THE HONG KONG
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS,
FIFTEENTH ORDINARY MEETING,
Wednesday, March 24th, 1915; Colonel Sir Thomas "Hungerford Holdigh, R.E. K.C.M.G., KC. IE, C.B., D.S., Vice-President and Chairman of the Council of the Society, in the chair.
The following candidates were proposed for election as Fellows of the Society:
MacCaw, Vivian furdy, 21, Strand-road, Calcutta, India, '
Pardiwalla, Jehangir Pestonjer, Hotel Majestic, Bombay, India,
Saunders, Alfred Oliver, 103, Osbora-road, Spurkhill Birming ham."
Spence, Charles Stewart Traill, Plantation Waterloo, Nickerie, Surinam, Dutch Gaiana,
Quiana,
The paper read was- THE WORK OF THE WAR
REFUGEES COMMITTEE,
BY Lady Lugard.
day about the work of the War ay aboo been used to speak to Refugees' Committee.
a
TELEGRAPH.
EXTRA
HONGKONG, SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 1915.
day I might be expected to receive in England 1,000 refugees."..
our chequer, and gave thoughts to the refugees.
Our next obvious need was an
I
our immediately brought into operaments, including much needed
tion.
boots and shoes.
The oreation of our different immediately imposed upon us by the conditions of the problem with which we were dealing. The general work of direction and co ordination, and the oreation of now means of meeting each new necessity of the situation, bad alan to grow from the simpla bngin ainge of the early days. It was soon found that it was desirable to place the management ander one direction, and it was decided to ask Lord Gladstone who was prepared to give the time and there was a man whose face was department has become one of devotion necessary to such a work the most important and efficient to accept a position" which is, branches of our practical organi suppose, equivalent to that us eation. Mr. Campbell's grip and ually held in a commercial com- it should come, even indirectly, comprehension of the work of the pany by the managing director, By the kindness of Mr. F. from the King The Borough War Refugees Committee is so Mr. Morgan was at firet associated Norie-Miller, General Manager of Council of Camberwell wes, if my complete that I believe if the whole in this direction, but found him- the General Accident Fire and memory serves me, the next to Committee were swept away and self afterwarde unable to devote Life Assurance Corporation, Ltd., offer us beds for Belgian refugees. he left standing the work would the necessary time, and Lord offices were placed at our disposal. They had organised Dulwich still be satisfactorily carried on. Gladstone bag from the beginning entirely free of charge. The em- Bathe as a hospital, and they
borne the bruut of the central bryo of a clerical and typewriting placed at our disposal between organised system of fitting the work of the Committee. It is staff was secured. A name was fifty and one hundred beds. Bat. refugees into the offure of hospi- only in a later chapter, to which chosen. An appeal was sent to tersea followed their example. tality which were received for I shall have occasion to refer, that the papers on Sunday night, and Private offers were added to these, them. This has remained from he has been assisted in a Manage as net result of our exertions we and in two or three days we had a the beginning the most complicatment Committee by Lard Lytton were enabled on the following couple of hundred beds upon ed and difficult work we have had and the Right Hon. W. H. Dickin Monday morning to take
which we could count. posses-
to do. A department, afterwards son, M. P. Lord Gladstone's work sion as a committee of the empty We reached the third day of known as our Allocation Depart has been no sinecure, and we all, ed into the well-known headquar- came of the shipload of refugees Alfred Lyttelton and Mrs. Gilbert the absolute sinserity and unsel- offices which have since develop our existence before any news ment, was organised at once if I may be permitted to say it, under Lady Gladstone, Mrs. give angrudging recognition to ters of the War Refugees' Com- for whose reception the Committee mittee at Aldwych. That first had been so hastily organised. Samuel, who have been assisted fishness of purpcia with which he morning we had hardly pen and It was a Wednesday evening, at volunteers. The work of this de- as a Committee and I am sure in the work by an army of willing has pursued it. We do not claim ink, we had no chairs to sit upon, about half-past seven o'clock, as partment, of which a beginning Lord Gladstone would heartily the offices were almost entirely we were separating after a heavy had been made in the Belgian agree with me to have been per- without furniture, and while we days' work, that a telogram was Consulate Room even before the featly organised or perfectly dir. were trying to. organise our im- brought in buying, "One thousand response to our appeal, which had night. Can you take 500 in carried on in four main divisions, voted volunteers, have always per- mediate plan of operations the refugees arriving Folkestone to War Refugees' Committee came, ceted, our staff, amounting at into existence, has since been one time to upwards of 500 de- appeared only in that morning's London to-morrow?" The mo- There has been our Central Al- feetly understood and perfectly pagers, took the embarrasing, if as meat had come. We had provided location Department of which carried out the intentions and in the same time encouraging, form with the greatest difficulty for the direction has remained in the structions of headquarters. We of no less than 1,000 letters, all 250. To provide suddenly for hands of Mrs. Gilbert Samuel. are willing to accept in a chaston- containing offera of hospitality 500 mora seemed at. first sight There has been a very important ed epirit all reasonable criticism. ant help.
