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diff --git a/old/14676.txt b/old/14676.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..34f883f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14676.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6095 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Women and War Work, by Helen Fraser + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Women and War Work + +Author: Helen Fraser + +Release Date: January 12, 2005 [eBook #14676] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMEN AND WAR WORK*** + + +E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, William Flis, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 14676-h.htm or 14676-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/6/7/14676/14676-h/14676-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/6/7/14676/14676-h.zip) + + + + + +WOMEN AND WAR WORK + +by + +HELEN FRASER + +G. Arnold Shaw +New York + +1918 + + + + + + + + "No easy hopes or lies + Shall bring us to our goal, + But iron sacrifice + Of body, will, and soul. + There is but one task for all-- + For each one life to give. + Who stands if freedom fall? + Who dies if England live?" + + Rudyard Kipling in "For All We Have and Are." + + + +[Illustration: A FEW SHELLS] + + + + DEDICATED TO MOTHER, ANNE, AND THE BOYS. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +Chapter + + 1. THE SPIRIT OF WOMEN + + 2. ORGANIZATION AND ITS PITFALLS + + 3. HOSPITALS--RED CROSS--V.A.D. + + 4. BRINGING BLIGHTY TO THE SOLDIERS--HUTS, COMFORTS, ETC. + + 5. WOMAN-POWER FOR MAN-POWER + + 6. WOMEN AND MUNITIONS + + 7. THE PROTECTION OF WOMEN IN INDUSTRY + + 8. "THE WOMEN'S LAND ARMY" + + 9. WAR SAVINGS--THE MONEY BEHIND THE GUNS + + 10. FOOD PRODUCTION AND CONSERVATION + + 11. THE W.A.A.C.'s + + 12. WAR AND MORALS + + 13. WHAT THE WAR HAS DONE FOR WOMEN + + 14. RECONSTRUCTION + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + A FEW SHELLS (Frontispiece) + + MISS EDITH CAVELL + + DR. ELSIE INGLIS + + FIRST AMBULANCE ON DUTY IN THE FIRST ZEPPELIN RAID + + "SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE" + + CLEANING A LOCOMOTIVE + + WOMEN AS CARRIAGE CLEANERS + + WINDOW CLEANERS + + STEAM ROLLER DRIVER + + TRAINING WOMEN AS AEROPLANE BUILDERS + + RIVETTING ON BOILERS + + FACING BOILER BLUE FLANGES + + ROUGH TURNING JACKET FORGING OF 6-POUNDER HOTCHKISS GUN + + HOW TO DRESS FOR MUNITION MAKING + + BACK TO THE LAND + + WOMEN TACKLE A STRONG MAN'S PROBLEM + + SIX REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD BUY WAR SAVINGS CERTIFICATES + + "FOR YOUR CHILDREN" + + BOOK MARKS ISSUED BY THE N.W.S.C. + + W.A.A.C.'s ON THE MARCH + + WOMEN OF THE RESERVE AMBULANCE + + POLICE WOMEN + + + + + + +FOREWORD + + +"Our War Loan from England"--That is the heading under which were +grouped the nine lectures given by Miss Helen Fraser at Vassar +College. England has borrowed a billion or so of dollars from us, but +the obligation is not all her way. The moral strength of our cause is +immeasurably increased by her alliance, and the spectacle of a great +democracy organizing itself for complete unity in a world crisis is +worth an incalculable amount to us. Such a vision Miss Fraser has +brought to her wider public among the women of America in this notable +book. Of her personal influence let me quote again from the Vassar +students' newspaper: + +"Miss Fraser, here's to you! We don't need to say that we liked Miss +Fraser and everything she had to tell us. The way we followed her +around, and packed every room in which she spoke, out to the doors +and sometimes up to the ceiling, is proof enough of that. And even +the fact that it was Sunday could not check our outburst of song +in the Soap Palace as Miss Fraser departed. Her gracious speech of +appreciation left with us the question not phrased by her before, but +certainly in the minds of every one of us who had been hearing her: +'What are _we_ going to do?'" + +An unsolicited testimonial, this, of the most genuine kind. The +College students of today are not easily coaxed into lecture rooms +outside of their own classes. + +I believe that Miss Fraser's book will be read with the same eager +attention that followed her first speeches in this country as she +began her work of educating American women to a sense of what the +mobilization of the entire citizen army of a democracy must mean. + +Nor will her influence cease there. Miss Fraser's book is a piece of +history; and history is action. The wonderful work of the women of +England is already emulated by the splendid efforts along many lines +of the women in our country. The new lessons of co-operation and of +selfless devotion, learned from this book will, I confidently predict, +within a few months, be translated into action by the Women's War +Service Committees in every state of our land. + +And the greatest lesson of all is that women and men must work +together in this new world. I count it an honour--being a man--to be +asked to introduce Miss Fraser in this way to the American public. +For my part I would have no separate women's division, except such +as concerns the tasks exclusively for women. I would have women side +by side with men in every division of labour, working out the task +with equal fidelity, equal authority, and equal rewards. One of the +results of this amazing age is going to be the new comprehension, +understanding, and sympathy of the one sex for the other. + + H.N. MacCRACKEN. + Vassar College, + Poughkeepsie, New York. + January 11, 1918. + + * * * * * + + + + +The women of all the allies are one in this great struggle. Our hopes +and our fears, our anxieties and our prayers, our visions and our +desolations, are the same. + +Our work is the same task of supporting and sustaining the energies of +our men in arms and of our nations at home. All the allied women know +more of each other than they ever did before, and this is all to the +good. + +The task of women in this struggle and in the reconstruction to come +after, are great tasks, and the world needs in every country not only +the wisdom and knowledge of its own women but the strength in them +that comes from being one of a great world-wide group and conscious of +the unity of all women. + +Anything that can help to that unity and understanding seems to me of +great value, and this record is written for American women in the hope +it may be of some small service. + + H.F. + December 25, 1917. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE SPIRIT OF WOMEN + + + "I have no fear nor shrinking. I have seen death so often that + it is not strange or fearful to me.... I thank God for this + ten weeks' quiet before the end. Life has always been hurried + and full of difficulty. This time of rest has been a great + mercy. They have all been very kind to me here. But this I + would say, standing as I do in view of God and eternity, I + realise that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred + or bitterness towards anyone." + + --EDITH CAVELL's last message. + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE SPIRIT OF WOMEN + +TO WOMEN + + Your hearts are lifted up, your hearts + That have foreknown the utter price, + Your hearts burn upward like a flame + Of splendour and of sacrifice. + + For you too, to battle go, + Not with the marching drums and cheers, + But in the watch of solitude + And through the boundless night of fears. + + And not a shot comes blind with death, + And not a stab of steel is pressed + Home, but invisibly it tore, + And entered first a woman's breast. + + From LAWRENCE BINYON's "For the Fallen." + + +The spirit of women in this greatest of world struggles cannot, in +its essence, be differentiated from the spirit of men. They are one. +The women of our countries in the mass feel about the issues of this +struggle just as the men do; know, as they do, why we fight, and like +them, are going on to the end. The declarations of our Government as +to conditions for peace are ours, too, and when we vote, we shall show +the spirit of women is clearly and definitely on the side of freedom, +justice and democracy. + +Our actions speak louder than any words can ever do, and the record +of our women's sacrifices and work stand as great silent witnesses to +our spirit. There is nothing we have been asked to do that we have not +done and we have initiated great pieces of work ourselves. The hardest +time was in the beginning when we waited for our tasks, feeling as +if we beat stone walls, reading our casualty lists, receiving our +wounded, caring for the refugees, doing everything we could for the +sailor and soldier and his dependants, helping the women out of work, +but feeling there was so much more to do behind the men--so very much +more--for which we had to wait. We did all the other things faithfully +and, so far as we could, prepared ourselves and when the tasks came, +we volunteered in tens of thousands, every kind of woman, young, old, +middle-aged, rich and poor, trained and untrained, and today we have +1,250,000 women in industry directly replacing men, 1,000,000 in +munitions, 83,000 additional women in Government Departments, 258,300 +whole and part-time women workers on the land. We are recruiting women +for the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps at the rate of 10,000 a month and +we have initiated a Women's Royal Naval Service. We have had the help +of about 60,000 V.A.D.'s (Voluntary Aid Detachment of Red Cross) in +Hospitals in England and France, and on our other fronts, in addition +to our thousands of trained nurses. + +The women in our homes carry on--no easy task in these days of +shortages in food and coal and all the other difficulties, saving, +conserving, working, caring for the children, with so many babies +whose fathers have never seen them, though they are one to two years +old, and so many babies who will never see their fathers. + +Some of our women have died on active service, doctors, nurses and +orderlies. Our most recent and greatest loss is in the death of Dr. +Elsie Inglis, the initiator of the Scottish Women's Hospitals, who +died on November 26th, three days after she had safely brought back +her Unit from South Russia, which had been nursing the Serbians +attached to the Russian army. + +One who was with her at the end writes, "It was a great triumphant +going forth." There was no hesitation, no fear. As soon as she knew +she was going, that the call had come, with her wonted decision of +character, she just readjusted her whole outlook. "For a long time I +_meant_ to live," she said, "but now I know I am going. It is so nice +to think of beginning a new job over there! But I would have liked to +have finished one or two jobs here first!" + +She told us the story of the breaking of their moorings as they lay in +the river in a great storm of wind and of how that breaking had saved +them from colliding with another ship. "I asked," she said, "what had +happened." Someone said "Our moorings broke." I said, "No, a hand cut +them!" Then, after a moment's silence, with an expression in face and +voice which it is utterly impossible to convey, she added, "That same +Hand is cutting my moorings now, and I am going forth!" The picture +rose before you of an unfettered ship going out to the wide sea and of +the great untrammelled, unhindered soul moving majestically onwards. + +[Illustration: MISS EDITH CAVELL] + +[Illustration: DR. ELSIE INGLIS] + +There was no fear, no death! How could there be. She never thought of +her own work--she knew unity. "You did magnificently," was said to her +within an hour of her going. With all her wonted assurance and with a +touch of pride she answered, "My Unit did magnificently." + +Her loss is irreparable to us, but there is no room for sorrow. She +leaves us triumph, victory, and peace. + +Edith Cavell's name is another that shines upon our roll of +honour--the same serene great spirit--no thought of self, but only a +great love and desire to serve--and a great fearlessness. Her message, +before she went out alone at dawn to her death, which added another +stain to the enemy's pages dark with blood, was the message of one who +saw the eternal verities, the things worth living and dying for. + +Our men's Roll of Honor is a heavy Roll. We have lost in killed and +permanently out of the army, a million men and over 75 per cent of our +casualties are our own Island losses. Our women in every village and +in every city street have lost husbands, fathers, brothers, lovers and +friends. From every rank of life our men have died, the agricultural +labourer, the city clerk, the railway man, the miner, the engineer, +the business man, the poet, the journalist, the author, the artist, +the scientist, the heirs of great names, many of the most brilliant +of our young men. We comb out our mines and shipyards, and factories, +ceaselessly for more men. Our boys at eighteen go into the army. +From eighteen to forty-one every man is liable for service. Our +Universities have only a handful of men in them and these are +the disabled, the unfit, and men from other countries. Oxford and +Cambridge Colleges are full of Officers' Training Corps men. The +Examination Schools and the Town Hall at Oxford are Hospitals, and +Oxford and Cambridge streets are full of the blue-clad wounded, as +are so many of our cities. We are a nation at war, and at war for over +three years and everywhere and in everything we are changed. + +In these years we women have lived always with the shadow of the war +over us--it never leaves us, night or day. We do not live completely +where we are in these days. A bit of us is always with our men on our +many fields of war. We live partly in France and Flanders, in Italy, +in the Balkans, in Egypt and Palestine and Mesopotamia, in Africa, +with the lonely white crosses in Gallipoli, with our men who guard us +sleeping and waking, going down to the sea in ships and under the sea, +fighting death in submarines and mines, and with those who in the air +are the eyes and the winged cavalry of our forces. + +We mourn our dead, not sadly and hopelessly, though life for many of +us is emptier forever, and for many so much harder, and we wear very +little mourning. We mourn silently, and with a sure faith that our +men's supreme sacrifice is not in vain. "Greater love hath no man +than this, that he lay down his life for his friend." The little white +crosses of our graves symbolize the faith for which they die. + +The message of our soldier poets who have been created by this war +and have written immortal verse, and many of whom have died, is the +message of men who have seen through the veils of time into eternity, +who are free of life and death, whom nothing can hurt, "if it be not +the Destined Will." + +The veils of time grow thin in these days to those of us who take +Death into our reckoning all the time. We think of our men gone on +ahead as eternally young. + + "Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal + Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres. + There is music in the midst of desolation + And a glory that shines before our tears. + + * * * * * + + "They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old + Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. + At the going down of the Sun and in the morning + We will remember them." + +We know, too, though we do not often define it, that the forces we +women fight in the enemy are the forces that have left women out in +world affairs. + +Germany is the Fatherland, never, it is significant, the Motherland +as our little Islands are, and its mad dream of militarism and +_Weltmacht_ is the dream of men who deny any constructive part to +women in the great affairs of life. The hopes of all the democracies +are bound up in this struggle and its issue, and there is no real +place in the world for the true service and genius and work of women, +any more than for that of the mass of men, save in democracy. We mean +so much in these days by democracy. It seems to be indefinable in its +larger meanings. It is not a system of government, but, on the other +hand, no country can be called democratic that has not established +political freedom, and no country is truly democratic in which such +freedom is only in name, and its women are not included or a group +rule or the demagogue and the worst kind of politician hold sway. + +Democracy is not here till all serve and all are given opportunities +so that they have something of value to give to their country and +to the world. Democracy is the ever changing, ever developing, ever +creative spirit of man expressing itself in his institutions and +systems of government and relationships. + +Its quarrel with our enemies, who would impose on the mass of men +cast-iron systems, and would set up state idols to be worshipped as +higher than the Conscience and spirit of man, is so profound and goes +so deeply into knowledge and feelings that are too big for words, that +the soldier who never tries to express it but goes out and drills and +works and disciplines himself that he may present his body as a living +shield for the faith that is within him, and the woman who works with +him and behind him, healing and giving, silently, are perhaps wisest +of all. + +It is no time for words only, though right words are mighty powers, +but for living faith in deeds and the spirit of the women of all our +allied countries is swift to answer the challenge--by their works +shall ye know them. + +The spirit of our women shows, like that of the French women who +tend their farms, keep their shops, work ceaselessly everywhere, most +clearly and wonderfully in their work. In our hundreds of hospitals +night and day, they care for the wounded and the sick and the dying, +bringing consolation, love, skill, heroism, patience and all fine +things as their gift. From myriads of homes they pour forth to +their daily toil, carrying on the work of the country, educating the +children, taking the place of their men on the railways, the factory, +the workshop, the banks and offices. In the munition works, in the +shipyards, in the engineering shops, in the aeroplane sheds, they +work in tens of thousands--risking life and health in some cases, +but thinking little of it, compared with what their men are doing, +knee-deep in snow and mud and water in the trenches. "Is the work +heavy?" you ask. "Not so heavy as the soldiers'." "Are the hours +long?" "Six days and nights in the trenches are longer." "We are going +to win and you are going to help us"--and the munition girl and the +land girl and the workers answer not only with cheers and words but +answer with shells and ships and aeroplanes and submarines and food +produced and conserved, and in industrial tasks done by men and women +together. + +The enemy airships and aeroplanes bomb our cities but our girls "carry +on"--no telephone girl has left her post--there have been no panics in +our workshops. + +And the spirit of the Waac--the khaki girl--is the spirit of her +brother. + +On one occasion in France in an air raid, enemy bombs came very near +some girl signallers. They behaved splendidly and someone suggested +it should be mentioned in the Orders of the Day. "No," said the +Commanding Officer, "we don't mention soldiers in orders for doing +their duty,"--and that tribute to their attitude is deserved and the +right one. + +And, like our men, we carry on cheerfully, knowing there is only one +possible end, victory. We fight for the sanctity of the given word, +for honour, for the rights of individuals and nations, for the ideals +that have preserved humanity from barbarism, for the right of service, +for the salvation of common humanity. + +More, we women work with a feeling in our hearts that we, who bear +and cherish life, and to whom its destruction is most terrible, have +a great work to do and a great part to play in the settlement of the +problem of war in the future. + +The transmutation of the struggles of mankind from the physical to the +spiritual, the solution of national and international problems, the +solution of all the riddles of life that demand an answer or man's +conquest, cannot be done by man alone. It is our task also and to +the great work of building up a new world after we emerge from this +crucible of fire in which the souls of the nations are being tested, +the spirit of women has much to bring. + + + + +ORGANIZATION AND ITS PITFALLS + + "The more they gazed, the more their wonder grew + That one small head could carry all she knew." