In a way it
is a vast clearing house. Supplies come in from every part of the
world, from India, Ceylon, Java, Alaska, South America, from the most
remote places. I saw the record book. I saw that a woman from my home
city had sent cigarettes to the soldiers through the Guild, that
Africa had sent flannels! Coming from a land where the sending, as
regards Africa, is all the other way, I found this exciting. Indeed,
the whole record seems to show how very small the earth is, and how
the tragedy of a great war has overcome the barriers of distance and
time and language.
From this clearing house in England's historic old palace, built so
long ago by Bluff King Hal, these offerings of the world are sent
wherever there is need, to Servia, to Egypt, to South and East Africa,
to the Belgians. The work was instituted by the Queen the moment war
broke out, and three things are being very carefully insured: That a
real want exists, that the clothing reaches its proper destination,
and that there shall be no overlapping.
The result has been most gratifying to the Queen, but it was difficult
to get so huge a business--for, as I have already said, it is a
business now--under way at the beginning. Demand was insistent. There
was no time to organise a system in advance. It had to be worked out
in actual practice.
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