Impcesible. But to give you one development of subsidiary bran- describe how it was done. instance of the early work I will
been made to us was one from the Among the offers which had Army and Navy Stores, proposing
chee in the Rink ander Mrs.
salate, aled carried on at Aldwych the allocation of the Belgian Con- Alfred Lyttelton. There has been
under the direction of the Misses
The only claim we are concerned to maks is that the War Refugees
we have been nothing. The willing instrument. La curselves Committee throughout has been a
power by which we have been
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 refugees, I asked her where she came from. She said, "'"'Charleroi,".." Then you have seen the fighting?" Oh, yes; I carried him "in- dicating the baby-out under the German guns,"
It was: nothing. She had had the lack to escape, but the ccntrast between the peacefulness of her actual og- onpation and her words brought home what she had escaped from. In the same refuge on a later day. like the face of a tragio 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 remind- led 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 Ger man soldiery, who misused her before my eyes. Afterwards they took hor away with the regiment." And he fell back to the only thing
left." The stories which we heard he seemed able to say: "We had five children-we have not one at that time daily and nightly, plastically every refugee who re from not one alone, but from ached us were such as surpass all imagination of horror and brutality. We heard them we
many were such as I could not became in a sense accustomed to hearing them-bat the details of possibly repeat in a public assem bly such as this, An observant friend who accompanied me one day to a refuge said, as we came ont: These people look as if they had all seen ghosts." They had een ghosts! They had seen spec
think God, are not often let loose brutality-such evil spirite as, tres of carnage, oruelty, lust and
apon 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
No committee had as yet been. They began to come in the first Our first need was obviously a formed. It was evident that be- day. They increased in numbers, Card Index and Correspondence departments was, as I have said, tween Saturday and. Monday & not being immediately brought in Department. This department committee bad to be formed. I shiploade, but trickling through has since been placed under the will not delay you with a relation on their own socount from various very efficient management of Mr. of the details of that Saturday and sources to the number of porhope Arthur Chadwick, and with the Sunday afternoon, interesting as 100 or 150 a day. Our first dif- Cashier's Department, under our they were at the moment to those ficulty with regard to finding excellent cashier, Mr. Bourne, has engaged in the work. The only homes for them was met by the completely rescued us from the condition which I made was thas kindness of Sir James Danlop-reproaches of the first days, the committee should have no Smith, who obtained from the We needed a Transport Depar politice and no religious distino- India Office permission to place meat to meet refugees at the under the German guns?" At tions, and it is enough now to say at our disposal a small house at stations to convey them to and that time we bad, of course, no