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +ORGANIZATION AND ITS PITFALLS + + +There are people who declare that the winning of this war depends on +organization alone. That is palpably untrue. Good organization can do +much. The greatest thing in all organizations is the living flame that +makes grouping real--the selfless spirit of service that the fighting +man possesses and that is beyond all words of praise. + +Talk to a soldier or a sailor, realize how he thinks and +feels about his ship, his battalion, his aircorps. He is +subordinated--selfless--disciplined. The secret of the good soldiers' +achievements and his greatness is selfless service and in our national +organizations behind him that same spirit is the one great thing that +counts. + +If you have that as a foundation among your workers, organization is +easy. + +We found, at the beginning of the war, a great tendency among women to +rush into direct war work. Masses of women wanted to leave work they +knew everything about to go and do work they knew nothing about. +One thing we have realized, that the trained and educated woman is +invaluable, that the best service you can render your country is to do +the work you know best and are trained for, if it is, as it frequently +is, important civic work. Another point, no younger woman should stop +her education or training--it is the greatest mistake possible. The +war is not over and even when it is, the great task of reconstruction +lies ahead and we want every trained woman we can get for that. Our +women are in Universities and Colleges in greater numbers than ever, +and more opportunities for education, in Medicine in particular have +been opened to them. + +The trained woman makes the best worker in practically every +department and is particularly useful in organizing. A scheme that +is only indifferently good but, so far as it goes, is on right lines, +well organized and directed, will be more valuable and get far better +results than a perfect scheme badly organized and run. An organization +or a committee that has a woman as Chairman, President or Secretary, +who insists on running everything and deciding everything for herself, +is bound for disaster. + +I should certainly place the will and ability to delegate authority +high up in the qualifications a good organizer must possess. + +We cannot afford to have little petty jealousies, social, local, and +individual, on war committees or any other for that matter, but in +this big struggle, they are particularly petty and unworthy. + +We have all met frequently the kind of person who tells you, "This +village will never work with that village," or "Mrs. This will never +work with Mrs. That. They never do"; and I always answer, "Isn't it +time they learned to, when their boys die in the trenches together, +why shouldn't they work together," and they always do when it is put +to them. + +There is no difficulty in getting women to work together in our +country. We have a link in our Roll of Honor that is more unifying +than any words or arguments or appeals can be. Our women of every rank +of life are closely drawn together. + +The appeal to women is to organize for National Service and to realize +that work of national importance is likely not to be at all important +work. + +The women in important places in all our countries will be few in +proportion, but the struggle will be won in the Nation, as in the +Army, by the army of the myriads of faithful workers faithfully +performing tasks of drudgery and quiet service--and a realization of +this is the greatest need. + +Sticking to the work is of supreme importance. We do not want people +who take up something with great enthusiasm and drop it in a few +months. Nothing is achieved by that. + +The good organizer sees her workers do not "grow weary in well doing." + +Another important work in organization is to prevent waste of +material, effort and money, by co-ordination whenever possible, +though I should say, as a broad principle, co-ordination should not +be carried to the point of merging together kinds of work that make +a different appeal for work and money and require different treatment +and knowledge and powers. The best results are reached by securing +concentration of appeal and organization on one big issue and getting +the work done by a group directly and keenly interested in the one big +thing and with enthusiasm for it and knowledge of it. + +In the personnel of committees and their composition our women have +made it a definite policy to secure the appointment of women to all +Government and National Committees on which our presence would be +useful and on which we ought to be represented and we always prefer +committees of men and women together, unless it be for anything that +is distinctly better served by women's committees. + +There is one pitfall in organization into which women fall more +readily than men in my experience. Our instinct as women is to want +to make everything perfect. We instinctively run to detail and to a +desire for absolute accuracy and perfection. + +This is invaluable in many ways, but in organizing on a big scale +may be a serious fault. There must, of course, be method, order +and accuracy, but the great essential to secure in big things is +harmonious working--not to insist on a rigid sameness but to allow for +widely divergent views and attitudes and ways of doing things so long +as the essential rules are observed. We should not insist too much +on identity in the way of work of different places and districts. +In essentials--unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, +charity--that might well be the wise organizer's motto. + +The supplementing of governmental organization by national voluntary +organization is a great piece of work and in the beginning of the war, +and still, many of our organizations, voluntary or semi-official in +character, were of great service. The work of the Soldiers and Sailors +Families' Association is an example. The S. and S.F.A. had been +created in the South African War and in peace time and war time looked +after the dependants of the soldier and sailor. Its committees were +composed of men and women--and it administered voluntary funds and +later grants from the National Relief Fund, raised at the outbreak of +war. + +When war broke out, all the Reservists were called up and our men +volunteered in tens of thousands. The pay offices of the army, being +small like everything else in our army, could not cope quickly with +the numbers of claims for allowances pouring in, but the S. and S.F.A. +stepped into the breach and looked after the dependants. It secured +vast numbers more of women in every town and village who visited every +dependant and looked after them. They advanced the allowances which +were paid back to them later--and this started in the first week of +the war. They gave additional grants in certain hard cases for rent, +sickness or in event of deaths in family at home. Every home was +visited and no dependant needed to be in distress or want--S. and +S.F.A. offices existed in every town and representatives in every +village and any difficulty or trouble could be brought to them. The +whole of this work is done voluntarily. In some cases workrooms were +started from which sewing and knitting for soldiers and sailors were +given to the dependents and paid for. It was not only the money and +practical help that was of great service--the S. and S.F.A. visitor to +the soldier's wife and mother brought sympathy and help and interest. + +Another movement for soldiers and sailors dependents was the founding +of clubs for them in many towns. One hundred and thirty-five of these +clubs are linked up now in the United Services Clubs League. They are +bright, cheery rooms in which the women can find newspapers, books, +music, amusement, and opportunity to sew or knit comforts, can meet +their friends and talk. + +The Royal Patriotic Fund was another semi-official organization which +was run voluntarily, gave grants at death of soldier or sailor and +administered pensions. It is now entirely merged in the Naval and +Military War Pensions Statutory Committee and local committees set +up in January, 1916, which administer all grants, pensions, wound +gratuities, etc., and looks after dependants. + +Women sit on the Statutory Committee and there must be women members +on every County, Borough and City War Pensions Committee in our +country. + +The organization of war charities is now in England controlled by the +War Charities Committee appointed by the Government in April, 1916. +The committee controls not only what could be strictly termed War +Charities, but all war agencies of any kind for which appeals for +funds are made to the public. These organizations must be registered +and approved by the committee, and their accounts must be open to +inspection and audit. This was a wise and necessary step, not so much +because of actual fraudulent appeals--there has been practically none +of that, but there was a certain amount of overlapping and of waste of +money, material and energy, and some very few organizations in which +an undue proportion of funds raised was absorbed in expenses. Comforts +for soldiers and prisoners of war parcels are also now co-ordinated +under two national committees. + +The first work of registering Belgian refugees and of providing French +and Flemish interpreters was done by a voluntary organization--the +London Society for Women's Suffrage (a branch of N.U.W.S.S.), which +has always been notable for its admirable organization. It provided +150 interpreters for this work in a few days, and work was carried on +at all the London Centres from early morning till midnight. When the +Government took over the charge of Belgian refugees, the system of +registration used by the London Society was adopted without change by +them and the organizer in charge was taken over also and put in a very +responsible position at the War Refugees Committee's Headquarters. + +The work of our Government Employment Exchanges (which were +established before the War by the Board of Trade) and are now under +the Ministry of Labour--has been supplemented by various Professional +Women's Bureaus, by the compiling of a Professional Women's Register, +secured through Universities, Colleges, Headmistresses' Association, +etc., and by the setting up of the Women's Service Bureau by the +London Society for Women Suffrage (N.U.W.S.S.). Various women's +organizations have established most valuable clearing houses for +voluntary workers in Scotland and England and Wales. The Women's +Service Bureau has dealt with 40,000 applications for voluntary and +paid work--mostly paid. Its interviewers take the greatest trouble to +place these applicants suitably, and to find out just what they can do +or would be good at doing. + +Our biggest Government arsenal secured their first munition +supervisors through it--and the Government Departments, big firms, +factories, organizations, banks, workshops, institutions of any kind, +send to it for workers. + +It not only finds these posts without charge--it is supported entirely +by voluntary contribution--but it has a loan and grant fund to enable +women and girls without money to pay for training and maintenance. + +Its records and the letters in its flies provide reading that is +as absorbing as any novel, and it was one of the wise agencies that +realized the older woman had a place and could help as well as the +younger ones. + +To find the person and the post and to put them together is its +fascinating and admirably done task. + +The organization done by women in Britain has been notable and +admirable. + +I can only touch on some of it and must leave out much, but it is +worth while noting that there has been very little overlapping in the +work. The total percentage of overlapping was estimated by the War +Charities Committee on their investigation at 10 per cent and of that +only a very small amount was due to women. + + + + +WOMEN HAVE SERVED OR ARE SERVING ON THE FOLLOWING GOVERNMENT +COMMITTEES. + + +Belgian Refugees' Committee. 1914. + +Clerical and Commercial Occupation Committee, do (Scotland.) 1915. + +Disabled Officers and Men. + +Education After the War. April, 1916. + +Educational Reform. (August, 1916.) + +Food, Committee of Inquiry Into High Cost of--June, 1916. + +Advisory Committee on Women in Industry. March, 1916. + +Labor Commission to Deal with Industrial Unrest. (Ministry of Labor.) +June, 1917. + +Munitions Central Labor Supply Committee. + +Munitions, Arbitration Tribunals. + +Munitions, Committee on the Supply and Organization of Women's Service +in Canteens, Hostels, Clubs, etc. December, 1916. + +Naval and Military War Pensions Statutory Committee. January, 1916. + +Nurses, Supply of--October, 1916. + +Polish Victims' Relief Fund. + +Prevention and Relief of Distress. 1914. + +Professional Classes Sub-Committee. + +Prisoners of War Help Committee. + +Reconstruction Committee. (To advise the Government on the many +national problems which will arise at the end of the war.) 1916. + +Shops: Committee of Inquiry, to Consider Conditions of Retail Trade to +Secure the Enlistment of Men. (November, 1915.) + +Teachers' Salaries. Departmental Committee of Enquiry. June, 1917. + +War Charities. April, 1916. + +National War Savings Committee. April, 1916. + + +COMMITTEES EXCLUSIVELY COMPOSED OF WOMEN. + +Committee, Report on Joint Standing Industrial Councils. 1917. + +Women's Wages Committee. 1917. + +Central Committee on Women's Employment. 1914. + +Drinking Among Women, Committee of Enquiry. November, 1915. + +There are also two women on the-- + +Executive Committee of National Relief Fund. + +Ministry of Food has two women Co-Directors-- + + Mrs. C.S. Peel + Mrs. Pember Reeves + + + + +HOSPITALS--RED CROSS--V.A.D. + + "Come, ye blessed of my Father; + I was sick and ye visited me." + + --MATT., Chap. 25. + + + "A lady with a lamp shall stand + In the great history of the land, + A noble type of good + Heroic womanhood." + + --H.W. LONGFELLOW, "To Florence Nightingale." