http://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-01-28/register/famine-with-plenty-in-russia-kmphx76xk
january 28, 1917
Famine with plenty in Russia
Russia is experiencing famine in the midst of plenty. The scarcity of food is the one thing talked of throughout the land. Last summer the poorer people took up their positions outside the Petrograd municipal meat shops at 10 o’clock in the evening. The sun had hardly set over the Elagin Island, where fashion and wealth enjoyed their ease and the wonders of the white nights, before the poor, basket in hand, began their weary vigil. Some waited 10 and 12 hours for a morsel of meat. Since then we have seen queues become the rule — for meat, for bread, for milk, for vegetables, for sugar, people wait in long “tails”. Rich and poor participate, the latter in person, the former by proxy through their servants. With the thermometer sometimes at 20 below zero Fahrenheit, people have to wait hours outside each shop to get daily necessities. The writer of this article saw a “tail” of more than 1,200 people outside the cooperative shop for railway employees at Kosloff waiting for white flour. Kosloff had then been without flour for 10 days, though half a dozen of the largest flour-mills in Russia are within a 250-mile radius of the town.
Probably there is sufficient food in the country to feed the population for the next two years. The problem to solve is how to distribute it. The Department of Provisions has borne the burden of supplying the Armies in the field since July, 1915. As time went on the deficiency in provisioning the civil population increased. The Ministry of Trade and Industry considered the question and appointed committees, but there the matter rested. Now its efforts have completely ceased.
Throughout the war the railways have supplied the Army with all that is needed or was available. This shows some organization; but it was done at the expense of starving traffic to the capitals and large provincial towns. With thorough, or even partially, efficient organization the great towns and manufacturing centres could have been supplied with all necessities in sufficient quantities if ordinary care had been taken in the use of goods trucks. Organization and co-ordination are, however, essential if Russia is to cope with her food problem; and it is for this reason that the absence of a strong, capable, and united Ministry has been felt during the past year.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-01-27/register/civilians-on-service-6f969w2qz
january 27, 1917
Civilians on service
Mr Neville Chamberlain is now ready to launch his scheme of National Civilian Service. The bulk of the men required for the Army to bring the war to as speedy an end as possible are to be found in munition works, coal mines, shipbuilding, transport work, and agriculture. An effort is to be directed to finding a sufficient number of substitutes for those who may be called upon for military service. Everybody is to be asked to play his part, and at first volunteers will be called for. The rate of remuneration will be the rate of pay for the job to which a man is sent. Only men will be appealed to at present. A department will be set up to deal with women volunteers, but they will not be enrolled on precisely the same lines as men.The age limits for men are between 18 and 60 years. The limit of 60 was decided upon when it became clear that only men in full vigour were needed. No one will be able to escape military service by volunteering for National Civilian Service. Volunteers will go wherever the Director General may ask them to go, but they will be kept in their own districts as far as possible. Volunteers will not be put into occupations other than those for which they have volunteered until it is established that they are more suitable for others. The Employment Exchanges will be used for recruiting, and local authorities will be asked to help.
Meetings will be organized at once to stimulate enrolment. Letter cards will be provided to be filled in by recruits. Each recruit will be asked to give his name, the name of his employer, his trade, his condition (single or married), and the work for which he is particularly fitted. These cards will also contain a form of undertaking to be signed by the recruit, by which he will place himself unreservedly at the disposal of the Director-General of National Service. The local authorities will be asked to start recruiting rallies, and cards will be available at all the meetings. All the cards will be sent to London in the first instance, and will be sorted and classified there. They will then be sent to the local exchanges, where instructions will be received for the calling up of volunteers, who will be classified according to occupation. Local demands will be first dealt with, and larger demands sent on to London.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-01-30/register/australians-first-sight-of-ice-lwblgz72z
JANUARY 30, 1917
Australians’ first sight of ice
Londoners saw ice floating down the Thames yesterday morning. There was not much, but a few of the blocks were large and fairly thick, indicating that some of the upper reaches of the river were frozen over. The thermometer registered 28 deg at Holborn and 24 deg at Hampstead, and on Sunday night 11 deg of frost was recorded.
Many New Zealand and Australian soldiers have during the weekend had their first experience of ice in large areas. On Sunday there were many Australasians who wandered along the bank of the Serpentine gazing at the frost-bound waters. To the man from Queensland or Western Australia this is particularly a new experience, and very few, if any, New Zealanders hailing from north of Christchurch have seen such large areas of water frozen over. Many of the Antipodeans tried to skate on the safe stretches outside London. One man with one leg and two rubber-shod crutches made quite good progress at Richmond, with occasional lapses from the perpendicular.
At Walton-on-Thames, where the New Zealand Hospital is, the men were enjoying the sport greatly. There were Canadians who were experts in skating, and at Regent’s Park one wounded man from Montreal gave a good exhibition of figure-skating. Afterwards he tried to teach a Queenslander. Both were in full hospital kit, and their “bluest” and scarlet ties made an effective note of colour. At last the Queenslander retired, baffled, to watch the experts, among whom was Princess Patricia of Connaught.
At many of the hospitals where there are Anzac troops there have been anxious inquiries whether skating will be possible on the Round Pond and the Serpentine. It seems more than probable that the latter will be frozen sufficiently to allow of skating in a day or two. The Australians and New Zealanders have not skates of their own, and it is difficult for them to obtain them. Any persons who are kind enough to take out convalescent men who are sufficiently recovered to be able to skate would give a great deal of pleasure if they took skates for the men. Many of the oversea nurses, too, are anxious to learn.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/nobility-of-the-fallen-fcd8n9zdw
JANUARY 31, 1917
Nobility of the fallen
An officer serving in France writes: I have today been to Beaucourt- sur-Ancre, and though I am now an old and tried soldier accustomed to every aspect of war, I am still capable of being infinitely moved by the sights of a battlefield.I have a drawing which I did of the valley of the Ancre as it was last summer, which I described to you. I also have a drawing as it is today, a bitterly sad landscape with a winter mind. It is a curious thing to walk over enemy trenches that I have watched like a tiger for weeks and weeks — but what of the boys who took those trenches with their 11 rows of barbed wire in front of them? I don’t think I ever before today rated the British soldier at his proper value. His sufferings in this weather are indescribable. When he is not in the trenches his discomforts are enough to kill any ordinary mortal; when he is in the trenches it is a mixture between the North Pole and Hell, and yet when the moment comes he jumps up and charges at the impossible, and conquers it, and he is grateful to the country who feeds him and clothes him well enough to give him the heart to die.
Some of the poor fellows who lay there as they fell looked to me absolutely noble, and I thought of their families who were aching for news of them, and hoping against hope that they would not be left unburied in their misery. All the loving and tender thoughts that are lavished on them are not enough.
There are no words to describe the large hearts of these men. God bless ’em. And what of the French on whose soil they lie? Can they ever forget the blood that is mingled with their own? I hope not. I don’t think England has ever had as much cause to be proud as she has today.
PROPAGANDA
To the Editor of The Times
Sir, I wonder whether you and the British public are aware of the fact that there are six offices more or less devoting their energies to the work of propaganda — Wellington House, Victoria Street, the War Office, the Admiralty, the Foreign Office, and one at Charing Cross.
C HAGBERG WRIGHT
January 27.
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