THE LABOUR AUXILIARIES.
The queer ways of the Chinks--How to bury a Chinaman properly--The
Q.M.A.A.C.s and their fine record--Other types of Labour
auxiliaries--The Labour Directorate.
The Great War revived, to a degree that few dream of, methods of very
old campaigns, when the hero had his attendant myrmidons and the Spartan
foot soldier his helots. Study a "ration strength" return of the B.E.F.,
France, 1918, and discover how the actual fighting men in trench or
gun-pit had to be supported not only by Base soldiers but by British
non-combatant labour companies, by French civilian labour companies, by
Q.M.A.A.C.s, by prisoner-of-war labour companies, by Indian, West
Indian, Fijian, and Chinese labour companies. It was a big business,
this organisation of the labour behind the fighting area.
Chinese labour was of very notable help to the British Army. At its best
it was the most efficient and hard-working force imaginable. At its
worst it was at least a good source of fun. The Chinaman came over to
the war with very definite ideas of making as good a thing out of it as
possible. "I sell my labour" was his formula in signing the contract,
and, though he probably would not recognise as his own the old British
law formula _caveat emptor_, that was the principle on which he acted.
If the buyer of his labour was fool enough to pay the price and not get
the work that was the buyer's look-out.
Every Chinese coolie on arrival (as we soon found out) was "put wise" by
the representative of his secret society, his "Tong," that "this is a
good place. You have only to pretend to work." He acted on that, and
unless the people in charge knew how to deal with Chinese, so little was
done as to make the most finished British exponent of "ca-canny" go
green with envy. But, given an officer who knew his business, knew how
to get the Chinese headmen to get the Chinese coolies to work, and the
results were splendid.
The Chinaman knew that by his contract he was not to suffer war risks,
that he was not supposed to work under shell-fire, and he was soon
sufficiently advanced to interpret an occasional air bombardment as
"shell-fire," and to give it as a reason for demanding more pay. As a
rule he was willing to take risks, if he were paid extra. When sick or
wounded he was a great nuisance, for if a Chinaman died of sickness
whilst in charge of the white man the conclusion was that he had been
done to death. Ordinarily a sick Chinaman demobilised two
workers--himself and some member of his own secret society who had to
accompany him to hospital to see that all was fair.
The most earnest effort was therefore made to keep the Chinaman from
dying, not only from ordinary motives of humanity, but because as a
corpse he was an even greater nuisance. A British soldier might be
buried in a blanket, but the Chinese dead had to have wooden coffins,
and their graveyards had to be chosen with great care--preferably in a
valley with a stream running through it. All this to satisfy the
spiritual world of the Chinese, which seems to be very exigent in such
matters. The official instructions regarding Chinese graves stated: "The
ideal site to secure repose and drive away evil spirits is on sloping
ground with a stream below, or gully down which water always or
occasionally passes. The grave should not be parallel to the N.S.E. or
W. This is specially important to Chinese Mohammedans. It should be
about four feet deep, with the head towards the hill and the feet
towards the water. A mound of earth about two feet high is piled over
the grave."
In matters of finance the Chinaman was also a little bothersome. He had
to have his pay right down on the nail; he distrusted any white man's
savings-bank or any system of deferred pay. In time Chinese
savings-banks were instituted, and these solved the difficulty that the
Chinaman would not let the white paymaster keep his money for him, and
if he had it in personal custody gambled it away.