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +HOSPITALS--RED CROSS--V.A.D. + + +When war broke out on August 4, 1914, probably the only women in our +country who knew exactly how they could help, and would be used in the +war, were our nurses in the Navy and Army nursing services. + +In the Army, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service +had in it at that time about 280 members, matrons, sisters and staff +nurses, Miss Becher, R.R.C., being Matron-in-Chief for Military +Hospitals. The Q.A.I.M.N.S. had a large Reserve which was also +immediately called out and these nurses were used at once, six parties +being sent to France and Belgium by August 20th. + +The Second Branch was the Territorial Force Nursing Service, which was +in 1914 eight years old. It was initiated by Miss Haldane and a draft +scheme of an establishment of nurses willing to serve in general +hospitals in the event of the Territorial Forces being mobilized, was +submitted at a meeting held in Miss Haldane's house, Sir Alfred Keogh, +Medical Director General, being present. This scheme was approved and +an Advisory Council appointed at the War Office. + +The Matrons of the largest and most important nurse-training centres +in the Kingdom were appointed as principal matrons (unpaid) and to +them the success of this Force is largely due. They received the +applications of matrons, sisters and nurses willing to join, looked +after their references and submitted them, after approval by the Local +Committee, to the Advisory Council. To their splendid work was due the +ease of the vast mobilization of nurses when war broke out. There were +then 3,000 nurses on their rolls. On August 5th they were called out +and in ten days 23 Territorial General Hospitals in England, Wales and +Scotland were ready to receive the wounded and the nurses were also +ready. + +Each hospital had 520 beds, but this accommodation was quite +inadequate after a few months of war, and the accommodation of +practically every hospital was increased to 1,000 to 3,000 beds and +many Auxiliary Hospitals had to be organized. By June, 1915, the +Territorial Nursing Staff was 4,000 in number and in Hospitals in +France and in Belgium and in clearing stations, there were over 400 +Territorial Nurses as well as Imperial Nurses. + +The Naval Nurses were about 70 in number with a Reserve, and their +Reserve was called up at once also, and they went to their various +Hospitals. The other two great organizations, the British Red Cross +and the order of St. John of Jerusalem, now working together through +the joint committee set up to administer the _Times_ Fund for the Red +Cross, which has reached over $30,000,000, had their schemes also. In +time of war they are controlled by the War Office and Admiralty. The +Red Cross had, since 1909, organized Voluntary Aid Detachments to +give voluntary aid to the sick and wounded in the event of war in home +territory. There were 60,000 men and women trained in transport work, +cooking, laundry, first aid and home nursing. St. John's ambulance had +the same system of ambulance workers and V.A.D.'s to call on. + +As the war proceeded it was quite clear that the nursing staffs, +though we had secured 3,000 more trained nurses through the Red Cross +in the first few weeks of the war, would be quite inadequate, and it +was found necessary to use V.A.D.'s and to open V.A.D. Hospitals, +most of them being established in large private houses lent for the +purpose. Within nine months there were 800 of these at work in every +part of England, Scotland and Wales. The V.A.D.'s suffered a little +at first from confusion with the ladies who insisted on rushing off to +France after taking a ten day's course in first aid. We had suffered +a great deal from that kind of thing in the South African War and +were determined to have no repetition of it, so they were firmly and +decisively removed from France without delay. + +[Illustration: FIRST AMBULANCE ON DUTY IN THE FIRST ZEPPELIN RAID ON +LONDON] + +To get more trained nurses, rules were relaxed and the age limit +raised. Many nurses, retired and married, returned to work, but very +quickly it was perfectly clear our trained nurses were inadequate in +number for the great work before us, and in less than a year in most +hospitals every ward had one V.A.D. worker assisting who had been +nominated by her Commandant and County Director, and in March, 1915, +the Hospitals were asked by the Director General of the Army Medical +Service to train V.A.D.'s in large numbers as probationers, for +three or six months, to fit them for work under trained nurses. +Every possible woman, trained or partially trained, was mobilized and +thousands have been trained during the three years of war, and V.A.D. +members have been drafted to military and Red Cross Hospitals, abroad +and at home, in addition to doing the work of the V.A.D. Hospitals. A +V.A.D. Hospital with a hundred beds will have two trained nurses, and +all the other work is done by V.A.D.'s. The Commandant-in-Chief now +is Lady Ampthill. Dame Katharine Furse was Commandant-in-Chief until +quite recently, but is now head of the new Women's Royal Navy Service. + +Many have gone to France and done distinguished work and there is no +body of women in our country who have done more faithful and useful +work than our V.A.D.'s, who nurse, cook and wash dishes, serve meals, +scrub the floors, look after the linen and do everything for the +comfort and welfare of our men, with a capacity, zeal and endurance +beyond praise. About 60,000 women have helped in this way. Our nurses +and V.A.D.'s have distinguished themselves at home and abroad. +They have been in casualty lists on all our fronts. They have been +decorated for bravery and for heroic work. The full value of all +they have done cannot yet be appraised. They have spent themselves +unceasingly in caring for our men. They have nursed them with shells +falling around. Hospitals have frequently been shelled and in one +case two nurses worked in a theatre, wearing steel helmets during the +bombardment, with patients who were under anaesthetics and could not +be moved. They have waited out beside men who could not be got in from +under shell fire of the enemy until darkness fell. Two V.A.D. nurses +in another raid saw to the removal of all their patients to cellars +and, while they themselves were entering the cellars after everyone +was safe, bombs fell upon the building they had just left and +completely demolished it. Some of our nurses have died of typhus. They +have been wounded in Hospitals and on Hospital Trains, and they have +done all their work as cheerfully and with the same high courage +as our men have. We have had helping us in our nursing numbers of +Canadian nurses, not only for the beautiful Canadian Hospital at +Beechborough Park, but for many other Hospitals in England and France, +and nurses from Australia and New Zealand. + +We have had American nurses, also, but these will now be absorbed, as +needed, by the American Army in France. + +The records of our Medical women in the war are among the very best. +The belief that nursing was woman's work but that medicine and surgery +were not, was dying before the war, but it existed, and it was the +war that gave it the final death blow. Immediately war broke out Dr. +Louisa Garrett Anderson, a daughter of our pioneer woman doctor, Dr. +Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, and Dr. Flora Murray formed the Women's +Hospital Corps, a complete small unit and offered it to the British +Government. It was refused but accepted by the French Government, +and was established by them at Claridge's Hotel in Paris, where it +did admirable work. Its work aroused the interest and admiration of +the British Royal Army Medical Corps, and they were asked to form a +Hospital at Wimereux, which afterwards amalgamated with the R.A.M.C. +Later Sir Alfred Keogh established them in Endell Street, London, +where they have a Hospital of over 700 beds. The women surgeons and +doctors and staff are graded for purposes of pay in the same way as +men members of R.A.M.C. + +In July, 1916, the War Office asked for the services of 80 medical +women for work at home and abroad, and later for 50 more. + +The Women's Service League sent a unit to Antwerp which did some +excellent work, though it was there only a very short time. The +members of the unit were among the last to leave the city, escaping in +the last car to cross the bridge before it was blown up. + +The work of the Scottish Women's Hospitals, organized by the Scottish +Federation of the Nation Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, and +initiated by Dr. Elsie Inglis, of Edinburgh, would require a volume +to themselves, and American women, who have given so generously and +so freely to them, know a great deal about their work. The first +unit went to Royaumont in France, and established itself at the old +Abbaye there. It stood from the beginning in the very first rank for +efficiency. A leading French expert, Chief of the Pasteur Laboratory +in Paris, speaking of this Hospital, said he had inspected hundreds +of military Hospitals, but not one which commanded his admiration so +completely as this. Another unit was sent to Troyes and was maintained +by the students of Newnham and Girton Colleges. Dr. Elsie Inglis's +greatest work began in April, 1915, when her third unit went to +Serbia, where she may he truly said to have saved the Serbian nation +from despair. The typhus epidemic had at the time of her arrival +carried off one-third of the Serbian Army Medical Corps, and the +epidemic threatened the very existence of the Serbian Army. She +organized four great Hospital Units, initiated every kind of needful +sanitary precaution, looked into every detail, regardless of her +own safety and comfort, hesitating at no task, however loathsome and +terrible. Her constant message to the Serbian Medical Headquarters +Staff was "Tell me where your need is greatest without respect to +difficulties, and we will do our best to help Serbia and her brave +soldiers." + +Two nurses and one of the doctors died of typhus. Miss Margaret Neil +Fraser, the famous golfer, was one of those who died there, and many +beds were endowed in the Second Unit in her memory. + +The Third Serbian Unit when on its way out was commandeered by Lord +Methuen at Malta for service among our own wounded troops, a service +they were glad to render. Later when the Germans and Austrians overran +Serbia, one of the Units retreated with the Serbian Army, but the +one in which Dr. Inglis was, remained at Kralijevo where she refused +to leave her Serbian wounded, knowing they would die without her +care. She was captured with her staff and, after difficulties and +indignities and discomforts, were released by the Austrians and +returned through Switzerland to England. On her return she urged +the War Office to send her, and her Unit, to Mesopotamia. Rumors had +already reached England of the terrible state of things there from +the medical point of view, which was fully revealed later by the +Mesopotamian Commission. She was refused permission to go, though it +is perfectly clear their assistance would have been invaluable and +ought to have been used. Once more she returned to help the Serbians +and established Units in the Balkans and South Russia. The Serbian +people have shown every token of gratitude and of honor which it +was in their power to bestow upon her. The people in 1916 put up a +fountain in her honor at Mladenovatz, and the Serbian Crown Prince +conferred on her the highest honor Serbia has to give, the First Order +of the White Eagle. Dr. Inglis died, on November 26th, three days +after bringing her Unit safely home from South Russia. Memorial +services were held in her honor at St. Margaret's, Westminster, and +in St. Giles's Cathedral, Edinburgh. Those who were there speak of +it not as a funeral but as a triumph. The streets were thronged; all +Edinburgh turned out to do her homage as she went to her last resting +place. The Scottish Command was represented and lent the gun-carriage +on which the coffin was borne and the Union Jack which covered it. + +[Illustration: "SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE"] + +In the Cathedral the Rev. Dr. Wallace Williamson, Dean of the Order of +The Thistle, said: "We are assembled this day with sad but proud and +grateful hearts to remember before God a very dear and noble lady, +our beloved sister, Elsie Inglis, who has been called to her rest. We +mourn only for ourselves, not for her. She has died as she lived, in +the clear light of faith and self-forgetfulness, and now her name is +linked forever with the great souls who have led the van of womanly +service for God and man. A wondrous union of strength and tenderness, +of courage and sweetness, she remains for us a bright and noble memory +of high devotion and stainless honor.... Especially today, in the +presence of representatives of the land for which she died, we think +of her as an immortal link between Serbia and Scotland, and as a +symbol of that high courage which will sustain us, please God, till +that stricken land is once again restored, and till the tragedy of +war is eradicated and crowned with God's great gifts of peace and of +righteousness." + +The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies also sent the +Millicent Fawcett Unit, named after its honoured President, to Russia +in 1916 to work among the Polish refugees, especially to do maternity +nursing, and work among the children. + +In February a Maternity Unit started work in Petrograd. With an +excellent staff of women doctors, nurses and orderlies, the little +hospital proved a veritable haven of helpfulness to the distressed +refugee mothers. It soon established so good a reputation for its +thorough and disinterested work that the help of the workers was asked +for by the Moscow Union of Zemstovos (Town and Rural Councils) for +Middle Russia and Galicia. + +In May the Millicent Fawcett Hospital Units were sent out and at +Kazan on the Volga a badly needed Children's Hospital for infectious +diseases was opened. The only other hospital in the place was so full +that it had two patients in each bed. They had a fierce fight against +diphtheria and scarlet fever, which in many cases was very bad, and +they succeeded in saving most of the children, who would certainly +have died in their miserable homes. + +In the summer, the Units took over a small hospital at Stara Chilnoe, +a district without a doctor, and they treated not only refugees, +but the peasants who came in daily in crowds from the surrounding +districts. Other Units of the same kind were started in remote +districts and in summer a Holiday Home at Suida was run to which the +women and children could come from the Petrograd Maternity Hospital +for a rest. They also took charge of two hospitals, temporarily +without any medical staff, in a remote part of the Kazan district, +where they were objects of the most intense curiosity. + +The interpreters were kept busy answering questions about the ages, +salaries and husbands of the staff, and the nurses' wrist watches +roused great excitement. + +That their gratitude and kindness was very real, though their notions +of suitability of place and time were primitive, was shown by the gift +of three live hens being dumped, at 4 a.m., on the bed of a sister +sound asleep. + +The final piece of work was the establishing of an infectious Hospital +for peasants and soldiers in Volhynia, sixty miles behind the firing +line in Galicia. This was done at the urgent request of the Zemstovos +Union. + +There they had to deal with a great deal of smallpox and in another +case with scabies which they stamped out in one small village. These +Units left Russia before the recent changes, but their work was +valuable and appreciated, and again American women helped us in +raising the necessary funds, having subscribed $7,500 towards the +Units. + +One of the workers, Ruth Holden, of Radcliffe College, Boston, died in +one of the epidemics. We have had American women, as we have had men, +helping us from the beginning of the war. The American Women's War +Relief Fund most generously offered to fully equip and maintain a +surgical hospital of 250 beds at Oldway House, Paignton, South Devon, +at the beginning of the war, and this offer was gratefully accepted by +the War Office through the Red Cross Society. + +They also gifted six motor ambulances for use at the front--and these +and the hospital have been of the very greatest service to our wounded +men. + +Others of our medical women are with mixed Units, such as The Wounded +Allies' Relief Committee. Dr. Dickinson Berry went out with others in +a Unit from the Royal Free Hospital to help the Serbian Government, +and Dr. Alice Clark is in the Friends' Unit. + +Our medical women have won rich laurels and have established +themselves in their own profession permanently and thoroughly. Behind +the Hospitals, we have the thousands of women who every day are +working at the Hospital Supply Depots of our country. These are +everywhere and nothing is more wonderful than the way in which our +voluntary workers have gone on faithfully working, conforming to +discipline and hours and steady service as conscientiously as any paid +worker. + +The organizing ability displayed by our women in this amounts to +genius. The buying of material, cutting and making up, parcelling, +storing, and packing of gigantic supplies, all the secretarial and +clerical work involved has been the work of women and mostly of women +of the leisured classes, many of them without any previous training. +From the organization of the big schemes of supply down to such work +as the collecting of sphagnum moss, everything that was needed has +been done, and done well. + + + + +"BRINGING 'BLIGHTY' TO THE SOLDIER" + + "It's a long, long way to Tipperary, + But my heart's right there." + + "Cheero." