Part 2

It is as a task of consolation that we have from the beginning conceived of our work. I regret to have detained you so long with a description of the machinery by which the work was done. I take you back now to the days when the first refugees, fleeing from the terror of fire and sword, began to reach our shores. These refugees were different from the refugees who are now arriving. They had actually borne the first onslaught of German fury. Men had seen their wives and daughters shot, and worse than shot, before their eyes. Fathers and mothers had seen their little children trampled to death under German feet. Old and young had alike been driven before the bayonet and placed as shields to protect the enemy from Belgian bullets. Some had been forced to dig graves, and even to bury men who were not yet dead. All had been smoked and burned out of their pillaged homes, holding themselves lucky if they were not forced back to be consumed in the funeral pyres of their domestic possessions. It has become the fashion now to cast doubt upon the authenticity of deeds fit only for the annals of the Middle Ages. Those of us who helped at that time nightly to receive the refugees as they arrived can never forget the tales of inconceivable horror which were poured into our ears, nor the convincing simplicity of narration which made it impossible to doubt their general truth. I remember the first refugee with whom I happened to speak about herself. It was not a horrible case—on the contrary, quite simple—but it brought home to me with a shock of realization what was happening within an ordinary day’s journey of London. It was only a mother feeding her child with a basin of bread and milk in one of our Refuges. I asked her where she came from. She said “Charleroi.” “Then you have seen the fighting?” “Oh, yes, I carried him—indicating the baby—out under the German guns.” It was nothing. She had had the luck to escape, but the contrast between the peacefulness of her actual occupation and her words brought home what she had escaped from. In the same Refuge on a later day there was a man whose face was like the face of a tragic fate. He did not speak, he did not move. The ladies who were working in the Refuge approached him for some time in vain. One reminded him that he had his wife, while many had lost their wives, and at last he spoke. “Yes,” he said, “I have my wife! But we had five children, and we have not one left. Four of the little ones were trampled to death under the feet of a German regiment, and my little girl, my eldest, fourteen years old, was given to the German soldiery, who misused her before my eyes. Afterwards they took her away with the regiment.” And he fell back to the only thing he seemed able to say, “We had five children—we have not one left.” The stories which we heard at that time, daily and nightly, from not one alone, but from practically every refugee who reached us, were such as surpass all imagination of horror and brutality. We heard them; we became in a sense accustomed to hearing them, but the details of many were such as I could not possibly repeat in a public assembly such as this. An observant friend who accompanied me one day to a Refuge said, as we came out, “These people look as if they had all seen ghosts.” They _had_ seen ghosts! They had seen spectres of carnage, cruelty, lust, and brutality—such evil spirits as, thank God, are not often let loose upon the face of earth. You will readily understand that to us who were with them at that time, who heard these stories every day, no extenuation of German conduct which can ever be produced will efface the impression that these awful things were literally true. It was also abundantly evident that they were not the isolated acts of brutal or drunken individuals. Evidence was unanimous, and to our minds conclusive, that the crimes were committed in pursuance of a general order from above.

I will not hold your imagination in this atmosphere. Let it be placed to the credit of twentieth-century civilization that the universal abhorrence aroused by the conduct of the German army towards civilians was such as to force German authorities to a recognition of the mistake they had committed. Orders to terrorize the population were apparently withdrawn, and, so far as we are aware, the brutalities of the first weeks of the campaign have for the present ceased.

It was on the 24th of August that the War Refugees Committee received its first refugees. Until the 9th of September they were received, as I have told you, in our own Refuges, where we tried to make them as comfortable as we could. Some little difficulty and hesitation existed at first as to the question of facilitating the transport of refugees from Belgium. But this and all other doubt upon the matter was set at rest by the public offer of the hospitality of the nation which was made, as you will remember, by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons on the 9th of September. From that day the Government has stood behind the movement, and the War Refugees Committee has worked in close and friendly relation with the Local Government Board.

The first chapter of Government intervention was to relieve the War Refugees Committee of the expense and difficulty of providing Refuges in London.[1] The Government took the Alexandra Palace, and in that and other available public institutions it organized immediately, under the Metropolitan Asylums Board and the Board of Guardians, Refuges which had a total capacity of about 8,000 persons. After the fall of Antwerp, Earl’s Court Camp, with a further capacity of 4,000 persons, was added to the government Refuges. Up to the middle of September the War Refugees Committee had had difficulty in receiving as many as 500 a day. Since that time, so far as the great majority, which consisted of working class refugees, are concerned, the War Refugees Committee has been relieved of anxiety. The first needs of shelter and food were supplied, and admirably supplied, by the Government Refuges. I should like in passing to offer my tribute of praise to the splendid work done by the officials alike of the Metropolitan Asylums Board and the Board of Guardians. I was for many weeks in close relation day and night with what was being done, and I can speak from personal observation of the devoted zeal, the kindness of heart, and the untiring industry with which the work of receiving, housing, and feeding the refugees was carried out.

Footnote 1:

For a full description of what was done by the Local Government Board the reader is referred to White Book, Cd. 7763.

