On , the London Yearly Meeting met to discuss the peace testimony.
W.H.F. Alexander said that many young Friends had felt that the loudest protests raised against the iniquity of war did not come from the Society of Friends; and that upon the question of increased armaments it was not a Friend who turned the attention of the House of Commons to the fact that our defence was not in a strong navy but in reliance upon the power of God. They felt that the Society did not raise the highest note upon that question. People believed that a man was really in earnest when he was prepared to suffer in pocket. Was not the time coming when those who felt that war was wrong should refuse to pay at least one-third of their direct taxation.
From what I saw of the meeting minutes nobody took Alexander up on this suggestion or commented on it.
Alexander was part of a group of Friends who undertook a humanitarian mission during the Second Boer War (in part, returning family bibles that had been seized by the British as war booty). Alexander later moved to New Zealand, where he became a prominent anti-militarist and anti-conscription author and lecturer in the years leading up to World War Ⅰ.