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +"BRINGING 'BLIGHTY' TO THE SOLDIER" + + +"Blighty" is Home, the British soldiers in India's corruption of the +Hindustanee, and Blighty is a word we all know well now. + +The full records of this are not easy to give--so much has been done. +Perhaps the simplest way is to begin with the soldier at the training +camp and follow him through his soldier's existence. The first work +lies in giving him comforts, and the women of our country still knit +a good deal and in the early days knitted, as you do now to get your +supplies, in trains and tubes and theatres and concerts, and public +meetings. This was happening while many of our working women were +without work and it was felt that this was likely to compete very +seriously with the work of these women. The Queen realized there was +likely to be hardships through this and also that there would probably +be a great waste of material if voluntary effort was not wisely +guided. So she called at Buckingham Palace a committee of women +to consider the position and Queen Mary's Needlework Guild was the +outcome of it. The following official statement, issued on August 21, +1914, intimated the Queen's wishes and policy. + + Queen Mary's Needlework Guild has received representations to + the effect that the provision of garments by voluntary labor + may have the consequence of depriving of their employment + workpeople who would have been engaged for wages in the making + of the same garments for contractors to the Government. A very + large part of the garments collected by the Guild consists, + however, of articles which would not in the ordinary course + have been purchased by the Government. They include additional + comforts for the soldiers and sailors actually serving, and + for the sick and wounded in hospital, clothing for members of + their families who may fall into distress, and clothing to + be distributed by the local committees for the prevention and + relieving of distress among families who may be suffering from + unemployment owing to the war. If these garments were not made + by the voluntary labor of women who are willing to do their + share of work for the country in the best way open to them, + they would not, in the majority of cases, be made at all. The + result would be that families in distress would receive in + the winter no help in the form of clothing, and the soldiers + and the sailors and the men in hospitals would not enjoy + the additional comforts that would be provided. The Guild is + informed that flannel shirts, socks, and cardigan jackets + are a Government issue for soldiers; flannel vest, socks, and + jerseys for sailors; pajama suits, serge gowns for military + hospitals; underclothing, flannel gowns and flannel waistcoats + for naval hospitals. Her Majesty the Queen is most anxious + that work done for the Needlework Guild should not have a + harmful effect on the employment of men, women, and girls in + the trades concerned, and therefore desires that the workers + of the Guild should devote themselves to the making of + garments other than those which would, in the ordinary course, + be bought by the War Office and Admiralty. All kinds of + garments will be needed for distribution in the winter if + there is exceptional distress. + + The Queen would remind those that are assisting the Guild that + garments which are bought from the shops and are sent to the + Guild are equally acceptable, and their purchases would have + the additional advantage of helping to secure the continuance + of employment of women engaged in their manufacture. It is, + however, not desirable that any appeal for funds should be + made for this purpose which would conflict with the collection + of the Prince of Wales's Fund. + +Branches of Queen Mary's Needlework Guild were started everywhere +and the Mayoresses of practically every town in the Kingdom organized +their own towns. Gifts came from all over the world and a book kept +at Friary Court, St. James', records the gifts received from Greater +Britain and the neutral countries. + +The demand for comforts was very great and in ten months the gross +number of articles received was 1,101,105, but this did not represent +anything like all. It was the Queen's wish that the branches of her +Guild should be free to do as they wished in distribution, send to +local regiments, or regiments quartered in the neighborhood, or use +them for local distress. Great care was taken to see there was no +overlapping, and this is secured fully by Sir Edward Ward's Committee. + +Our men have been well looked after in the way of comforts, socks and +mitts and gloves and jerseys, and mufflers and gloves for minesweepers +and helmets, everything they needed, and the Regimental Comforts Funds +and work still exists as well, all co-ordinated now. + +The Fleet has also had fresh vegetables supplied to it the whole time +by a voluntary agency. + +At the Training Camps, in France, in every field of war, we have the +Y.M.C.A., and there is no soldier in these days and no civilian who +does not know the Red Triangle. There are over 1,000 huts in Britain +and over 150 in France. It is the sign that means something to eat and +something warm to drink, somewhere cozy and warm out of the cold and +chill and damp of winter camp and trench, somewhere to write a letter, +somewhere to read and talk, somewhere that brings all of "Blighty" +that can come to the field of war. In our Y.M.C.A. huts, 30,000 +women work. In the camp towns we have also the Guest Houses, run by +voluntary organizations of women. In the Town Halls we have teas and +music and in our houses we entertain overseas troops as our guests. + +Our men move in thousands to and from the front, going and on leave, +moving from one camp to another, and Victoria Station, Charing Cross +and Waterloo are names written deep in our hearts these days. We have +free buffets for our fighting men at all of these, and at all our +London stations and ports, and these are open night and day. All the +money needed is found by voluntary subscriptions. + +Our men come in on the leave train straight from the trenches, loaded +up with equipment, with their rifles canvas-covered to keep them dry +and clean, with Flanders mud caked upon them to the waist, very tired, +with that look they all bring home from the trenches in their eyes, +but in Blighty and trying to forget how soon they have to go back. The +buffets are there for them, and those who have no one to meet them in +London and who have to travel north or west or east to go home, are +met by men and women who direct them where to go by day and motor them +across London to their station at night. The leave trains that get +in on Sunday morning brings Scottish soldiers that cannot leave till +evening, and St. Columba's, Church of Scotland, has stepped into the +breach. The women meet the train, carry off the soldier for breakfast +in the Hall, which is ready, and they entertain them all day. +Thousands have been entertained in this way, and "It's just home," +said one Gordon Highlander. + +The soldier is in France and there he finds we have sent him Blighty, +too--canteens and Y.M.C.A. Huts. Our books and our magazines, +everything we can think of and send, goes to every field of war. + +He is followed where he can be by amusement and entertainment. Concert +parties are arranged by our actors and actresses, and they go out +and sing and act and amuse our men behind the lines. Lena Ashwell has +organized Concert parties and done a great work in this way. + +Such work as Miss McNaughton's, recorded in her "Diary of the War," +and for which she was decorated before her death, largely caused by +overwork, as Lady Dorothie Fielding's ambulance work, for which she +also was decorated, and the work of the "Women of Pervyse" stand out, +even among the wonderful things done by individual women in this war. + +The "Women of Pervyse," Mrs. Knocker, now the Baronnes de T'Serclas, +and Miss Mairi Chisholm, went out with the Field Ambulance Committee, +and were quartered with others at Ghent before and during and after +the siege of Antwerp. When the ambulance trains started to come in +from Antwerp they worked day and night moving the wounded from the +station to the hospitals--they worked for hours under fire moving +wounded, unperturbed and unshaken. + +After the battle of Dixmude and the armies had settled on the +Neuport-Ypres line, Mrs. Knocker started the Pervyse Poste de Secours +Anglis, a dressing station so close to the firing line that the +wounded could literally be lifted to it from the trenches. + +There they have worked and cared for the men in conditions almost +incredible. In February, 1915, they were decorated by King Albert, and +since March they have been permanently attached to the Third Division +of the Belgian Army. + +In June, 1915, they were mentioned in dispatches for saving life under +heavy fire. They have saved hundreds of lives by being where they can +render aid so swiftly, and the military authorities do not move them, +not only because they wish to pay tribute to their valor but because +they are so valuable. + +Most of all, "Blighty" goes to the soldier in his letters and there +is nothing so dear to the soldier as his letters, and nothing is worse +than to have "no mail." The woman who does not write, and the woman +who writes the wrong things, are equally poor things. The woman who +wants to help her man sends him bright cheerful letters, not letters +about difficulties he can't help, and that will only worry him, but +letters with all the news he would like to have, and the messages that +count for so much. Every woman who writes to a soldier has in that an +influence and a power worthy of all her best. Not only our letters but +our thoughts and our prayers are a wall of strength to, and behind our +men. + +In this war some have talked of spiritual manifestations that +saved disaster in our great retreat. In that people may believe or +disbelieve, but no person of intelligence fails to realize the power +of thought, and love, and hope, and the spirit of women can be a +great power to their men in arms. There are so many ways of giving and +sending that none of us need to fail. + +Then he is in it--in the trenches--over the top--and he may be safe +or he may be wounded--a "Blighty one," as our men say, and we get him +home to nurse and care for--or he may make the supreme sacrifice and +only the message goes home. + +To everyone it must go with something of the consolation of the poem +written by Rifleman S. Donald Cox of the London Rifle Brigade. + + "To My Mother--1916 + + "If I should fall, grieve not that one so weak + And poor as I + Should die. + Nay, though thy heart should break, + Think only this: that when at dusk they speak + Of sons and brothers of another one, + Then thou canst say, 'I, too, had a son, + He died for England's sake,'" + +He may be a prisoner and then we follow him again. There are over +40,000 of our men prisoners and we have over 200,000 of the enemy. The +treatment and conditions of our prisoners in Germany were sometimes +terrible--the horrors of Wittenberg we can never forget, and we are +deeply indebted to the American Red Cross, for all it did before +America's entry into the war, for our prisoners. + +From the beginning of the war we have had to feed our prisoners, and +for the first two years parcels of food went from mothers, sisters and +relatives of the men. Regimental Funds were raised and parcels sent +through these. Girls' Clubs and the League of Honour and Churches and +groups of many kinds sent also. The Savoy Association had a large fund +and did a great work. + +Parcels, which must weigh under eleven pounds, go free to prisoners +of war and there are some regulations about what may be sent. Now the +whole work is regulated by the Prisoners of War Help Committee--an +official committee, and parcels are sent out under their supervision +to every man in captivity. + +Books, games and clothing also go out from us. In most of the Camps +and at Ruhleben, where our civilians are interned, studies are carried +on, and classes of instruction, and technical and educative books are +much needed and demanded. Schools and colleges have sent out large +supplies of these. + +We have also raised funds for the Belgian Prisoners of War in Germany. + +We have exchanged prisoners with Germany and have secured the release +and internment in Switzerland of some hundreds of our worst wounded, +and permanently disabled, and tubercular and consumptive men. In +Switzerland, among the beautiful mountains, they are finding happiness +and health again and many of them are working at new trades and +training. + +We sent out their wives to see them and some girls went to marry their +released men. Some of our prisoners have escaped from Germany and +reached us safely after many risks and adventures. + +"Blighty" goes out to our men also in our Chaplains, the "Padres" +of our forces, and many times soldiers have talked to me of their +splendid "Padre" in Gallipoli, or France or Egypt. They have died with +the men, bringing water and help and trying to bring in the wounded. +They have been decorated with the V.C., our highest honor, the simple +bronze cross given "For Valour." They write home to mothers and wives +and relatives of the men who fall, and send last messages and words of +consolation. + +Their task is a great one, for to men who face death all the time, +and see their dearest friends killed beside them, things eternal are +living realities and there are questions for which they want answers. +There is so much the Padre has to give and his messages are listened +to in a new way and words are winged and living where these men are. + +We have so many of our men from overseas among us who are far from +their own homes, and in London we have Clubs for the Canadians, the +Australians, the New Zealanders, for the two together, immortally to +be known as the "Anzacs," and for the South Africans, where they can +all find a bit of home. We have also just opened American Huts and +the beautiful officers' Club at Lord Leconfield's house, lent for the +purpose. + +For the permanently disabled soldier we are doing a great deal. St. +Dunstan's, the wonderful training school for the blind, has been the +very special work of Sir Arthur Pearson, who is himself blind, and +Lady Pearson. + +The Lord Roberts Workshops for the disabled are doing splendid work in +training and bringing hope to seriously crippled men. + +The British Women's Hospital for which our women have raised $500,000, +is on the site of the old Star and Garter Hotel at Richmond, and is to +be for permanently disabled men. + +There, overlooking our beautiful river, men who have been broken in +the wars for us, may find a permanent home in this monument of our +women's love and gratitude. + + + + +WOMAN-POWER FOR MAN-POWER + + + "She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. + She is like the merchant's ships; she bringeth her food from afar. + + * * * * * + + "She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms. + + * * * * * + + "Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in + time to come." + + --PROV., Chap. 31. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +WOMAN-POWER FOR MAN-POWER + + +The first result of the outbreak of war for women was to throw +thousands of them out of work. + +Nobody knew--not even the ablest financial and commercial men--just +what a great European war was going to mean, and luxury trades ceased +to get orders; women journalists, women writers, women lecturers, and +women workers of every type were thrown out of work and unemployment +was very great. + +A National Relief Fund was started for general distress and the Queen +dealt in the ablest manner with the women's problem. She issued this +appeal: "In the firm belief that prevention of distress is better than +its relief, and employment is better than charity, I have inaugurated +the 'Queen's Work for Women Fund,' Its object is to provide employment +for as many as possible of the women of this country who have been +thrown out of work by the war. I appeal to the women of Great Britain +to help their less fortunate sisters through the fund. + +"MARY R." + +This appeal was instantly responded to and large sums were subscribed. +A very representative Committee of Women was established, with Miss +Mary MacArthur, the well known Trade Union leader, as Hon. Secretary +and the Queen was in daily touch with its work. + +In the dislocation of industry which had caused the committee's +formation, it was found that there was great slackness in one trade or +a part of it and great pressure in other parts of it or other trades. +The problem was to use the unemployed firms and workers for the new +national needs. + +The committee considered it part of their work to endeavor to increase +the number of firms getting Government contracts, and they created a +special Contracts Department, under the direction of Mr. J.J. Mallon, +of the Anti-sweating League. They, as a result, advised in regard +to the placing of contracts and they undertook to get articles for +the Government, or ordered by other sources, manufactured by firms +adversely affected by the war or in their own workrooms. They worked +with the firms accustomed to making men's clothing and now unemployed, +and found that they could easily take military contracts if certain +technical difficulties were removed. They interviewed the War Office +authorities, modifications were suggested and approved and the full +employment in the tailoring trade which followed gave a greatly +improved supply of army clothing. Contracts were secured from the war +office for khaki cloth, blankets, and various kinds of hosiery, and +these were carried out by manufacturers who otherwise would have had +to close down. + +The Queen gave orders for her own gifts to the troops, and +considerable work was done through trade workshops, care being taken +to see that this work was only done where ordinary trade was fully +employed. Two contracts from the War Office, typical of others, were +for 20,000 shirts and for 2,000,000 pairs of army socks. Over 130 +firms received contracts through the committee. + +New openings for trades were tested and the possibility of the +transference of work formerly done in Germany. + +In its Relief Work the committee had its greatest problems. It was +clear that if rates paid were high, women would come in from badly +paid trades, and it was clear that if they sold the work, it would +injure trade--so in the end it was decided to pay a low wage, 11/6 a +week--and to give away, through the right agencies, the garments and +things made in the workrooms. + +The inefficiency of many workers was very clear and training +schemes resulted--for typing, shorthand, in leather work, chair seat +willowing, in cookery, dressmaking and dress-cutting, home nursing, +etc. + +Professional women were helped through various funds and workrooms +were established by other organizations, several being started in +London by the N.U.W.S.S. + +[Illustration: CLEANING A LOCOMOTIVE] + +[Illustration: WOMEN AS CARRIAGE CLEANERS] + +As the months went on women began to be absorbed more and more into +industry. Men were going into the army ceaselessly, our war needs were +growing greater and our women found work opening out more and more. +The Women's Service Bureau had been opened within a week of the +outbreak of war and had done valuable work in placing women, before +the Board of Trade issued its first official appeal to women, +additional to those already in industry, to volunteer for War Service. +It was sent out by Mr. Runciman, President of the Board of Trade, and +read as follows: + + The President of the Board of Trade wishes to call attention + to the fact that in the present emergency, if the full + fighting power of the nation is to be put forth on the field + of battle, the full working power of the nation must be made + available to carry on its essential trades at home. Already, + in certain important occupations there are not enough men and + women to do the work. This shortage will certainly spread + to other occupations as more and more men join the fighting + forces. + + In order to meet both the present and the future needs of + national industry during the war, the Government wish to + obtain particulars of the women available, with or without + previous training, for paid employment. Accordingly, they + invite all women who are prepared, if needed, to take paid + employment of any kind--industrial, agricultural, clerical, + etc.