From the archive: War and the Social Order
Janet Scott continues her look at the Friend’s first world war archive
From the 19 to the 22 October 1916 Friends held a conference on ‘War and the Social Order’. It was organised by a committee appointed by the Yearly Meeting and was reported in the Friend of 27 October. The conference was well attended and the discussion wide-ranging. The committee had prepared a memorandum that was placed on the seats at the start of the conference. It saw the purpose of the event as being to organise society on the principles of the Kingdom of God. This vision was outlined in the pages of the Friend of 27 October 1916.
It stated that there was an urgent call to aim at:
(1) A conception of mankind as a family in which there should be equal opportunity for the development of personality in all its members;
(2) A social order in which the rendering of certain forms of service regarded as menial would no longer imply inferiority of status;
(3) The development of the gifts of nature for the good of all.
These aspects of the problem must be worked out with ‘humility, courage, patience and faith’. The opening speaker was John William Graham. He began by looking back at life before the war:
…We could only maintain our peace of mind by not opening our ears to more of its subdued pain than we could bear. So grievous was it with monotonous toil and irresponsible wealth, so poor and anxious and worn were the majority of men and women under it, that when the war caught us we were about to rise with deep and widespread conviction and with more hope than usual, to a vast campaign of social reform. From squalid and dangerous birth to premature old age, through high infant mortality and insufficient education and blind alley occupations, low wages to the unskilled and to women, and growing labour troubles, the failure of what Graham Wallas had called “The Great Society” was manifest. The diseases of vice, the diseases of foul air, the diseases of drink and of dangerous occupations, were a scandal… The division of wealth was preposterous, and constituted a public danger. Of forty-five millions of people, thirty-nine millions belonged to families earning under £3 per week, and only one million and a-quarter to families with over £700 a year, but among them they enjoyed about one-third of the total national income, though only one thirty-sixth of the population.
John William Graham continued:
…The Quaker Testimonies all hang on one rope, – faith in the Divine Presence in Man, teaching not only that he must not be killed wholesale, but that he must not be starved ; or pinched in his development…
There must be a determined effort, through Government action, to diminish the gap between the rich and the poor, there must be a tenfold effort to persuade the world out of the ways of war… We shall have to find our satisfaction not in any material things, but in the spiritual life, in work for work’s sake. We must be simpler and poorer men…
An invited speaker was Robert Smillie, chairman of the Scottish Miners’ Association and the National Council for Civil Liberties. His address included a reference to when the war was over:
…When the war was over, it would be found that thousands of men would return to their homes broken and shattered, and would have to be supported by the nation, as would their dependants. There had always been good, middling and bad employers of labour, and he would not claim that all workers were saints. But if any large number of the workers were selfish and sordid it was the system under which they had lived that had made them so. He was amazed that some working men could lead such meritorious lives as they did under the present circumstances…
If the working man in some cases had sunk very low, it was the system that was to blame…
Not only better housing but better feeding conditions should be provided, while shorter hours of labour should be demanded, so far as that could be effected without a diminution of output. He asked for special attention to the women’s hours of labour, and the protection of mother’s and child life. These and other reforms were aimed at by organised labour, and when the war was over they would be demanded. But these were mere palliatives ; the present competitive system must go. He advocated the unselfish co-operation of educated and middle class people with the workers…
Another contributor, Robert O Mennell, speaking on behalf of the Quaker Socialist Society, asked:
…How then could we be satisfied with an industrial system which accepted and rested upon the principle that man’s needs (and his weaknesses) were to be exploited for profit, and women’s and boys’ and girls’ lives were a commodity to be bought as steel and iron and to be discarded without responsibility when not actually required or when their efficiency had become dulled and their bodies broken by the strain of years of toil.
The Friend, in commenting, reported:
…The phrase “equality of opportunity” was often heard. Fraternity, or brotherhood, likewise received frequent mention, whilst the note of “liberty” was also occasionally sounded. Mabel C. Tothill pointed out that the workers were not so much striving for higher wages as for liberty from the bondage which many of them feel. Rosa Hobhouse expressed the opinion that the Conference had gathered together not only in defence of the poor but also for liberating the wealthy, and to liberate humanity from injustice.
On the final afternoon a statement prepared by a small group was read and discussed: it would form the basis of a report from the committee to the next Yearly Meeting. It included the desire that Friends affirm seven principles. After much discussion, which included one Friend likening it to an Athanasian creed, the group was asked to revise it. The new version appeared in the Friend of 10 November. It now read:
We desire therefore that the Society of Friends may affirm the following positions as springing from its central view of truth :—
1. That Brotherhood, as taught by Jesus Christ, knows no distinction of Social Class : Human worth is some-thing deeper and broader.
2. That a man should in large measure be free to order his own life is a spiritual necessity ; it should not be cramped or spoiled by evil conditions, or crushed by economic pressure. Whenever this happens it is a spiritual loss to the world, and indicates failure on the part of the Christian Church. Rather we must see that the fullest opportunity of human development—both in childhood and in adult life—should be assured to every member of the community.
3. That the spiritual force of trust and loving kindness is mighty because of the appeal it makes to the best in every man, and, when applied even to the conduct of industrial relations, achieves great things.
4. Our belief in the futility of the methods of outward domination, and of the appeal to force, applies not only to international affairs, but to the whole problem of industrial control, and to the resort of industrial strife. Not through antagonism, but through co-operation in its widest sense, will the best be achieved for each and all.
5. That if human need has a claim to service, and if service is the key to the best life, this great truth cannot be confined to the casual encounters of life, but should be recognised and relied upon in the very motive and method of its chief activities. It is upon this basis of need and service that life should be organised.
6. That our membership one of another involves the use of all our gifts, powers, and resources for the good of all. No system which uses these for mere money-making or private gain, alienating them from their true end, can satisfy.
7. That we shall seek for a way of living that will free us from the bondage of material things and mere convention, that will raise no barrier against brotherly comradeship with all, and will put no oppressive burden of labour upon any by reason of our superfluous demands.
If these are our true principles for all the individual members of the human family, it is the duty of the Society of Friends to proclaim them, and to seek with humility, but with courage and persistent study, to work them out in practice, finding scope for all its members to give their best to service to their fellows.
Of course, not all Friends were happy with the conference, as later letters in the Friend made clear. Joseph Smithson, in the edition of 1 December, wrote with ‘some uneasiness’ about the event:
…the impression left on my mind was that the Society is rather floundering in a gale of aspirations.
I believe the immediate problem before us is to find courage for a ruthless scrutiny of our personal position in and relation to “our neighbour”; and if that be so, then the pressing need to be able to disentangle ourselves from an ecstatic atmosphere, so that we may be able to reach down to that foundation of quiet and stillness where vision becomes possible.
There seems to me some indications that we are losing something of that faculty.
‘From the archive’ is researched and selected by Janet Scott. See: www.thefriend.org/archive
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