No-Conscription Fellowship leaflet entitled
'Shall Britons Be Conscripts?' (undated) and a letter from a retired
policeman complaining about this leaflet and other anti-conscription
activity in Letchworth, 15 May 1916.
Many people in Britain strongly opposed the anti-conscription propaganda
of 'peace cranks' such as the No-Conscription Fellowship. One retired
Metropolitan Police CID inspector living in Letchworth, Hertfordshire,
was so incensed by the apparently unchecked activities of the Fellowship
and the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in his area that he wrote to
the Home Office about it. His letter, dating from May 1916 (when a
second Military Service Act extended conscription to married men),
shows the lengths to which some patriotic-minded citizens went to
pursue the anti-war minority.
Catalogue reference: HO 45 10801/307402 (undated, 15 May 1916)
Transcript
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