--to enter themselves upon the Register of Women for War + Service which is being prepared by the Board of Trade Labour + Exchanges. + + Any woman living in a town where there is a Labour Exchange + can register by going there in person. If she is not near a + Labour Exchange she can get a form of registration from the + local agency of the Unemployment Fund. Forms will also be sent + out through a number of women's societies. + + The object of registration is to find out what reserve force + of women's labour, trained or untrained, can be made available + if required. As from time to time actual openings for + employment present themselves, notice will be given through + the Labor Exchanges, with full details as to the nature of + work, conditions, and pay, and, so far as special training + is necessary, arrangements will, if possible, be made for the + purpose. + + Any woman who by working helps to release a man or to equip a + man for fighting does national war service. Every woman should + register who is able and willing to take employment. + +The forms were sent out in large numbers through the women's societies +of the country, and it was stated on them that women were wanted +at once for farm-work, dairy work, brush-making, leather stitching, +clothing, machinery and machining for armaments. + +By next day the registrations were 4,000, mostly middle-class women, +and in the first week 20,000 registered and an average of 5,000 a week +after, but the mass of women who registered waited with no real lead +or use of them for a long time. The Government seemed to suffer from +a delusion a great many people have, that if you have enough machinery +and masses of names something is being done, but you do not solve any +problem by registers. You solve it by getting the workers and the work +together. + +The Government had not approached employers at first, but had left +it to them entirely to take the initiative in this great replacement. +This they had to a considerable extent done, using the Labour +Exchanges and the other agencies and women were more and more quickly, +steadily, ceaselessly replacing men. + +The appeals for women for munition work were most swiftly responded to +and educated women volunteered in thousands, as did working girls and +women. + +The question of assisting employment by fitting more women for +commercial and industrial occupations was considered by the +Government, and in October, 1915, the Clerical and Commercial +Occupations Committee was appointed by the Home Office--a similar +committee being set up for Scotland. It arranged with the London +County Council and with local authorities that their Education +Committees should initiate emergency courses all over the country for +training in general clerical work, bookkeeping and office routine. The +courses lasted from three to ten weeks, and the age of the students +varied from eighteen to thirty-five. + +Many free courses were inaugurated by business firms in large London +stores, notably Harrods and Whiteleys, where their courses included +all office and business training. Six week courses of free training +for the grocery trade, for the boot trade, lens making, waiting, +hairdressing, etc., were also given. + +Our woman labor has been found to be quite mobile and girls have moved +in thousands from one part of the country to another, and the munition +girl travelling home on holiday on her special permit is a familiar +figure. + +The registration, placing and moving of our workers is all done by +our Labour Exchanges, now renamed Employment Exchanges and transferred +from the Board of Trade to the Ministry of Labour. + +When the National Service Department was set up, a Women's Branch +was established with Mrs. H.J. Tennant, and Miss Violet Markham as +Co-directors, and they made various appeals, registered women for the +land, munitions, W.A.A.C. and for wood cutting and pitprop making. +A great demonstration of "Women's Service" was held in the Albert +Hall in January 17, 1917, at which Mrs. Tennant and Miss Markham, +Lord Derby, Minister of War; Mr. Prothero, President of the Board of +Agriculture, and Mr. John Hodge, Minister of Labour, spoke and at +which the Queen was present. It was an appeal to women for more work +and a registration of their determination to go on doing all that was +needed. The men's message was one to equals--they asked great things. +A message from Queen Mary was read for the first time at any public +meeting and it was the only occasion on which she has attended one. + +The number of women now in our industry directly replacing men, +according to our latest returns, is over one and a quarter millions. +This does not include domestic service, where our maids grow less and +less numerous and Sir Auckland Geddes, Director of National Service, +tells us he is considering cutting down servants in any establishment +to not more than three, and it does not include very small shops and +firms. + +The processes in industry in which women work are numbered in +hundreds. The War Office in 1916 issued an official memorandum for +the use of Military Representatives and Tribunals setting forth the +processes in which women worked and the trades and occupations, and +giving photographs of women doing unaccustomed and heavy work, to +guide the Tribunals in deciding exemptions of men called up for +Military Service. + +In professional work today women are everywhere. There are 198,000 +women in Government Departments, 83,000 of these new since the war. +They are doing typing, shorthand, and secretarial work, organizing and +executive work. They are in the Censor's office in large numbers and +doing important work at the Census of Production. There are 146,000 on +Local Government work. The woman teacher has invaded that stronghold +of man in England, the Boys' High and Grammar Schools, and is doing +good work there. They are replacing men chemists in works, doing +research, working at dental mechanics, are tracing plans. They are +driving motor cars in large numbers. Our Prime Minister has a woman +chauffeur. They are driving delivery vans and bringing us our goods, +our bread and our milk. They carry a great part of our mail and trudge +through villages and cities with it. They drive our mail vans, and +I know two daughters of a peer who drive mail vans in London. I know +other women who never did any work in their lives who for three years +have worked in factories, taking the same work, the same holidays, the +same pay as the other girls. Women are gardeners, elevator attendants, +commissionaires and conductors on our buses and trams, and in +provincial towns drive many of the electric trams. + +[Illustration: WINDOW CLEANERS] + +[Illustration: STEAM ROLLER DRIVER] + +In the railways they are booking clerks, carriage and engine cleaners +and greasers, and carriage repairers, cooks and waiters in dining +cars, platform, parcel and goods porters, telegraphists and ticket +collectors and inspectors, and labourers and wagon sheet repairers. +They work in quarries, are coal workers, clean ships, are park-keepers +and cinema operators. They are commercial travellers in large numbers. +They are in banks to a great extent and are now taking banking +examinations. + +There was a very strong feeling as the replacement by women went on +that there must be no lowering of wage standards which would not only +be grossly unfair to women but imperil the returning soldier's chance +of getting his post back. + +Mrs. Fawcett, on behalf of the Women's Interests Committee of the +N.U.W.S.S., called a conference on the question of War Service and +wages in 1915, and Mr. Runciman stated at the conference: + + As regards the wages and conditions on which women should be + employed, as a general principle the Exchanges did not, and + could not, take direct responsibility as to the wages and + conditions, beyond giving in each case such information as + was in their possession. In regard, however, to Government + contractors, it had been laid down that the piece rates for + women should be the same as for men, and further special + instructions had been given to the Exchanges to inform + inexperienced applicants of the current wages in each case, + so that they should be fully apprised as to the wage which it + was reasonable for them to ask. A general safeguard against + permanent lowering of wages by the admission of women to take + the place of men on service would be made by asking employers, + so far as possible, to keep the men's places open for them on + their return. + +Wages in most cases are at the same rate as men, and as women are +organized in Britain in large numbers, the Trades Unions and Women's +Committees are always alive and ready to act on the question of +payment and conditions. Our workers, men and women, are very well paid +and despite high prices, were never more comfortable, and never saved +more. The call for women to replace men still goes on in Britain. +Miners are going to be combed out again. The Trade Unions have been +again approached by the Premier and Sir Auckland Geddes on this +question of man power. The Battalions must be filled up--in France we +need 2,000,000 men all the time and of these 1,670,000 are from our +own Islands. + +It is calculated there are in Britain today--Ireland is not tapped in +woman power any more than in man power--less than a million women who +could do more important work for the war than they are now doing. +Most of these are already doing work of one kind or another, but could +probably do more. + +Our homes, our industries, munitions, the land, hospitals, Government +service and the Waac's are absorbing us in our millions. Britain could +not have raised her Army and Navy and could not now keep her men in +the field without the mobilization of her women and their ceaseless, +tireless work behind her men, and as substitutes for them, in the +working life of the community. + + + + +WOMEN IN MUNITIONS + + + "For all we have and are, + For all our children's fate-- + Rise up and meet the war, + The Hun is at the gate. + + * * * * * + + "Comfort, content, delight, + The ages' slow-bought gain, + Have shrivelled in a night, + Only ourselves remain. + + * * * * * + + "Though all we knew depart, + The old commandments stand, + In courage keep your heart, + In strength lift up your hand." + + --RUDYARD KIPLING. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +WOMEN IN MUNITIONS + + "Hats off to the Women of Britain!"--Sir ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE in + _The Times_, November 28, 1916. + + +When war broke out the Government had three National workshops +producing munitions--today it has 100, and it controls over 5,000 +establishments through the Ministry of Munitions, many of which are +continually growing in size. + +The total output has increased over thirty-fold but in many cases +increase in production has been far greater. In guns, the production +of 4.5 field howitzers is over fifty times as large; of machine guns +and howitzers over seventy times and of heavy howitzers (over 6 inch) +over 420 times as large. + +More small shell is now made in a fortnight than formerly in a year, +and the increase in output of heavy shell has been still larger. +Equally striking results have been attained in the production of +machine guns, aeroplanes motor bodies, and the other war supplies, for +which demand and replacement have necessarily grown with the demand +for guns and shells. To these have to be added the ships and the +anti-submarine and anti-aircraft machines and devices that have been +demanded by the enemy's method of warfare. + +This work has only been possible in a country that has raised five +million men, 75 per cent from our own islands, because of what women +have done. + +Today there are between 800,000 and 1,000,000 women in munitions works +in our country, and the history of their entry and work is a wonderful +one. Women themselves were quicker than the Government to realize how +much they would be needed in munitions, and started to train before +openings were ready. + +Women realized vividly what Lloyd George's speech of June, 1915, made +clear, the urgent, terrible need of our men for more munitions--the +Germans could send over ten shells to our one--and women volunteered +in thousands for munition work. + +The London Society for Women's Suffrage, which was running "Women's +Service," had women volunteers for munitions in enormous numbers and +tried to secure openings for them. It investigated and found that +acetylene welders were badly needed. There were very few in Britain, +and welding is essential for aircraft and other work, so they started +to find out if there were classes for training women, and found none +in Technical Schools were open to women. They found welders were +needed very much in certain aircraft factories in the neighborhood of +London and the manager of one assured them that if women were trained +satisfactorily for oxy-acetylene welding, he would give them a trial. +So "Women's Service" decided to open a small workshop and secured Miss +E.C. Woodward, a metal worker of long standing, as instructor. The +school was started in a small way with six pupils. Oxy-acetylene +welding is the most effective way of securing a perfect weld without +any deleterious effect upon the metal. + +The great heat needed for the purpose of uniting two or more pieces of +metal so as to make of them an autogenous whole is obtained, in this +process, by the burning of acetylene gas in conjunction with oxygen. + +Carbide, looking like little lumps of granite, is placed in a tray at +the bottom of the generator for acetylene gas, which is of the form +of a small portable gasometer. The tap, admitting water to the carbide +trays, is turned on, and gas at once generates, and forces up the +generator in the way so familiar to those who often see a gasometer. +This gas passes through a tube to the blow-pipe of the welder, or to +any other use for which it is destined. + +[Illustration: TRAINING WOMEN AS AEROPLANE BUILDERS] + +In oxy-acetylene welding, the process employs the flame produced by +the combustion in a suitable blow-pipe of oxygen and acetylene. When +a light is applied to the nozzle of the pipe a yellow flame, a foot +long, flares up, and in the centre of it, close to the nozzle, appears +a very small, dazzling, bluish flame, which can only safely be gazed +upon by eyes protected by coloured glasses. The temperature of this +flame at the apex is about 6,300 degrees Fahr., and it is with this +that the metals to be welded together are brought to a suitable degree +of heat. + +The workers' eyes are protected by black goggles, their hair confined +by caps or handkerchiefs, and overalls or leather-aprons protect their +clothes from the sparks and also from the smuts which naturally +accrue on surrounding objects. Each welder holds in her right hand the +blow-pipe of the craft, from which depends two long flexible tubes, +one conducting oxygen from the tall cylinder in the corner, and the +other acetylene from the generator. In her left hand she holds the +welding-stick of soft Swedish iron, from which tiny molten drops fall +upon the glowing edges of the metal to be welded together. The work +is fascinating even to the onlooker, and to see the result, metal so +welded you feel it is impossible it ever could have been two pieces, +is still more fascinating. + +The first welders triumphantly passed their tests and gave every +satisfaction in the factory, and the training went on and the School +was enlarged. + +The oxy-acetylene welders turned out by this School have gone all +over the country and 220 were trained and placed in the first year. +Those selected were, with few exceptions, educated women, which was +undoubtedly a material factor in the success of their work. This +School opened training to women and welding is now taught to women in +many of our Technical Schools. A class in Elementary Engineering has +also been carried on by Women's Service with great success and the +women placed in workshops. + +The Ministry of Munitions has also arranged, in conjunction with the +London County Council and other Educational Authorities, to have +free munition training for women at every centre in the Kingdom. The +courses vary from six to nine weeks and maintenance grants are paid +during the period of training. + +In October, 1915, the Central Labour Supply Committee which dealt +with women's and men's conditions, issued certain recommendations +in Circular L.2. These dealt with the conditions and rates of pay +of women and fully skilled and unskilled men. The provision of this +much-discussed circular that affected women doing skilled work was +in Clause 1, which provides that "Women employed on work customarily +done by fully skilled tradesmen shall be paid the time rates of the +tradesman whose work they undertake." + +These provisions were then only binding on the Government +establishments, and could not be enforced by the Ministry of Munitions +in controlled establishments. On December 31, 1915, a conference +was held between the Prime Minister, the Minister of Munitions and +representatives of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, when an +agreement in regard to "dilution" was arranged. Circular L. 2 was +adopted at this conference as the basis of the undertaking given by +the Ministry in regard to dilution of labor. An employer under it can +be punished as contravening the Munitions Act if he fails to carry out +the direction of the Minister. The power of enforcing the provisions +of L. 2 were acquired in January, 1916, and it is quite obvious that +in this circular a principle of the greatest importance to men and +women is laid down. Women were wholly averse to being "blacklegs" in +industry. + +The great work of "Dilution" in Munitions--and by dilution we mean +the use in industry of unskilled, semi-skilled and woman labor, so +that highly skilled men may not be used except for the most important +work--is done by the Dilution Department of the Ministry of Munitions, +which issues Dilution of Labour Bulletins and Process Sheets +periodically, showing the work women are doing. A series of +exhibitions of women's work have also been arranged by the Technical +Section of the Labour Supply Department in all the big towns +in England. In Sheffield over 16,000 people came to see the +Exhibition--the largest number of these being foremen and workmen sent +by their firms. + +[Illustration: RIVETTING ON BOILERS] + +[Illustration: FACING BOILER BLUE FLANGES] + +The Exhibitions consist of two main sections, one of which shows +actual samples of munitions made by women, and the other of +photographs of women doing work on apparatus or processes that could +not be shown. A complete Clerget engine, for instance, was lent by the +Air Board to illustrate the final assembly of the numerous parts of +these engines being made wholly or partly by women. In the same way, +many parts of complete Stokes Guns, Vickers Machine Guns and Service +Rifles were exhibited. The exhibits were divided into fifteen groups. +The first group dealing with engines for aircraft. The second group +showed engines for motor cars, tanks, tractors, motor buses, motor +lorries and motor vehicles. + +A separate group consisted of a variety of accessories for internal +combustion engines, including air pump for the Clerget engine, which +is completely manufactured and assembled by women, largely under women +supervision; and magnetos, a very important and accurate industry, +before the war largely in German hands, of which women now undertake +the entire manufacture. + +The fourth group dealt with steam engines, including details of +locomotives, high speed engines, steam winches, and steam turbines. + +The next two groups dealt respectively with guns and components and +with small arms. + +The next three groups included gauges, drills, cutters, punches and +dies, trucks, jigs, tap pieces and general tool-room work. The gauges +included plug, ring, cylinder and screw gauges to the closest degrees +of accuracy, which in practice are verified by the rigid inspection of +the National Physical Laboratory. + +A fair illustration of the accuracy that is habitually required in a +large volume of work is to be seen in the final gauging and inspection +of a screw gauge for a fuse, in which the women inspectors were +described in the catalogue as examining these screws by an optical +projection apparatus, magnifying fifty times, with the help of which +the inspector notes the defects in size and form, and the necessary +corrections. + +The cutting tools included sets of cutters for the manufacture of +shells, as well as twist drills, reamers, milling cutters, gear +cutters, screwing dies, taps and lathe tools. Some of this work is +of high accuracy, and a set of solid screwing dies has the particular +interest that almost all the operations are carried out by women after +they have been in the shop for a fortnight. The general tool-room +work included an exhibit of seventy-one punches and dies for cartridge +making. Another set of dies was shown for small-arms ammunition, and +specimens were also exhibited of chucks, die-heads and other work. + +Two other groups dealt with the metal fittings and wooden structural +parts of aircraft, and to see girls work on these is intensely +interesting--anything more fragile looking and more beautiful than the +long uncovered wing it would be difficult to find. A notable feature +of the metal group was a number of parts that are marked off from +drawings by women working under a woman charge-hand, and themselves +making their own scribing-templates when necessary. Many examples of +welding work were also shown. + +There were Optical Munitions and medical and surgical glass and X-ray +tubes made entirely by women, and the Exhibitions record the progress +of women in Munitions in the most wonderful and striking way. + +Mr. Ben. H. Morgan, Chief Officer, in a recent speech on Munitions and +Production said: + + "Labor had to be found to staff the thousands of factories in + which this stupendous production was to be carried out, and it + has been possible to find it only by subdividing work closely, + and entrusting a large variety of machinery and fitting to + women, with the help of the fullest possible equipment of jigs + and all available appliances for mechanically defining and + facilitating the work, and of instruction by skilled men. + By this means an output has been obtained that will compare + favorably with that of any class of workers in any country. + Comparing, for instance, our women's figures of output on + certain sizes of shell and types of fuses with those of men in + the United States, I found recently that the women's machining + times were not only as good but in many cases better than + those of men in some of the best organized American shops. + + "This is an extraordinary result to have been obtained from + women who, for the most part, had never known either the work + or the discipline of factory life, and were wholly unused + to mechanical operations. More than one circumstance has + doubtless contributed to making it possible; but it is my + assured conviction that foremost among the incentives by + which women have been helped has been their constant thought + of their flesh and blood, their husbands, brothers, sons, + sweethearts, in the trenches. I know a typical example in a + Yorkshire mother, who early in the war sent her only son to + the fighting line. The lad was a skilled mechanic, and she + took his place at his lathe in the Leeds shops where he + worked. She is not only keeping this job going, but her output + on the job she is doing is a record for the whole country." + +The women workers' productions has been admirable and is steady +and continues so. The _Manchester Guardian_ of November 15, 1915, +astounded women and men alike by its announcement that "figures were +produced in proof of the very startling assertion that the output of +the women munition workers is slightly more than double that of men." + +In the latest Dilution of Labour Bulletin this is recorded: + +"A GOOD BEGINNING + + "A firm in the London and South Eastern district making + propellers for aeroplanes has recently begun the employment of + women, and the results are exceeding all expectations. As an + instance it is reported that five women are now doing the work + of scraping, formerly done by six men, with an increase of 70 + per cent in output." + +The way in which managers, foremen and skilled men have trained and +helped the women and work with them cannot be too highly praised--the +success of "dilution"--the ability of women to help their country in +this way, was only possible through the good will and co-operation of +our great Trade Unions and skilled men. + +Women supervisors and examiners are trained at Woolwich, and the first +of these were found by "Women's Service," and we find women control +and manage large numbers of women in the big works extremely well. +One girl of twenty-three, the daughter of a famous engineer, is +controlling the work of 6,000 women who are working on submarines, +guns, aircraft, and all manner of munitions. + +One great engineer who believes in women and women's future in +engineering has started what we might term an engineering college for +women. + +He has built a model factory away in the hills "somewhere in Scotland" +with four tiers of ferro-cement floors. It is built with the idea of +taking 300 women students and eight months after it opened, it had +sixty women students. It is a factory entirely for women, run by, +and to a large extent managed by women, with the exception of two men +instructors. In the ground floor the girls are working at parts of +high power aeroplane engines, under their works superintendent, a +woman who took her Mathematical Tripos at Newnham College, and was +lecturer at one of our girls' public schools. The women rank as +engineer apprentices and their hours are forty-four a week. The first +six months are probationary with pay at 20/- ($5) a week, and the +students are doing extremely well. + +"Women are now part and parcel of our great army," said the Earl of +Derby, on July 13, 1916, "without them it would be impossible for +progress to be made, but with them I believe victory can be assured." + +[Illustration: ROUGH TURNING JACKET FORGING OF 6-POUNDER, HOTCHKISS +GUN] + +Mr. Asquith, too, has paid his tribute to the woman munition maker +and to others who are doing men's work. In a memorable speech on +the Second Reading of the Special Register Bill, he admitted that +the women of this country have rendered as effective service in the +prosecution of the war as any other class of the community. "It is +true they cannot fight in the gross material sense of going out with +rifles and so forth, but they fill our munition factories, they are +doing the work which the men who are fighting had to perform before, +they have taken their places, they are the servants of the State and +they have aided in the most effective way in the prosecution of the +war." + +Our munition women are in the shipyards, the engineering shops, the +aeroplane sheds, the shell shops, flocking in thousands into the +cities, leaving homes and friends to work in the munition cities we +have built since the war. When our great arsenals and factories empty, +women pour out in thousands. Night and day they have worked as the men +have and it has been no easy or light task. We know that still more +will be demanded of us, but we think, as our four million men do, that +these things are well worth doing for the freedom of the souls of the +nations. + +In the munition factories that feeling and conviction burns like a +flame and the enemy who thinks to demoralize our men and our women by +bombing our homes and our workshops finds the workers, men and women, +only made more determined. + +The women handle high explosives in the "danger buildings" for ten and +a half hours in a shift, making and inserting the detonating fuses, +where a slip may result in their own death and that of their comrades. +Working with T.N.T. they turn yellow--hands and face and hair--and +risk poisoning. They are called the "canary girls," and if you ask why +they do it they will tell you it isn't too much to risk when men risk +everything in the trenches--and sometimes the one they cared for most +is in a grave in France or on some other front, and they "carry on." + +The Prime Minister paid a tribute to munition makers in one of his +speeches when he said: + +"I remember perfectly well when I was Minister of Munitions we had +very dangerous work. It involved a special alteration in one +element of our shells. We had to effect that alteration. If we had +manufactured the whole thing anew it would have involved the loss of +hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition at a time when we could +not afford it. But the adaptation of the old element with a fuse is a +very dangerous operation, and there were several fatal accidents. It +was all amongst the women workers in the munition factories; there +was never a panic. They stuck to their work. They knew the peril. They +never ran away from it." + + + + +THE PROTECTION OF WOMEN IN INDUSTRY + + + "Are our faces grave, and our eyes intent? + Is every ounce that is in us bent + On the uttermost pitch of accomplishment? + _Though it's long and long the day is._ + Ah! we know what it means if we fool or slack; + --A rifle jammed--and one comes not back; + And we never forget--it's for us they gave. + And so we will slave, and slave, and slave, + Lest the men at the front should rue it. + Their all they gave, and their lives we'll save, + If the hardest of work can do it;-- + _Though it's long and long the day is._" + + --JOHN OXENHAM. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE PROTECTION OF WOMEN IN INDUSTRY + + +The Ministry of Munitions has a great department devoted to the work +of looking after our workers' interests. + +This department of the Ministry was established by Mr. Lloyd George. +Mr. Rowntree, whose work is so well known, was put in charge. + +The health of the Munition Workers' Committee was set up when the +Ministry was established with the concurrence of the Home Secretary, +"To consider and advise on questions of industrial fatigue, hours of +labor, and other matters affecting the personal health and physical +efficiency of workers in munition factories and work shops." + +Sir George Newman, M.D., is chairman of the committee and the two +women members are Mrs. H.J. Tennant and Miss R.E. Squire. Memoranda +on various industrial problems have been drawn up by the committee and +acted upon--the first being on Sunday labour. + +In the early part of the war our men and women frequently worked +seven days in the week and shifts were very long for women as for +men. Practically no holidays were taken in answer to Lord Kitchener's +appeals. The regulations preventing women from working on Sunday had +been removed in a limited number of cases. The investigation of the +committee in November, 1915, showed that Sunday labor when it meant +excessive hours was bad and it did not increase output, that the +strain on foremen and managers in particular was very great, and they +recommended a modification of the policy. + +In a later Memorandum, No. 12, on output in relation to hours of work, +very interesting figures were given, practically all showing increased +output as a result of shorter hours of labor. + +The committee reported in Memorandum No. 5 that it was of the opinion +that continuous work by women in excess of the normal legal limit of +sixty hours per week ought to be discontinued as soon as practicable, +and that the shift system should be used instead of overtime. + +A special Memorandum, No. 4, was entirely concerned with the +employment of women and dealt with hours, conditions, rest and meals, +management and supervision, and it strongly urged every precaution and +protection for women. + +The Welfare Department meantime had started on its work of securing, +training and appointing Welfare Supervisors, Miss Alleyne looking +after that branch of the work. + +The Department was "charged, with the general responsibility of +securing a high standard of conditions" for the workers. + +The growth of the work has been enormous. The Ministry of Munitions +today has large numbers of Welfare Supervisors with every Government +establishment and the controlled establishments have them also. +In Government shops they are paid by the Ministry, in controlled +establishments by the management and their appointment is notified to +the Welfare Department. + +The Ministry has issued a leaflet on "Duties of Welfare Supervisors +for Women," which is given at the end of this chapter. + +It will be seen that the Welfare Worker must be a rather wonderful +person. She must be tactful, know how to handle girls, and be a person +of judgment and decision. We have succeeded in securing a very large +number of admirable women and excellent work is being done. The +Welfare Workers are in their turn inspected by Welfare Inspectors and +Miss Proud, the Chief Inspector in dangerous factories, who sees the +precautions against risk of poisoning from Tri-nitro-toluol, Tetryl, +the aeroplane wing dope, etc., are all carried out by the management, +has written an admirable textbook on welfare work. The country for +this purpose is divided into nine areas, and two women inspectors work +in each. + +Woolwich Arsenal is one of our great centres of women's work and +the Chief Welfare Supervisor there, Miss Lilian Barker, is the most +capable woman Supervisor in Britain, a statesman among Supervisors. +Any visitor to the Arsenal cannot help being struck by the general +impression of contentment, happiness and health of the woman worker +there in her thousands. It is rare to see a sickly face among them, +even among the girls in the Danger Zone. Miss Barker is constantly +adding to her own staff of supervisors and training others for +provincial centres. She and her Assistants interview new hands +and arrange changes and transfers of women. She enquires into +all complaints, advises as to clothing, keeps an eye on the vast +canteen organization of Woolwich, and initiates schemes for +recreation--notices of whist drives, dances and concerts are +constantly up on the boards. The housing of the immigrant workers--no +small problem, she and her assistants deal with. They suggest +improvements in conditions and are awake to signs of illness or +overfatigue. They follow the worker home and look after the young +mother and the sick girl and women. + +Hostels have been built there and all over the country by the +Government and by factory owners, and the Hostel Supervisors have a +big and useful work to do. + +They are very well arranged with a room for each girl and nice rest +rooms, dining rooms and good sickroom accommodations. Rules are cut +down to a