 58, 208 
 Oxford, Bishop of, letter, 74; 250 
 Oxford Tribunal, 70 
 Oxfordshire Appeal Tribunal, 70 
 
 Pacifism, 38, 89 
 
 Pacifist Union Committee, 342 
 
 Page-Croft, General, 239 
 
 Parmoor, Lady, 205 
 
 Parmoor, Lord, 250, 294, 295, 309 
 
 Parton, F. LI., case against Tribunals, 
 
 73 
 Peace Group in Parliament, 58, 59, 
 
 208-210 ' :> ' ^J' 
 
 Peake quoted, 41 
 Peel, Viscount, 250, 352 
 Peet, Hubert W., 11, 45, 82, 95, 
 
 123, 162, 187 ; writings, 264 ; 
 
 on diet, 275 
 Pelham Committee, 99, 207, 242, 
 
 347 
 Pentonville, 266 
 Perry, J. S., 243 
 Pettifer, Mr., 347 
 Philcox, Roland, 116 
 Pimlott, O. K., 134 
 Plymouth, 237 
 Plymouth Brethren, 34 
 Political Department of the N.C.F., 
 
 185, 187, 208 
 Ponsonby, Mr. A. H., M.P., 58, 60, 
 
 208 
 Pontrefract guardroom, 137 
 Preston Barracks, cruelty at, 136 
 Prichard, Rev. Mr. and his sons, 69 
 Princetown. 1 68, 234-240 ; death 
 
 ^■t, 317, 318. See Dartmoor 
 Prison, library, 256 ; heating and 
 
 ventilation, 265 ; personality in, 
 
 266 ; letters, 267 ; chaplain, 268 ; 
 
 Quaker chaplain, 269, 270 ; 
 
 punishments, 272 ; in Scotland, 
 
 273, 274 ; doctor, 274 ; diets, 
 
 275, 276 ; magazines, 279-281 ; 
 
 concessions, 298, 299 
 Purley Tribunal, 84 
 
 Quaker chaplains, 125, 187, 269 
 
 Quakerism, 204, 205 
 
 Quakers, 55 ; well treated, 84, 154- 
 171 ; trial at Guildhall, 165- 
 167, 172, 183 ; union with N.C.F. 
 Committee, 183 ; in Aberdeen, 
 232 ; at Dartmoor, 234 ; num- 
 bers of, 352 ; in Russia, 368 
 
 Questions in Parliament, 83 
 
 Raid on N.C.F. office, 194 
 
INDEX 
 
 387 
 
 Ramus, Pierre, 355, 357 
 
 Records Department of the N.C.F., 
 
 185 
 Redfern, Percy, 207 
 Registration Act, 52 
 Regulation 27C, 164 
 Religion of a CO., 46 
 Religious objection, 34 
 Repeal the Act, 191 
 Reply to Central Tribunal's circular, 
 
 79-82 
 Richards, Ley ton, 205 
 Richardson, Hugh, 186 
 Rinder, Miss, 272, 309 
 Roberts, Richard, 82, 204, 205 
 Roberts, Walter, 232, 312, 313 
 Robinson, A., 138 
 Robinson, Mrs. Wright, 207 
 Rose, Aylmer, 95, 172 
 Routine of disobedience, no 
 Rowntree, Arnold S., M.P., 53 ; 
 
 speech, 54, 112, 208 
 Rowntree, Maurice L., 95 
 Royal Army Medical Corps, 153 
 Royden, Miss Maude, 204, 205 
 Runacres, Mr., case of, 77, 78 
 Russell, Bertrand, quoted, 36 ; trial 
 
 of, 195-197, 199, 204 ; on Home 
 
 Office Scheme, 222, 272 
 Russell, Earl, 250, 294 
 
 Salisbury, Lord, 230 
 
 Salter, Dr. Alfred, article quoted, 45 ; 
 
 204 ; on work-striking, 290, 328 
 Salter, Mrs., 207 
 Samuel, Mr. Herbert, M.P., speech, 
 
 56, 326, 327 
 Sandhurst, Lord, 296 
 Sara, Henry, 303 
 Saunders, J. B., 150 
 Seaford, arson at, 139 
 Seventh-Day Adventists, 152, 153 
 Sheffield Tribunal, 72 
 Shirkers, 40 
 
 Shortt, Mr., M.P., 304, 308 
 Simon, Sir John, speech against 
 
 Conscription Bill, 53, 59, 187 
 Skinner, J. A., 278, 279 
 Sling Camp, 127 
 Smillie, Robert, 206 
 Smith, Sir George Adam, on C.O.'s, 
 
