manned. We should therefore treat our Red Cross department as if it were
destined to become a permanent service. No charity and no amateur
anarchy and incompetence should be tolerated. As to allowing that
admirable detective agency for the defence of the West End against
begging letter writers, the Charity Organization Society to touch the
soldier's home, the very suggestion is an outrage. The C.O.S., the Poor
Law, and the charitable amateur, whether of the patronizing or prying or
gushing variety, must be kept as far from the army and its folk as if
they were German spies. The business of our fashionable amateurs is to
pay Income Tax and Supertax. This time they will have to pay through the
nose, vigorously wrung for that purpose by the House of Commons; so they
had better set their own houses in order and leave the business of the
war to be officially and responsibly dealt with and paid for at full
standard rates.


*Wanted: Labour Representation in the War Office.*

But parliamentary activity is not sufficient. There must be a more
direct contact between representative Labour and the Army, because
Parliament can only remedy grievances, and that not before years of
delay and agitation elapse. Even then the grievances are not dealt with
on their merits; for under our party system, which is the most
abominable engine for the perversion and final destruction of all
political conscience ever devized by man, the House of Commons never
votes on any question but whether the Government shall remain in office
or give the Opposition a turn, no matter what the pretext for the
division may be. Only in such emergencies as the present, when the
Government is forced to beg the Labour members to help them to recruit,
is there a chance of making reasonable conditions for the soldier.