Keener even than his passion for gambling was the Chinaman's passion for
decoration. Was it in a sense of real fun on his part or was it an
accident that his taste for decoration culminated in the two "grand
passions"--an Australian hat and a Scotsman's kilt? If either of these
came within his reach the Chinaman knew real bliss. One Chinaman who
managed to get hold of both at once, and paraded a Base town in their
joint glory for a full half-hour was the legendary hero of all the
Chinese coolies in France. Of course to be in possession of an
unauthorised article of military equipment was an offence, and the
Chinaman going out in a kilt or an Australian hat, or a general's
red-haloed cap, knew that he was in for severe punishment. That was no
deterrent if his ingenuity could secure, by theft or purchase, such
glory. As often as it did the Chinaman was quite willing to stand the
subsequent racket. One Chinese coolie used to light up a quarter of
Boulogne with a decoration that challenged military discipline
successfully. He had secured one of those brass basins still used in
places as barbers' signs, had fixed this on his ordinary coolie hat,
polished it resplendently, and sported it with Celestial pride. His was
the brassiest hat of any brass hat in France; but the basin was not an
article of military equipment, and authority decided to wink at it. In a
hot sun you had to wink with both eyes.
Discipline was good with the Chinese coolies if the controlling officers
knew their business and took care to "save face" of the headmen of the
gangs. An officer had to see that the headman did not fool him or
ill-treat the coolies and then to back up the headman always. If the
coolies got to think that the headman was out of favour with the white
boss nothing could be done with them. In matters of prohibitions the
Chinese language showed a strange inadequacy. It was decided to forbid
smoking in labour camps, and a notice "Smoking is Prohibited," was
printed in English, German, and Chinese, to be affixed in the compounds.
After some months a distinguished visitor, who was (or thought he was)
skilled in the Chinese language, pointed out to high authority that the
literal translation of the Chinese notice was "Do not get caught
smoking." The educated Chinese who had drawn up the notice originally
was sent for. He blandly insisted that that was the only way to say
"Smoking is Prohibited," in Chinese, and that the Chinese coolie would
understand nothing else.
On the whole the Chinaman was a cheerful soul. He organised his own
theatrical companies and enjoyed those interminable Chinese operas which
are familiar to travellers in the East and to visitors to the Chinese
quarters of American or Australian cities.
The "Chink" gambled as much as the regulations allowed him to. But he
could stand up to a hard day's work with constant cheerfulness, and,
apart from his craze for some prohibited military decoration, contrived
to make his uniform picturesque enough. The barber was an important unit
of every camp, for Chinese head-dressing is a matter of complicated
ritual.
Taking one consideration with another, Chinese labour in France was a
success. It released many scores of thousands of men for the fighting
line. If the Germans had not thrown in their hand at the time they did,
it is probable that another 100,000 coolies would have been recruited in
China for France, though most other types of coloured labour were being
dispensed with as not being worth while.
Chinese labour has a way of cropping up in British history. It might
have lost the Mother Country a whole continent of colonies at one time,
when Sir Henry Parkes, a leonine Norfolk peasant who had become Prime
Minister for New South Wales, dared Great Britain to veto Australian
exclusion of Chinese immigrants. Later it loomed, with vast
possibilities of mischief, over South African history. In the Great War
Chinese labour appeared again, but this time with no sinister threat of
trouble, but very helpful in matters of railway-building and
ship-building, and lightening, with a touch of Celestial humour, the
grim business of putting the German in his place.
The Labour Directorate had control not only of Chinese Labour but of all
other non-combatant working units, except the W.A.A.C.s (or Q.M.A.A.C.s
as they came to be called when, as a reply to base gossip about their
morals, Queen Mary took nominal command of the corps and they became
Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps). Distinctly cruel--though it was
probably not meant to be cruel and was only thoughtlessness--was the
gossip about the W.A.A.C.s. According to some London scandal-mongers a
very large proportion of the Corps qualified for a maternity hospital
almost as soon as they got to France. As a matter of fact the standard
of conduct among them was very high. They represented at least the
average of British womanhood, probably they were ahead of the average,
and it would be a libel on our race to discredit them with a charge of
looseness.