that, thanks mainly to the exer- 49, St. George's Rood, usually from the refuges. Under Mr. conception of the development tions of Mrs. Alfred Lytelion and occupied by the King's orderlies, Henry Campbell, of the London which the refugee movement was Mr. H. E. Morgan, committee bat suding at the moment emp- General Omnibus Company, this ultimately to take. The thought was formed under the required ty and furnished. This was the in my mind was mainly of women conditions and in the required first place of refuge offered in this and children. I talegraphed to time, Lord Hugh Cool consenting country to Belgians. It seemed Captain Oraig to ask whether, ifto be our chairman and Lord to us a suitable coincidence that such a scheme proved feasible, he Gladstone dar treasurer. would let me have the use of the Ulster organisation. He telegraph od back immediately that every thing they had was at my disposal for aucie s parpose. He sent me all their registration forms-forms which we are to-day using at the War Kefugees Committee and put me immediately in touch with people who had the necessary in The following candidates were formation. In twenty-four hours balloted for and duly elected I had the embryo of an organi- Fellows of the Society :-
sation in my hande. Baltimore, Professor Jeremiah But it was evidently necessary School Washington, D.O., U.S.A. "sentiment base." The next step D., Armstrong Technical High to change what I may call the Murphy, Joseph Plato, Zorgen was to approach the Catholic hoop, West Bank, Berbice, British Church and to ask of Cardinal Bourne that the Catholio institu- tions of Great Britain and Ireland might be circularised in order to ascertain how many homes of undoubted security could be refugees. I was received with placed at the disposal of Belgian cardiality which, I would like to The work of the War Refugees' say here once for all, the Catholic Committee is intimately associat- Church bas constantly maintained ed with what will, I beliava, here- towards the movement. I was after be regarded as one of the assured by Monsignor Bidwell, most acutely pathetic chaptera of whom Cardinal Bourne deputed to our suland history. Because wo discase the matter with me, that are an island, because a stretch of assuming the movement to be sea lies between us and Europe, properly organised and to be view because, above all, we have a Navy ed with favour by the Govern which for a thousand years has ment, the, Catholic authorities known how to defend that strip of would be very ready to help. sea, we have been able, ros for With this amount of preparation the first time in car history, to approached the Foreign Office, offer refuge to a people" stricken and was assured of the sympathy and driven out from their proper of Sir Edward Grey, The Local Government Board signified their There is no need for me to approval, and the Foreign Office a fortnight we had at our disposal on Wednesday evening we accep.peration with Aldwyob, but car-nation by a nation. speak now of what Belgium has was good enough ultimately to hospitality for 100,000 persons. ted the offer. Mrs. Walter Cave riad on from their own bead- Loewe all have the knowledge arrange an interview for me with Cheques, clothing, food, offers of took direction in this particular quarters in Victoria Street. In It is as a task of consolation that it was also abundantly evident in oar bearts. In the Titanic the Belgian Minister, directing me personal service, flowed in upon act of energy, and I believe she also the allocation, carried on in-ceived of our work. I regret to acts of brutal or dranken indivi-
addition to these there has basc we have from the beginning con- struggle in which we are engaged that in placing the scheme before us. I could spend hours rather was up all that night. The Army dependently of Aldwych, by the have detained you so long with a duale. Evidence was unanimous, Belgiam bore for a time the bur him I was to inquire what steps than minutes in telling you the and Navy Stores let us have bede Jewish community, who from description of the machinery by and to our minds conclusive, thas don which the world, can never his Government, in the event of detaile of that frat outpouring of at oost price. The chairman of their own private offera have pro- which the work was done. I take the crimes were committed in forget, and never ropay. their viewing the proposal with public generosity. The sense of the Rowton Houses lent na oroc vided for upwards of 6,000 people. you back now to the days when paranence of a general order from
