Pine Bluff daily graphic. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) 1893-1942, 1914-08-21
Appearances Indicate All
Male England Desires to
Enlist in Army
TRADESMEN ORGANIZE
Sh0p.keepcrs Organize Clerks Into
Fighting FOrceS-Many LuXurieS
Disappear. but BritOnS Doing
without UncOmplaining

(By Herbert Temple, European
Manager of the international News
Service.)
London, Aug. 2O.-Shop-keepers OF
London now are organizing their
clerks into fighting forces. Every
evening in the streets of the bust
ness district may be seen companies
of shop employees, earnestly drilling
to be soldiers. They are getting ready
to change the yardstick for a musket
and the counter for the trench. In the
big department stores, where there
are many employees, whole regiments
have been organized. In lesser estab-
lishments, companies are being form
ed and where there are small stores
with only a few clerks, two or three
gether to form company.
Apparently all of the clerks are en-
! thusisatic over the possibility OF
going to war. They seem to take to
the drilling with interest and when
they are being put through their
PAGES, the streets ring with good
natured shots and laughter.
This military organization of clerks
is not a haphazard movement. 1t is
being supervised by the government
and the men thus enlisted will form
a fifth line of defense. The companies
thus formed are in addition to the
thousands recruited for the regular
army and the military organizations in
the various cities.
From the appearance of the recult-
| ing stations, it would appear that all
| &c, To n q
fighting front. Men of all classes and
degrees besiege the offices, standing
half the day in long lines in the
streets, silk-hatted peers rubbing
elbows with the grimy laborers. The
enlistment is proceeding at the rate
. of thousands a day
Flour Is Scarce.
1t is an undOubted benefit to the
British consumer that war was de-
layed as long as possible. 1t did not
come until the first sheaves of the
home crop were already in stack while
SO much wheat land was ripe for the
harvester that scarcity of food
could be at least but a matter OF days.
Had war broken out in June, the mat
ter of harvesting the grain would have
been far more serious problem.
The days when British ports held
months supply of wheat and ample
reserve of feeding stuff for stock APP
pear to be past and trade profits in
time of peace are now SO small that
there is now no longer a margin for
carrying charges, for paying for the
warehousing.
That flour and wheat have risen
lu in,
scare became apparent, shows what
might have been expected had war
come when the harvest was too
months off instead of VITO weeks.
The first but least important issue
of the war is that of the British mar
kets being cut off from certain arti-
Giles much in demand, but not abso-
J lutcly necessary. Austrian rolls have
already disappeared from the dinner
table and the fine Hungarian flour. so
much in demand for pastry has gone
up 100 per cent. 1t is doubtful II
Austria Hungary will continue to eX-
port flour, for the wheat crop of the
dual monarchy, even had there been
no war, is very short this year. The
eastern part of the empire, that near
est to the seat of war, will barely be
self-supporting.
The hard wheat from Servia, Bull
garia and Roumania. also will be
missing from England for time,
but happily there is no reason to fear
that confectionery will disappear. for
the CHER London millers and those
of other Mritish cities are now max
ing excellent pastry flour by Hun
| lr>nu N
ously guarded secret of the mills OF
Budapest.
Servian exports of silk cocoons.
plums, prunes. cherries and liquors
already have been stopped by the
war, but such things are regarded as
luxuries and the British consumers
are doing without them without COM
plant.
England Forced to War.
Through England, the people of
every class regard the war with one
mind They approve of it because
they believe there was no honorable
way for England to stay out of the
conflict. Not man but wants to go
to the front and all the people, high
and low, are accepting the privations
of war, slight as yet but apt to become
heavy before long, with great good
humor and grace.
Perhaps one of the most unexpected
results of the war was the absolute
ending of suffragette militancy. For
years the British public had been ac-
customed to the depredations of the
wild women" manifested in the
smashing of windows, crusades on
parliament, burning of houses, null
tilation of pictures and explosion of
bombs One of the first things King
George did after England declared
war. was to Internationally pardon
+, all the suffragette prisoners who are
, in the various jails' for militant offens-
es The militant reeiprocated i'm
mediately by declaring cessation of
their violent campaign for ballot The
suffragette organizations volunteered
: to take charge of the work of prov