Nor was it a fact that the W.A.A.C.s were in a position unusually open
to temptation; it was quite the contrary. They were busy. The soldiers
among whom they worked were busy, and it wasn't a case of the Devil
having idle hands at his mercy. Further, the system of supervision was
well thought out and excellently administered. The W.A.A.C.s had better
guardianship than in the average British home. They lived in
settlements, with their own recreation rooms. These settlements were
strictly out of bounds for soldiers. All private houses, cafés,
restaurants, etc., were "out of bounds" to the W.A.A.C.s. Nor could a
W.A.A.C. "walk out" with a soldier in her leisure time except by
permission of her officer.
At G.H.Q. there were very few W.A.A.C. clerks or telephone orderlies;
but there was a little band of W.A.A.C. waitresses at the Officers'
Club. A better set of girls it would be hard to find, and it is hardly
necessary to say that they were always treated with respect and courtesy
by the officers. A saying at G.H.Q. was that if you wanted to be sent
away suddenly there were two short courses to that undesirable end: one,
to curse your general to his face in public, the other to be caught
winking at a W.A.A.C. G.H.Q. did not wink at the W.A.A.C.s. We had too
much respect for them, too much gratitude for the spirit of
sportsmanship and patriotism that led them to come out to France to lead
a dull and laborious life for our comfort. It is difficult to imagine
what a touch of "England, Home and Beauty" those deft young women gave
after experience of soldier orderlies as waiters.
From personal knowledge I can only speak of the W.A.A.C.s at G.H.Q. But
I had the best of means of judging their general standard of conduct
throughout France. In case of a lapse from grace a W.A.A.C. was retired
from the Corps, her uniform was withdrawn and she had a grant of £5 to
enable her to buy a civilian costume. There were not many cases of that
£5 being paid.
But the W.A.A.C.s, as I have said, did not come under the Labour
Directorate but under their own Administrator. Every one else whose job
was to work rather than to fight did, and that made "Labour" an
extraordinarily interesting department. It had under its control:
(_a_) The Labour Corps, including:
(_i_) Labour Companies.
(_ii_) Divisional Employment Companies.
(_iii_) Area Employment Companies.
(_b_) Canadian Labour Battalions.
(_c_) Middlesex (Alien) Labour Companies.
(_d_) South African Native Labour Corps.
(_e_) Cape coloured Battalion.
(_f_) Egyptian Labour Corps.
(_g_) Chinese Labour Corps.
(_h_) Fijian Labour Detachment.
(_i_) Indian Labour Corps.
(_j_) Non-Combatant Corps.
(_k_) Prisoner of War Companies.
(_l_) French and Belgian Civilian Labour.
The core of the organisation was British loyal labour, men who were too
old or too decrepit to fight but who "did their bit" behind the lines,
making roads or working at various Army jobs. These were excellent stout
fellows, and as they did not object to taking the risk of death for
their country, they could be, and were, employed in areas of danger.
Another type of British Labour, not so admirable, were the Conscientious
Objectors. A few groups of these were employed in France as burial
parties, etc. Yet another type was known as the Middlesex
Contingent--why that county should have been associated with them I know
not. They were men British-born but of German parentage, whose loyalty
was suspect. They could not be trusted in the army; they were used for
some types of labour, but were not allowed near ammunition dumps or
other points where they might do mischief.
Second in order of merit came French and Belgian civilian labour, men
too old or decrepit for the fighting line, but willing to work for a
wage. It was a condition of their employment that they should not be
stationed within range of long-distance shell fire, but this condition
was sometimes relaxed at their own wish and with the consent of the
French Government. At first the British Army insured these French
workers against accident, illness, and death through the French State
Insurance Department. Subsequently it was found more economical to
insure them directly.
German prisoners of war labour was under the Labour Directorate, and in
the organisation of it some very good work was done. Prisoners were very
plentiful from 1916 onwards, and the Labour Directorate, when a new push
was mooted, made its plans to have skeleton prisoners-of-war companies
ready to be filled by the new prisoners as they arrived. I think the
record was in one case when three days after some Germans arrived at our
"cages," they were at work on the roads at the rear of the Army. It was
the law that prisoners of war should not be employed anywhere near the
firing line, and on the British side this law was very strictly
observed.