 43 
 Smith, Henry, 96 
 Smith, Lydia S., 96, 187, 202 ; 
 
 letter to Manchester Guardian, 
 
 Snowden, Philip, 54, 58, 60, 73 ; 
 speech, 74, 87; 112, 136, 147, 190, 
 208, 309, 326 
 
 Socialist objection. Preface, 35 
 Socialists, 172, 210; number of, 
 
 352 
 Society of Friends, see Quakers 
 Solicitor's Journal, 74 
 Solomon, 86 
 
 Southall, Eric P., 96, 303 
 South Molton, 248 
 Sparkes, Malcolm, 95, 243 
 Stafiord, Norman, 153 
 Stanton, H. E., 234 
 " Star and Garter " Home, 347 
 Statement of Faith, N.C.F., 174 
 St. Stephen's House, 160 
 Stevenson, Miss Lilian, 204, 205 
 Street, Mr. S. H., 200 
 Sturge, Joseph, 140 
 Substitution scheme, 61, 02 
 Suffragists, 175, 185 
 Sutherland, George A., 95 
 Swansea, Recorder of, 295 
 Swanwick, 205 
 
 Taylor, Albert, 279 
 
 Taylor, Alfred W., 234 
 
 Tennant, 113, 147 
 
 Terrell, Major, M.P., 244, 245 
 
 Thieves, crucified, 38 
 
 Thirty-four condemned to be shot, 
 111-126 
 
 Thomas, Gilbert, 205 
 
 Thomas, Henrietta, 161 
 
 Thomas, Norman, 206, 369 
 
 Thompson, Mabel, 167 
 
 Thompson, W. H., 303 
 
 Tillard, Violet, 185, 207 
 
 Times, 296 
 
 Total number of C.O.'s, 349 
 
 Trades Unions, against conscription, 
 64 
 
 Trevelyan, Charles, M.P., 54 ; speech, 
 56; 58, 60, 135, 208 
 
 Trial of Service Committee at Guild- 
 hall, 166-167 
 
 Tribunal, 187, 190, 197 ; attacks 
 upon, 199-203 ; on Absolutists, 
 213-220 ; on Home Office 
 Scheme, 222 ; on work-striking, 
 290 
 
 Tribunals, ordered, 53 ; nominated, 
 65 ; character, 66 ; composition, 
 68 ; failure, 68 ; ignorance, 71 ; 
 breaches of law, 71, 72 ; char- 
 acter, 76 ; neglect of circulars, 
 87 ; exemptions, 89 ; tyranny, 
 97, 98 ; description by Miss 
 Gore-Booth, 102 ; revision, 300 
 
 Tribunal statements, 89-92 
 
 Tyrell, W. G., 146 
 
388 CONSCRIPTION AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 Uffculme Hospital 347 
 
 Union of Democratic Control, 58, 
 
 60, 209 
 Urquhart, Harry, 365 
 
 Venturer, 205 
 
 Visitation by N.C.F., 186 
 
 Wakefield, Settlement at, 233, 245 ; 
 
 final experiment, 301-303 
 Wallis, Bennett, 233. 319, 820 
 Walmsley, Alwyne A., 169 
 Wandsworth, 144, 253 ; rebellion, 
 
 30&-309 
 Wanganui Barracks, 363 
 Waplington, Mrs., 293 
 War Office, letter from, 149; 167; 
 
 surrender, 326 
 War Victims' Relief Committee, 159, 
 
 242 ; in America, 371, 372 
 Warwick Settlement, 233 
 Waste in punishment of CO *s, 
 
 242 
 Watkins, Mr., case of, 78 
 Watson, William, 247 
 Watts, Arthur, 165, 166 
 
 Webb. Mr. C. P., M.P., 363 
 Wedgwood, Commander, 208, 304, 
 
 308 
 Wellock. Wilfred. 96 
 Whitaker. Mr. T. P.. M.P., 144 
 Whitehouse, J. H.. M.P., 58, 60, 79, 
 
 209 
 Whitlow, Maurice, 293 
 Wilson, Alexander C, 309 ; Mrs., 286 
 Wilson, Theodora Wilson, 205 
 Winchester prison, 209 ; Whisperer, 
 
 280 ; work-striking, 292 ; hunger- 
 strike, 304 
 Wolstencroft, 241 
 Work of national importance, 53, 
 
 56, 57 
 World Conference of Churches. 171, 
 
 206 
 World To-morrow, The. 206 
 Wormwood Scrubs, 168, 169, 187, 
 
 210. 230, 253 
 Wyatt, Rendel H., 112, ii6, 234 
 
 Yearly Meeting, see Friends' Yearly 
 
 Meeting 
 York Hospital, 347 
 
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