We all remember the shock of favour, would take to make the the country was made absolutely kery and linen. Willing help The Catholic ladies have also al. the first refugees, fleeing from above. horror with which we read the scheme known in Belgium. In clear that, if it could not share came from every side, and the located upwards of 6,000. In the the terror of fire and sword, began first accounts of the atrocities per accordance with the sinstructions the acute suffering caused to the result was achieved that before Misses Rothschilds room at to reach our shores. petratod at Vise and Liege. But I had the scheme before the Comte people of Belgium by the war, it three on the following afternoon Aldwych, some 30,000 have been fugees were different from the re-tios in this atmosphere. Let it "we have almost forgotten that only de Lalaing, and in due course so desired to diminish that suffering the shirt factory had been, con- provided for. Our own two fugees who are now arriving. be placed to the credit of twen I will not hold your imaging- a few days before the outbreak of answer was received from the by every means that it possessed. verted into a hostel where 250 branches of allocation have since They had actually borne the first tieth-century civilisation that the this war our eyes were turned to Belgian Govazament accepting These offers came not from one beds were made up with clean the beginning of the movement onslaught of German fury. Men universal abhorrence aroused by wards another theatre of distar- the proposal with gratitude, and class nor from one place, but from sheets and pillow cases, a kitchen arranged for the placing of be- had seen their wives and daugh the conduct of the German Army bance, and the outbreak of civil saying that they would make the all classes and from all places, was arranged down-stairs with ween, 50,000 and 60,000 persons, tera shot, and worse than shot, towards civiliane was such as to warin Ireland was the catastrophe scheme known in Belgium, and Catholic and Protestant, Jew and oight cooking-stoves, we feared. For a moment I mast would direct intending refugees Nocconformist, high and low, tables were ready laid, and a hot mittee have found homes for mothers had seen their little recognition of the mistake they
dininga all, the War Refugees, Com- before their eyes. Fathers and force German authorities recall it in connection with the to come to Ostend, whence it was rich and poor united, all unaware, dinner for several hundred people 100,000 perscas. refugees, for, strange as it may understood that we would take in a spontaneous tribute of sym-awaited the arrival of the refugees.
children trampled to death under had committed. Orders to terro- Beem, the War Refugees Com-steps to bring them away. miltse is, in a sense, the lineal
A department separate from the German feet. Old and young rise the population were appar While these negotiations were individuals, have their moment there that afternoon. We disposed but taking its rise in the same bayonet and placed as shields to
pathy and respect, Nations, like Our first batch of 250 arrived Allocation Department proper, had alike been driven before the ently with-drawn, and so far as descendant of the Ulster Council. in progress the position in Bel of unconscious self-revelation. It of the others in different places, necessities, is the Department of protect the enemy from Belgian the first weeks of the compaign
The preparations of Ulster in giam was becoming every day was a moment which unmistakably and from that day, though we Local Committees, which early in ballets. Some had been forced to have for the present ceased. the early summer of last year were more acute, and on a certain revealed the heart of England. salliciently public to be known to Saturday, August 22nd, I was.in.