The organization of the Alexandra Palace, where at first about 1,500 were received, may be taken as a sample of the rest. The Alexandra Palace, as you know, is a large glass building originally intended for public recreation, and conveniently situated in its own grounds on a hill overlooking the North of London. Its central halls, with their merry-go-rounds and swing-boats, lent themselves readily to the reception of refugees, and in the early days visitors who went to condole with the victims of tragic misfortune were usually saluted with shouts of delight proceeding from children profiting with all the unconsciousness of their age by the unusual opportunities of enjoyment! The glass roofs of the building admitted sunshine to every corner. One of the central halls was converted into a great dining-room, where sufficient and comfortable meals were served with order and regularity. Beyond the dining-room there was a nursery and hospital, bright with white beds and flowers. Beyond the hospital a large hall has been converted into a bathroom with curtained cubicles, where upwards of 100 baths, fitted with hot and cold water, are at the disposal of the refugees. Another large room is used as a schoolroom and kindergarten for the children. A cinema theatre was converted into a chapel. Rooms were set aside for workrooms and the distribution of clothing. The many rooms surrounding the central halls were converted into dormitories holding each from 60 to 100 beds. In one room the beds had pink coverings, in the next they had blue. Screens covered with chintz gave a certain privacy to groups of beds. Crucifixes were fixed on the walls. Everything that could be done to give a homely and pleasant aspect to the place was done with the utmost goodwill. These were the arrangements made before the fall of Antwerp for the general mass of refugees. Upstairs in a more private wing of the building there was accommodation, with a comfortably furnished sitting-room and dining-room, for about 100 persons who might for any reason on their first arrival be distinguished from the ordinary crowd. Before the fall of Antwerp, since which period the rush of refugees has caused too great a pressure of overcrowding, there was a grace, almost a certain charm, in the arrangements. Her Majesty the Queen showed her sympathy with the refugees by visiting them in the Alexandra Palace, and expressed her gracious approval of the arrangements which had been made for them.

Alexandra Palace was, of course, only one place. The spirit which dictated its organization presided also over the organization of the other Refuges. At Alexandra Palace the ladies of Wood Green and the locality gave devoted service in the development of Clothing, Sewing, and other departments designed for the comfort of the refugees. At Earl’s Court Camp the ladies of the Local Government Board have taken these departments under their charge, and have devoted themselves to the development of educational and other facilities.

The first refugees arrived usually in a state of absolute destitution. Their constant prayer was that they might be immediately allowed to work and to earn for themselves some portion back of what they had lost. But an opinion was at that time held that no attempt should be made to obtain employment for these refugees in the ordinary labour market of the country, and the lavish hospitality which was offered to them encouraged the hope that they might be amply provided for by private beneficence during the continuance of the war.

The first work of the War Refugees Committee when the refugees arrived in the Government Refuges was, therefore, to supply them as far as possible with immediate necessaries. They needed everything. Besides the substantial requirements of clothes and shoes, they wanted combs, brushes, soap, hair-pins, boot-laces, braces, needles, cotton, thimbles—everything that even the poorest find necessary in daily life. The men, of course, urgently wanted tobacco; the women wanted knitting-needles and wool to knit. We did our best to supply all these, and among the small articles which at that time were distributed freely none were more eagerly accepted than rosaries. We gave them away by thousands. The exodus had been so sudden that they had apparently in many cases been left behind, and men and women alike among the first arrivals from the Walloon country seemed anxious to possess themselves of this usual accompaniment of prayer.

There are subjects about which one hesitates to speak in public, yet I would like just to place on record the impression we received from these first refugees of simple faith. They seemed themselves to realize, in the tragic extremity of their distress, that they had lost everything except their God, and I cannot easily convey the touching fervour of the prayers in the chapels of the Refuges at which I once or twice incidentally assisted. Piety, courage, extraordinary fortitude, and overflowing heartfelt gratitude for all that was being done for them in England were the principal characteristics that enlisted our sympathy and admiration for our guests.

I know it may be said that the heroic note has not been consistently sustained. That is only to say that human nature remains human in all circumstances. And I would ask, if Oxford had suffered the fate of Louvain, if Canterbury had been destroyed instead of Rheims, if Manchester or Birmingham or Leeds had been bombarded and their population driven out homeless and penniless to foreign shores, do you believe that the whole exodus would have been an exodus of heroes? From the days of Israel onward some members of every great migration have been found to murmur and to cry for quails as well as manna in the desert. None grieve for this occasional backsliding more sincerely than the majority of the better-disposed Belgians themselves. I only wish to bear testimony to the other side, which I have myself seen and admired, of patient and even magnificent endurance.

The refugees were supposed to remain in the London Refuges for a period of only three to five days at the outside. Once rested and re-fitted it was the work of the War Refugees Committee to pass them on to the permanent homes so cordially offered by the hospitality of the country. It was in these homes that their real reception awaited them, and in these that was prepared for them by the kindness of individual English hearts the “haven where they would be.” With what happened after they left our hands we had, of course, little or nothing to do. Everyone gave to his own guests according to the fullness of his means. We received many letters of enthusiastic thanks expressing the content and joy of the refugees, but our business was only to organize the passing of the refugees from the London Refuges to their homes.

