Shorter Notices
Friends Ambulance Unit. By A. Tegla Davies. (Allen and Unwin. 15s.) THE Friends Ambulance Unit was a voluntary association of pacifists, not all of them Quakers, who wished to do an active job of work during the war helping to relieve suffering. At the same time the members of the unit believed that their work would be of use in keeping the ideas of pacifism alive and showing something of their constructive side to a world at war. The scope of the unit's work was as wide as circumstances and opportunity dictated. Near the battle-fronts it supplemented, and at times replaced, the work of the R.A.M.C., U.N.R.R.A. and other official arms. But its pursuit of suffering could bring it up against age-old problems such as starvation in China, malaria in Syria or leprosy in Ethiopia. In war-time these also become the concern of the civil and military authorities • in peace they are the concern, presumably, of the national Governments. Or can a body such as the E.A.U., which has a religious inspiration, accept the arbitrary dates of war for the prosecution of humanitarian aims? The answer, to some extent, is that much of the work which the unit started during the war has been carried on subsequently by other agents, and that many of its members are continuing the same sort of work under other auspices. But this is obviously not a complete answer, and it is not surprising that the members of the unit never enjoyed the luxury of being free from self-criticism over the nature of their work. Almost without exception those who came in contact with the E.A.U. united in praising its work and the enthusiasm and competence of its members. This book is in the nature of an official record of its activities, and as such may be too long and too detailed for the ordinary reader though it is better written and more personal than official records usually manage to be.
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