continued to receive refugees in the movement formed themselves dig graves, and even to bary men anyone who chose to be scquaint- formed by Mr. Reyntiens and Mr. the movement
The enthusiasm and volume of London, at the rate of several throughout the country for the who were not yet dead. All had ed with them. Like most Iriah Wintour, of the Board of Trade, They brought with them accom- at our wits' end what to do, zot of hospitality, while working in their pillaged homes, holding ed its first refugees. Until were cheering, hundrede per day, and were often better management of local offers been smoked and burned out of War Refugees Committee receiv
It was on August 24th that the Protestanta, I was aware that in that they had the promise of paniments which it must be ad one who reached our hands was correspondence with Aldwych. themselves lacky if they were not September 9th they were received, view of coming contingencies ar transport from the Admiralty, milled were difficult to cope with, ever left without fcol and lodg This department at Aldwych has forced back to be consumed in the ag I have told you; in our own rangements had been made for with which they wore immediate We were soon accused, and justly ing the removal of many thousanda ly going to fetch over refugees, accused, of not answering our
been from the beginning under funeral pyres of their domestic refuges, where we tried to make of women and children from the and that they hoped to return on letters, of not acknowledging our week gave us the formation of the who has directed it with an ability fashion now to cast doubt upon Some little difficulty and hesita- The experience of this first the supervision of Lord Lytton, possessions. It has become the them as comfortable as we could. area which was likely to become the following Monday with a ship cheques, of not receiving our principal departments of the War and devotion for which the War the authenticity of deede fit only tion existed at first so to the a theatro of war. These arrange load. I asked Mr. Reyntiens how visitors with due consideration, Refugees' Committee. I do not Refugees Committee have every for the annals of the Middle Ages, question of facilitating the trans- ments had been made with great many they proposed to bring back. It was all true! To have done propose now to detain you with reason to be grateful. The num- Those of us who helped at that port of refugees from Belgium. thoroughness Registration and He said, As many as we can get otherwise was a physical impos- any full description our organisa ber of lcoal committees with which time nightly to receive the refuge. But this and all other doubt u pon all other necessary forms had been anything from 1,000." To the sibility, for what were we among tion. For anyone who is interest his department maintains touchee as they arrived can never for the matter was set at rest by the prepared, transport had been or- inquiry, What do you propose so many? We were only a will-ed the details are recorded in the is now nearly 2,000, get the tales of inconceivable hor public offer of the hospitality of ganised, and sale homes had been to do with your refugees when ing company of amateurs sadden Blue-book issued by the Depart secured in England. The out- you bring them back?" his reply ly called upon to deal with the mental Committee appointed by of great importance was added in ears, nor the convincing simplici- you will remember, by the Prime To these departments one other for which were poured into our the nation which was made, as break of European war mercifully was, in effect, "We leave that conditions of a large business, the President of the Local Govern the first daye. It was our Cloth-ty of narration which made it Minister in the House of Commons averted the misfortune of war in to you! There was no time to created in three days. And while ment Board to consider and re-ing Department, with head-impossible to doubt their general on September 9th. From that day Ireland, and when the news of the discuss the matter; it was neces this volume of external business port on questions arising in con- quarters at 23, Warwick Square, truth. I remember the first re- the Government has stood behind first atrocities came through from sary for him to go at once and get was pouring in, the tras object of nection with the reception and Hers Lady Emmott, ably sasisted fugee with whom I happened to the movement, and the War Re Belgium they suggested the iden, his papere ready, and I was left our existence remained, in our employment of the Belgian re- by Lady MacDonnell and other speak about herself. It was not fugees Committee has worked in Why not use the Uliter organi on Saturday morning in full sym-opinion, the providing of homes fagees in this country. I will devoted ladies, has been enabled a horrible case on the contrary, close and friendly relation with sation to get the Belgian women pathy with the adventure, but for our coming guests. We con- indicate merely the framework of by the generosity of the public to quite simple, but it brought home the Local Government Board. and children out, if possible, from with the knowledge that on Mon- teated ourselves with locking up the machine which circumstances distribute nearly a million gar to me with a shock of realisation (To be Continued}}
home.
C
**
a
the movement was absolutely ex- The response of the country to traordinary. The 1,000 letters of that day became 2,000 on the following day, then 3,000 then 4,000, then 5,009 and on the day on which we received 5,000 letters there were also, 1,200 callers at the office. Every letter and every visitor brought proposals of help
to lend us an empty shirt factory Rothschild and a group of helpers, worked has been the country. We conveniently situated just oppo- and there has been the allocation are proud only to have been pri- sita Victoria Station: It was in & of the Catholic Women's League, vileged to represent a movement perfectly sanitary condition, clean, under the direction of Miss which may claim to take its place with gas, light and water laid on, Streeter, working always in co in history as the consolation of in one form or another, Within batatark empty. At sight o'clock
"These re
a
bich can ever be produced will
efface the impression that these
awful things were literally true,
that they were not the isolated
to a
we are aware the bru'alities' of