The brunt of this work fell, of course, on our Allocation Department, which, as the pressure grew more and more acute through the months of September and October, was obliged steadily to increase its forces. It employed at one time upwards of 100 volunteers. The work of these ladies and gentlemen consisted in receiving from the Correspondence Department overnight cards upon which the offers of hospitality made to the Committee were indexed. With the cards they went on the following day into the Refuges, and subsequently into hotels in which better-class refugees were housed, and their object was—acting with as much tact and sympathy as possible—to find from the information given on the cards the most suitable accommodation for the many differing parties of refugees who presented themselves. At the beginning of the movement refugees had to be dealt with only at the rate of 100 or 200 per day. From the date of the public offer of national hospitality made by the Government, the number increased steadily until, during the rush created by the fall of Antwerp, which marked the maximum pressure of the movement, it became necessary for the Allocation Department to deal with upwards of 2,000 persons every day. It is difficult for the public to realize the magnitude of the task thus performed. It involved not only the delicate personal decisions which had to be made by each individual Allocator, but it carried with it all the complicated arrangements of registration, transport, and warning of hosts. All four branches of the Allocation Department were at this time worked to their utmost.

The arrangements for transport of these separate branches fell upon the Transport Department. Every refugee who arrived from the Continent had to be met and taken to a Refuge or a hotel. Every refugee who left one of the Refuges or a hotel to take up the hospitality allotted to him in the country had to be provided with a pass over the railway, had to be convoyed to the railway station, and his host had to be warned at what hour and at what station he was to be received. During the stress created by the fall of Antwerp, when upwards of 4,000 refugees arrived in one day in London by trainloads from the Continent, and as many as 2,000 had to be sent in small individual groups to different stations of the British Isles, a total of 6,000 had to be handled every day! It has been estimated that during this period as many as 8,000 and 10,000 refugees crossed the Channel daily to our shores. No warning nor preparation could be given as to the numbers to be dealt with. While the crisis lasted they poured in day and night, taxing the energies of the whole organization almost to breaking-point. Not only Transport and Allocation, but Clothing, Correspondence, and Local Committees, with all their subsidiary branches, were heavily overworked. They bore the strain. There was no break-down. We were able to meet and deal with the crisis. It may readily be imagined that in work of a delicate nature accomplished under such pressure, some mistakes were inevitable; but we worked with the consoling thought present to our minds, that if the public could have realized the conditions under which the work was done, it would have been surprised rather at the few than at the many errors into which we fell.

The fall of Antwerp brought us to a new chapter of our work, of which I would have much to say but that I have already kept you longer than I would have wished. I must touch only as briefly as possible on the aspects of the question which now present themselves.

The crisis lasted only a couple of weeks. The occupation of Ostend by the Germans on October 17th closed the Belgian coast and stopped the daily transport service. Since that time refugees have been only able to reach us by way of Holland, and though this country has continued to provide such facilities as are possible for their transit, the figures of the daily arrivals have fallen considerably. The total for November was the lowest for any month since the beginning of the war. In December and January the numbers again mounted, giving a total of 12,000 for December and 14,000 for January. Refugees are still, notwithstanding the dangers of mines and submarines and the prohibition of our blockade zone, arriving in numbers which are to be counted daily in three figures. But the rush is over. We are no longer working under the same conditions of pressure.

There are noticeable also some other remarkable differences. We are working now with a different class of refugee. The simple country folk of the first exodus have given place to the urban population of the great towns, and they come to us under different conditions. The early refugees had, as I have told you, suffered in their own persons all the worst horrors of war. Since the fall of Antwerp the flight has been rather—though not of course wholly—from “the wrath to come.” Many refugees are fleeing from what they fear may happen rather than from what has actually happened. I speak chiefly for the moment of the working-classes. Many of those now coming have been attracted to this country by the accounts sent back in the first moments of relief and gratitude by the earlier refugees. In the Refuges and Hostels we saw many of the postcards written by the first refugees, and they represented this country and people as something so near Paradise and the angels, that expectation based upon such description could hardly fail of disappointment. It need not therefore be a matter of surprise if some difference is observable between the attitude and tone of the refugees housed in the Government Refuges to-day, and those with whom the same Refuges were filled in the earlier stages of the movement.

The gradual development of the situation which has brought us a different class of refugee has also brought about a very important modification of opinion with regard to the conditions of their reception. It has been decided that the employment of refugees instead of being deprecated should now be encouraged, and that instead of depending for subsistence on the hospitality of the country they should, as far as possible, be enabled to support themselves. A Government Committee has been appointed, as you know, under the Chairmanship of Sir Ernest Hatch, to consider the conditions under which effect can be given to this new view of the situation. Belgian Labour Bureaux working in connection with the Central Labour Bureaux have been established in the Government Refuges, as also in the Rink at Aldwych. Recruiting Bureaux have been established in the Government Refuges, by means of which Belgians of military age are enabled to join their colours and return to the front at Flanders. By these agencies in conjunction with the Government Refuges, and other forms of Government Relief for urgent cases the problem of the reception of working class refugees may, I think, be said to have been met and disposed of.