My impression of the Germans as road labourers was not very favourable.
They seemed to loaf as much as they could. But some of the German
prisoners of the artisan class did excellent work in our various shops
and factories at Base. In tailoring shops, motor repair shops, etc.,
there were many German prisoners who seemed to take a delight in
intelligent industry. German prisoners were very well treated and got on
very well with their guards.
Now to the various classes of coloured labour. The Chinese I have
already dealt with. They were quite the most satisfactory on the whole.
The Indian labour was willing enough but did not stand the climate so
well. Kaffir labour proved on the whole unsatisfactory, and so did
Egyptian labour. A West Indian contingent did fairly good work. A model
lot were the Fijians, all volunteers (and all Christians, by the way),
and wonderfully good stevedores. Unfortunately there were very few of
them and they did not stand the climate well. One of the Fijian Labour
Corps left his studies at Oxford University to join up.
The Labour organisation had two main objects:
(a) To release the fighting soldier for his legitimate work.
(b) To assist the Services and Departments to carry out their
tasks.
Nine hours was the normal working day, exclusive of the time occupied
for meals and for going to and from the place of work. If the distance
from the place of parade to the work was more than 1-1/2 miles, the time
taken to march the excess distance was deducted from the hours of work.
For labour of low medical category the normal working day was eight
hours.
Excellent work was done by the Labour Corps. Its _morale_ was carefully
studied and it was part of the instructions to officers that:
All ranks should have briefly explained to them the object of the
work, for what, and by whom, it will be used, what purpose it will
serve, and, especially, that all the work is being done for the
prosecution of the war and is not merely a "fatigue." A few minutes
spent in rousing the men's interest in their work is usually time
well spent. A healthy spirit of emulation should be created by
pointing out the quantity of work of any kind which should be done
per day, and the amount done by other and better Companies. Above
all the men must be made to understand that whether they are
working on time, or on task work, no slacking can be allowed. The
men in the fighting line depend on the men of the Labour Corps to
keep them supplied with all they require.
Our Allies are just as anxious for victory as we are. The French
and the Belgians have suffered more than we have, but, in spite of
it, never complain. Hence they should receive every consideration
at our hands. As we are in their countries we should respect their
customs and wishes as much as we can. In all our relations with any
of our Allies, it is obviously desirable for us to be polite and
courteous in our dealings with them. It must be borne in mind that
every misunderstanding or unpleasantness tends to weaken our
alliance and to help the enemy.
The Labour Directorate, with many different races to manage, their
religions and food habits to study, had one of the difficult tasks of
the war; and carried it out on the whole very well. The chiefs of the
directorate in my time at G.H.Q. were Colonel (now General) E. G. Wace,
Lieut.-Col. S. G. L. Bradley, and Lieut.-Col. H. A. H. Newington, with
Colonel Fairfax as Adviser, Chinese Labour, and Colonel Pritchard as
Adviser, South African Labour. The staff was about equally divided
between big business men and typical Oxford men. It was always a
pleasure at dinner to sit at the same table with the "Labour" people.
They hunted, or rather dined, in couples as a rule, a leading light of
the commercial world pairing off with one of the "Oxford group." So one
could always reckon on good talk and argument from opposite points of
view.
At the summit of its strength the Labour Corps mustered 387,000, a great
Army in itself, and it had representatives of almost every European
nationality, Chinese, West Indians, Pacific Islanders, Kaffirs, Zulus,
Burmese, Egyptians, Maltese and almost every Indian race including
Nagas, Pathans, Chins, Manipuris, Bengalis and Santals. And the Labour
Corps' patriotism cost it dear at times; for sometimes it had over a
thousand casualties in a month.
[Illustration: Photo by Bassano Ltd.
BRIG-GENERAL E. G. WACE (Controller of Labour)]