minimum. Most Supervisors find out ways of working without +them. + +"Smoking is allowed at this end of the restroom," said one +Superintendent, "but since we have permitted this recreation, it seems +to have fallen out of favour," which seems to show munition girls are +very human. + +Hutments have also been built for married couples. Lodgings are +inspected and when suitable, scheduled for workers coming to the area. +In some cases the management in private factories do not adopt formal +welfare workers but get a woman of the right type and put her in +charge of the female operatives, with generally excellent results. +The value of the influence of this work on our girls cannot be +over-estimated--it is an influence of the very best kind, and our +experiences in munition and welfare work, every class of women working +together, is going to be of great and permanent good. + +[Illustration: AN OFFICIAL BOOKLET FOR MUNITION WORKERS] + +The professional woman and the girls who flock to London in large +numbers for work in Government Departments, must be housed also, and +there are many extremely good Hostels. Bedford House, the old Bedford +College for Women, is now a delightful Hostel run by the Y.W.C.A., +whose work for munition girls deserves very special mention. They had +Hostels over the country before the war and have added to these. They +have set up Clubs all over the country for the girls in munitions and +industry in 150 centres, and these are very much appreciated and used +by thousands of girls. + +The feeding of the munition worker is another great piece of work. +It started, like so many of our things, in voluntary effort. The +conditions of the men and women working all night and without any +possibility of getting anything warm to eat and drink and, exhausted +with their heavy work, made people feel something must be done, and +the first efforts were to send round barrows with hot tea and coffee +and sandwiches, etc. More and more it was realized that the provision +of proper meals for the workers, men and women, was indispensable for +the maintenance of output on which our fighting forces depended for +their very lives--and the Government, the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A. and +various other agencies, started to establish canteens. The Y.W.C.A. +alone in its canteens serves 80,000 meals a week. Large numbers of +private firms have established their own canteens. + +The Health of Munition Workers Committee reported, in November, 1915, +that it was extremely desirable to establish canteens in every factory +in which it would be useful. Many canteens existed before the war, +but they have been added to enormously and the recommendations of the +committee as to accessibility, attractiveness, form, food and service +carried out. + +The Canteen Committee of the Liquor Control Board who have looked +after this work have issued an admirable official pamphlet, "Feeding +the Munition Worker," in which plans for construction and all details +are given. An ideal canteen should always provide facilities for the +worker to heat his or her own food. + +The prices are very reasonable, and in most cases only cover cost of +food and service, soup and bread is 4 cents--cut from joint and two +vegetables, 12 to 16 cents. + + Puddings, 2 to 4 cents, + Bread and cheese, 3 to 4 cents, + Tea, coffee and cocoa, 2 cents a cup, + +and a variety is arranged in the week's menu. + +The Y.W.C.A. Huts are very popular. In some of them the girls get +dinners for 10 cents, and the dinner includes joint, vegetables and +pudding. + +There are comfortable chairs in them in which girls can rest and +attractive magazines and books to read in the little restrooms. The +workers in charge of these canteens are educated women and the waiting +and service is done by voluntary helpers. There is not only excellent +feeding for our workers in these canteens, but there is great economy +in food and fuel. To cook 400 dinners together is much less wasteful +than to cook them separately, and the cooks in these are generally +trained economists. + +The children, too, are not forgotten. Our welfare workers follow the +young mother home and find out if the children are all right and well +taken care of. We have done even more in the war than before for +our babies and the infant death rate is falling. We have established +excellent creches and nurseries where they are needed. + +It is impossible to overestimate the value of all this work in +industry. The Prime Minister, speaking last year on this subject, +said, "It is a strange irony, but no small compensation, that the +making of weapons of destruction should afford the occasion to +humanize industry. Yet such is the case. Old prejudices have vanished, +new ideas are abroad; employers and workers, the public and the State, +are all favourable to new methods. The opportunity must not be allowed +to slip. It may well be that, when the tumult of war is a distant echo +and the making of munitions a nightmare of the past, the effort now +being made to soften asperities, to secure the welfare of the workers, +and to build a bridge of sympathy and understanding between employer +and employed, will have left behind results of permanent and enduring +value to the workers, to the nation and to mankind at large." + +I am no believer in the gloomy predictions of industrial revolutions +after the war. We will have revolutions--but of the right kind and one +thing has been clearly shown, that the workers of our country are +not only loyal citizens but realize every issue of this conflict as +vividly as anyone else. On their work, men and women, our Navy, our +Army and our country, have depended--and they have not failed us in +any real thing. + + +MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS. + + + +DUTIES OF WELFARE SUPERVISORS FOR WOMEN. + +(Sometimes called EMPLOYMENT SUPERINTENDENTS.) + + + + NOTE.--It is not suggested that all these duties should be + imposed upon the Employment Superintendent directly she is + appointed. The size of the Factory will to a certain extent + determine the scope of her work, and in assigning her duties + regard will of course be had to her professional ability to + cope with them. + + These officers are responsible solely to the firms that employ + them, and in no sense to the Ministry of Munitions. + + + +The experience which has now been obtained in National and other +Factories making munitions of war has demonstrated that the post of +Welfare Supervisor is a valuable asset to Factory management wherever +women are employed. Through this channel attention has been drawn to +conditions of work, previously unnoted, which were inimical to the +well-being of those employed. The following notes have, therefore, +been prepared for the information of employers who have not hitherto +engaged such officers, but who desire to know the position a Welfare +Supervisor should take and the duties and authority which, it is +suggested, might be delegated to her. + + +POSITION. + +It has generally been found convenient that the Welfare Supervisor +should be directly responsible to the General Manager, and should be +given a definite position on the managerial staff in connection with +the Labour Employment Department of the Factory. She is thus able to +refer all matters calling for attention direct to the General Manager, +and may be regarded by him as a liaison between him and the various +Departments dealing with the women employees. + + +DUTIES. + +The duty of a Welfare Supervisor is to obtain and to maintain a +healthy staff of workers and to help in maintaining satisfactory +conditions for the work. + +In order to obtain a staff satisfactory both from the point of view of +health and technical efficiency, it has been found to be an advantage +to bring the Welfare Supervisor into the business of selecting women +and girls for employment. + + +I. THE OBTAINING OF A HEALTHY STAFF. + +Her function is to consider the general health, physical capacity and +character of each applicant. As regards those under 16 years of +age, she could obtain useful advice as to health from the Certifying +Surgeon when he grants Certificates of fitness. The Management can, if +they think fit, empower her to refer for medical advice to their panel +Doctor, other applicants concerning whose general fitness she is in +doubt. This selection of employees furnishes the Welfare Supervisor +with a valuable opportunity for establishing a personal link with the +workers. + +Her function is thus concerned with selection on general grounds, +while the actual engaging of those selected may be carried out by the +Overlooker or other person responsible for the technical side of +the work. In this way both aspects of appointment receive full +consideration. + +The Management may find further that it is useful to consult the +Welfare Supervisor as to promotions of women in the Factory, thus +continuing the principle of regarding not only technical efficiency +but also general considerations in the control of the women in the +Factory. + + +II. THE MAINTAINING OF A HEALTHY STAFF. + +The Welfare Supervisor should ascertain what are the particular needs +of the workers. These needs will then be found to group themselves +under two headings: + + (a) Needs within the Factory--Intramural Welfare. + + (b) Needs outside the Factory--Extramural Welfare. + + +INTRAMURAL WELFARE. + +I. SUPERVISION OF WORKING CONDITIONS. + +The Welfare Supervisor may be made responsible for the following +matters: + + (a) _General behaviour of women and girls inside the + factory._--While responsibility for the technical side of + the work must rest with the Technical Staff, the Welfare + Supervisor should be responsible for all questions of general + behaviour. + + (b) _Transfer._--The Welfare Supervisor would, if the health + of a woman was affected by the particular process on which + she is engaged, be allowed, after having consulted the Foreman + concerned, to suggest to the Management the possibility of + transfer of the woman to work more suited to her state of + health. + + (c) _Night Supervision._--The Welfare Supervisor should have + a deputy for night work and should herself occasionally visit + the Factory at night to see that satisfactory conditions are + maintained. + + (d) _Dismissal._--It will be in keeping with the general + suggestions as to the functions of the Welfare Supervisor + if she is consulted on general grounds with regard to the + dismissal of women and girls. + + (e) _The maintenance of healthy conditions._--This implies + that she should, from the point of view of the health of the + female employees, see to the general cleanliness, ventilation + and warmth of the Factory and keep the Management informed of + the results of her observations. + + (f) _The provision of seats._--She should study working + conditions so as to be able to bring to the notice of the + Management the necessity for the provision of seats where + these are possible. + + +II. CANTEEN. + +Unless the Factory is a small one it would hardly be possible for the +Welfare Supervisor to manage the canteen. The Management will probably +prefer to entrust the matter to an expert who should satisfy the +Management in consultation with the Welfare Supervisor on the +following matters:-- + + (1) That the Canteen provides all the necessary facilities for + the women workers; that is to say, suitable food, rapidly and + punctually served. + + (2) That Canteen facilities are provided when necessary for + the women before they begin work so that no one need start + work without having taken food. + + (3) That the Canteen is as restful and as comfortable as + possible so that it serves a double purpose of providing rest + as well as food. + + +III. SUPERVISION OF AMBULANCE RESTROOM AND FIRST AID. + +While not responsible for actually attending to accidents, except +in small Factories, the Welfare Supervisor should work in close +touch with the Factory Doctor and Nurses. She should, however, be +responsible for the following matters:-- + + (1) She should help in the selection of the Nurses, who should + be recognised as belonging to the Welfare staff. + + (2) While not interfering with the Nurses in the professional + discharge of their duties, she should see that their work is + carried out promptly and that the workers are not kept waiting + long before they receive attention. + + (3) She should supervise the keeping of all records of + accident and illness in the Ambulance Room. + + (4) She should keep in touch with all cases of serious + accident or illness. + +It would further be useful if she were allowed to be kept in touch +with the Compensation Department inside the Factory with a view to +advising on any cases of hardship that may arise. + + +IV. SUPERVISION OF CLOAK-ROOMS AND SANITARY CONVENIENCES. + +The Welfare Supervisor should be held responsible for the following +matters:-- + + (1) General cleanliness. + + (2) Prevention of Loitering. + + (3) Prevention of Pilfering. + +The Management will decide what staff is necessary to assist her, and +it should be her duty to report to the Management on these matters. + + +V. PROVISION OF OVERALLS. + +The Welfare Supervisor should have the duty of supervising the +Protective Clothing supplied to the women for their work. + + +EXTRAMURAL WELFARE. + +The Welfare Supervisor should keep in touch with all outside agencies +responsible for:-- + + (1) Housing. + + (2) Transit facilities. + + (3) Sickness and Maternity cases. + + (4) Recreation. + + (5) Day Nurseries. + +In communicating with any of these agencies it will no doubt be +preferable that she should do so through the Management. + + +III. RECORDS. + +_A_. The Welfare Supervisor should for the purpose of her work have +some personal records of every woman employee. If a card-index system +is adopted, a sample card suggesting the necessary particulars which +it is desirable should be kept by Welfare Supervisors is supplied to +employers on request. + +_B_. The Welfare Supervisor should have some way of observing the +health in relation to the efficiency of the workers, and if the +Management approved this could be done: + + (a) By allowing her to keep in touch with the Wages + Department. She could then watch the rise and fall of wages + earned by individual employees from the point of view that + a steady fall in earnings may be the first indication of an + impending breakdown in health. + + (b) By allowing her to keep in touch with the Time Office she + should be able to obtain records of all reasons for lost time. + From such records information can be obtained of sickness, + inadequate transit and urgent domestic duties, which might + otherwise not be discovered. Here again, if a card-index + system is adopted a sample card for this purpose can be + obtained from the Welfare and Health Section on request. + + (c) By keeping records of all cases of accident and sickness + occurring in the Factory. Sample Ambulance Books and Accident + Record Cards can also be obtained from the Welfare and Health + Section. + + + + +"THE WOMEN'S LAND ARMY" + + + "If it were not for the women, agriculture would be at an + absolute standstill on many farms in England and Wales today." + + --_President of the Board of Agriculture._ + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +"THE WOMEN'S LAND ARMY" + + +The Land Army of Women, which now numbers over 258,300 whole and +part-time workers, has done splendid work. For some years before the +war women had been very little used on the land in certain parts of +England and Wales. In Scotland and in some of the English counties +there had always been, and still were, quite fair numbers of women on +the land. + +Within eighteen months of the outbreak of war, about 300,000 +agricultural laborers had enlisted and the work had been carried on +with difficulty by the farmer in the first year of the war. The farmer +secured all the labor he could, old men returned to help, and the army +released skilled men temporarily, from training, to help. Soldiers +were used in groups for seasonal work, the farmer paying a good rate +for them. Groups of women were also organized for seasonal work by +various voluntary organizations, two of these being the Land Council +and the Women's National Land Service Corps. The Women's Farm and +Garden Union also did good work. The Land Service Corps made one of +its most important objects the organization of village women into +working gangs under leaders. One interesting piece of work undertaken +by the Corps last year was finding a large number of women for +flax-pulling in Somerset. This the Flax-Growers' Association asked +them to do as sufficient local labor could not be raised. The War +Agricultural Committee made all the local arrangements. This was +pioneer work of great value and importance as flax is essential in the +making of aeroplane wings. + +The Corps sent a group of 100 women under competent gang leaders. +The workers were housed in an empty country house and the War Office +provided bedding. The Y.W.C.A. undertook the catering at the request +of the Corps. The work, which was a great success, consisted in +pulling, gating, wind mowing, stocking and tying flax. + +The Corps has already been asked to undertake this again next year. +Owing to the Russian troubles and the closing of the Port of Riga, it +will be necessary to put many more hundreds of acres under cultivation +and it is probable four or five times as many women will be needed +next year. + +Some of the Corps members are doing good work in Army Remount Depots, +working in the stables and exercising the horses. One of the latest +interesting developments of women's work is in the care of sick +horses, carried out in the Horse Hospital in London. + +Within nine months of the outbreak of war, it was clear we must secure +help for the farmers, in order to enable them to do their work. As the +submarine menace developed, and the supply of grain in the world was +affected by the numbers of men taken away from production, it was +clear we must try to grow more food. + +Our grain production at the best was only twelve weeks of our supply, +and even to keep up to that seemed to be a problem. + +It was clear that in agriculture, as in so many other things, women +must fill up the ranks, and in the first official appeal of the +Government for additional woman labor, the land had an important +place. + +Lord Selborne, President of the Board of Agriculture, drew up a +scheme for the organization of agriculture throughout the country. +It consisted of War Agricultural Committee set up in each county who +look after production, use of land, procuring use of motor machinery, +etc., and of Women's Agricultural Committees. The latter undertake the +organization of securing women workers for the land, choosing them, +and arranging for training and placing out. + +The voluntary groups of women who have been working at the problem in +the war are now practically all merged in the Board of Agriculture's +organization. The Women's Branch of the Food Production Department +now controls and arranged the whole work and Miss Meriel Talbot is the +able chief. + +The Women's Land Corps, like the other organizations, was prepared to +be merged in the new Land Army of the Board and to cease to exist as a +separate organization. Its members were willing to become part of the +new Land Army. + +The Board found there was a distinct need for a voluntary association +which would continue to enroll women, who could not sign on for the +duration of the war, and who were able to forego the benefits of free +training, outfit and travelling given under the Government scheme. +Over 100 members of the Corps did enroll and the original Corps +members do not require to appear before the local Selection Committees +nor to submit references, which marks the Board's confidence in the +Corps. + +Many of the Corps Workers are now organizing Secretaries for the +Counties or Assistant Secretaries, or are travelling Inspectors under +the Board of Agriculture. + +The Corps still organizes the supply of temporary workers for seasonal +jobs such as potato dropping, hoeing, harvesting, fruitpicking, potato +and root lifting, etc., done by groups under leaders. The work of +organizing in the Counties is carried out by the appointment of a +woman as District representative. She is responsible for a general +supervision of the work in all the villages in her district. Each +village has a woman to act as Registrar and her duty (with assistants, +if necessary) is to canvass all the village women and girls for +volunteers for whole and part time work, and for training, and to +canvass the farmer to find out what labour he needs, and in the +beginning they had to induce him to use women. She puts the farmer and +the women suitable for his needs in her own district, in touch with +each other, and passes to the District Representative and to the +Employment Exchanges the names of all women qualified to help and not +placed, and of those willing to train. + +All these committees, registrars and representatives are honorary +workers. The Board of Agriculture appoints to each County for work +with the committee a woman Organizing Secretary, and assistant also +if necessary. + +The Board of Agriculture, working through the Employment Exchanges +and under the direction of their women heads, arranged a series of +meetings and work of propaganda by posters and leaflets throughout +the whole country early in 1916. + +The Representatives and Registrars organized the meetings to which +the farmers and the women were invited, and the whole scheme was +explained. These were very frequently held in the market towns on +market day and the farmer and his wife came in to hear after the +sales. We had to assail the prejudices of some of our farmers pretty +vigorously and of the women, too. We found the women who volunteered +best for land work were in the class above the industrial worker, and +that the comfortable and well educated woman stood its work admirably. + +The farmers were stiff to move in some cases and especially disliked +the idea of having to train the women. "They weren't going to run +after women all day--they had too much to do to go messing round with +girls!" This objection was met by the Board of Agriculture arranging +training centres in every county. Some of the training was done at the +Women's Agricultural Colleges and among places that arranged training +very early were the Harper Adam's College in Shropshire (Swanley); +Garford (Leeds); Sparsholt (Winchester); The Midland Agricultural +Training College (Kingston), and Aberystwith. + +The Women's Agricultural Committee have arranged a great many training +centres at big farms and on the Home farms of some of our estates. + +The girls volunteering for training must be eighteen years of age. +They are interviewed as to suitability and references by the Selection +Committee. They must have a medical certificate filled in by their own +doctor or by one of the committee's doctors. + +[Illustration: BACK TO THE LAND + +WOMEN TACKLE A STRONG MAN'S PROBLEM] + +On being passed, they go to the training centre, the travelling +expenses being paid by the Board. Outfit is free and the uniform is +a very sensible one of breeches, tunic, boots and gaiters or puttees, +and soft hat, breeches, etc., cut to measure for each girl. Training +and maintenance are free and there is always an instructor on the farm +in addition to the farmer and his workers. The travelling to the post +found, is again paid by the Government, and if work is not found at +once, on completion of training, maintenance is paid till it is. + +The training is generally of four to six weeks' duration and in some +cases longer, and over 7,000 women have been trained in this way and +placed. + +Appeals for land recruits were made in February, 1916, and in January +and April, 1917, when the Women's National Service Department asked +for 100,000 women. + +The Land Army women after three months' service receive an official +armlet--a green band with lion rampant in red and a certificate of +honour. The Land women are the only women who receive an armlet--the +munition girl wears a triangular brass brooch with "On war service." + +To induce the conservative farmer to try the women, exhibitions of +farm work were arranged in different part of the country with great +success, and the girls showed they could plough, and weed and hoe +and milk and care for stock, and do all the farm work, except the +heaviest, extremely well. + +The War Office in its official memorandum of 1916 gives a long list of +the farm and garden work in which women are successfully employed, and +they have been particularly successful in the care of stock. + +The farmer who used to declare he would never have a woman and that +they were no use, and who has them now, is always quite pleased and +generally cherishes a profound conviction that the reason why his +women are all right is because he has the most exceptional ones in the +country. + +Housing the worker and especially the groups for seasonal work has +been a problem, but it has been done and the feeding of groups well +has been managed, too. + +The housing conditions for the girl going to work whole-time are +investigated by the Board organizer, and the representatives of +committee. Very frequently a small group of girls have a cottage on +the farm. + +The Inspectors of the Board are in charge of three counties each and +look after all conditions. + +The girls are now being trained to drive the motor tractors for +ploughing, and for women who understand horses there is at present a +greater demand than supply. + +The Women's Branch of the Board is also at this time appealing +for well-educated women to aid in Timber Supply for two pieces of +work--measuring trees when felled, calculating the amount of wood in +the log, and marking off for sawing, and as forewomen to superintend +cross-cutting, felling small timber and coppice and to do the lighter +work of forestry. + +Girls and women are in market gardens and on private gardens in +very large numbers. The King has a great many women in his gardens +and conservatories. Most estates are growing as many vegetables as +possible to supply the many hospitals and the Fleet, and girls are +helping very much in this. A great deal has been done by work in +allotments, plots of land taken up by town dwellers and cultivated. In +one part of South Wales alone 40,000 allotments have been worked and +the allotment holders are organizing themselves co-operatively for +the purchase of seed, etc. We have Governmental powers now not only to +enable Local Authorities to secure unused land for allotments, but to +compel farmers to cultivate all their ground. We have fixed a price +for wheat for five years, and a minimum wage for the agricultural man +and woman. + +The girls on the land improve in health and increase in weight. The +work is not only of supreme usefulness to the country--we have the +submarine ceaselessly gnawing at our shipping and making our burden +heavier--so we must produce everything possible. It has improved the +physique of our girls--they like it, and many will permanently adopt +it. Our Board of Agriculture is also encouraging, for the benefit of +the country woman, the formation of Women's Institutes, like those in +Canada and America. + +In the Lord Mayor's Procession in London, on November 9, 1917, with +the men-in-arms of all our great Commonwealth of Nations, with the +Turks and the captured German aeroplanes and guns, the munition girls +and the Land girls marched. No group in all that great array had +a warmer welcome from our vast crowds than our sensibly clothed, +healthy, happy and supremely useful Land girls. + + + + +WAR SAVINGS--THE MONEY BEHIND THE GUNS + + +"You cannot have absolute equality of sacrifice in a war. That is +impossible. But you can have equal readiness to sacrifice from all. +There are hundreds of thousands who have given their lives, there are +millions who have given up comfortable homes and exchanged them for +a daily communion with death. Multitudes have given up those whom +they loved best. Let the nation as a whole place its comforts, +its luxuries, its indulgences, its elegances, on a national altar, +consecrated by such sacrifices as these men have made." + + --THE PRIME MINISTER. + +"Deep down in the heart of every one of us there is the spirit of +love for our native land, dulled it may be in some cases, perhaps +temporarily obscured, by hardship, injustice and suffering, but it is +there and it remains for us to touch the chord which will bring it to +life; once aroused it will prove irresistible." + + --Sir R.M. KINDERSLEY, K.B.E. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +WAR SAVINGS--THE MONEY BEHIND THE GUNS + + +To win the war, we must save. There is no task more imperative, +no need more urgent, and there is no greater work than the work of +educating the peoples of our countries, and inducing them to save and +lend to their Governments. + +The first Government Committee set up in Britain to do propaganda work +for war loans was established shortly after the war under the title +of the "Parliamentary War Savings Committee." It did some propaganda +for the early war loans. At the same time a very interesting group of +people associated with the "Round Table," and including in it many +of our most able financiers and economists--such men as the future +chairman of the National War Savings Committee, Sir Robert M. +Kindersley, K.B.E.; C.J. Stewart, the Public Trustee; Hartley Withers, +Lord Sumner, T.L. Gilmour, Theodore Chambers (now Controller of the +National War Savings Committee), Evan Hughes (now Organizer-in-Chief), +Lieut. J.H. Curle, Countess Ferrers, Basil Blackett, C.B.; William +Schooling and Mrs. Minty, Hon. Sec. Excellent articles were written, +leaflets published and meetings held at which many of us spoke +throughout the country, and valuable work was done towards educating +groups of useful people in the country. + +In 1915 a committee was appointed by the House of Commons to go into +the whole question of Loans and Methods. The committee was presided +over by Mr. E.S. Montagu, and its findings were of great interest. It +advised the immediate setting up of a committee whose task it would be +to create machinery by which the small investor might be assisted to +invest in State Securities, and secondly, to educate the country as +a whole on the imperative need of economy. The Lords Commissioners of +His Majesty's Treasury set up the National War Savings Committee in +March, 1916, and in April, 1917, it became a Government Department. +The first chairman was George Barnes, Esq., M.P., but very soon the +chairmanship was taken by Sir Robert Kindersley, a director of the +Bank of England, who has spent himself unceasingly in his great task. + +The committee started its work with a very small staff, Mr. Schooling +being one of the original half-dozen in it, and the schemes and +methods of work were evolved. It works in its organization by setting +up committees. The County is the biggest unit and the Hon. Secretary +of the County works at setting up Local Committees, which are +established in towns with under 20,000 of a population, and we put +a group of parishes together in rural districts under one Local +Committee. All towns, cities and boroughs over 20,000 population are +set up by Headquarters and have Local Central Committees. There are +now in England and Wales over 1,580 of these committees. Scotland +is worked by a separate committee. Linked up to these committees and +represented on them, the War Savings Associations work, and there are +now altogether over 40,000 of these with a weekly subscribing +membership of over 7,000,000 people. + +[Illustration: 6 REASONS + Why YOU Should Save + +1. Because when you save you help our soldiers and sailors. + +2. Because when you spend on things you do not need you help the +Germans. + +3. Because when you spend you make other people work for you, and the +work of every one is wanted now to help our fighting men to win the +war, or to produce necessaries and to make goods for export. + +4. Because by confining your spending to necessaries you relieve the +strain on our ships and docks and railways and make transport cheaper +and quicker. + +5. Because when you spend you make things dearer for everyone, +especially for those who are poorer than yourself. + +6. Because every shilling saved helps twice, first when you don't +spend it and again when you lend it to the Matron. + +POSTER ISSUED BY NATIONAL WAR SAVINGS COMMITTEE] + +The committees also did the propaganda work for the January-February +Loan of 1917, when five billion dollars was raised (L1,000,000,000) +and over eight million people (out of our population of forty-five +millions) subscribed to the loan. + +The work of the committees was admirable at that time and assisted +materially in the success of the loan. + +The National War Savings Committee was also asked by Lord Devonport in +April to assist the Ministry of Food by doing, through its committees, +a great food-saving propaganda. This request was made, because, it was +explained, the War Savings Committees are the best organized and most +thoroughly democratic Government organization in the country. This +propaganda was also done with marked success. In autumn of this year +the committees have done an extensive campaign of education, and of +work to strengthen and enlarge their associations, and also to push +the sale of the new War Bonds. + +The Treasury's policy now is to raise all the money needed by the +wisest borrowing from the people--day by day borrowing. + +The entire work of the committees and associations is done +voluntarily--nothing is paid in the whole country for the work, and +the only charge is Headquarters Staff and propaganda expenses. The +County Secretaries are in most cases Board of Education Inspectors +whom the Board has generously allowed to help. + +The War Saving Association is the body that sells the War Savings +Certificates, which are very much like the American ones. These are +also sold at all Post Offices and Banks. They cost 15/6 each, and in +five years from date of purchase are worth L1. The interest in the +fifth year is at the rate of L5.4.7 per cent. The interest begins at +the end of the first year and the certificates can be cashed at any +time at the Post Office with interest to the date of cashing. The War +Savings Certificate has the additional advantage that its interest +is free of income tax, and in a country where income tax begins above +L120 ($600), and is then at rate of 2/3 in L1 (over 10 per cent) on +earned income and 3/. on unearned, its advantage is very clear. The +interest does not need to be included in income returns--but no one +may buy more than 500 certificates. It is a specially good paying +security intended only for the small saver. + +The War Savings Associations can be set up by any group of people, +ten or upwards, who wish to save co-operatively. They must establish a +committee, small or large. They must appoint a Secretary and Treasurer +and then apply for recognition to their Local Committee, or if there +is not one, to the National Committee. They are given an affiliation +certificate by their committee and receive free all the books, papers, +etc., necessary for carrying on an association. These are all supplied +by the National Committee to Local Committees. + +The 40,000 Associations are in the Army, Navy, Munition Works, +Government establishments, Railways, Banks, Mines, Churches, Shops, +social groups, clubs, men's and women's organizations and 10,000 are +in the schools. The schools, where we receive subscriptions down to +2 cents have done wonderful work and the teachers have done a great +deal to make our movement what it is. We find the children do the best +propaganda in the homes. One teacher, after explaining to his children +what it all meant in the morning, in the afternoon had dozens of +subscriptions, and among them a sovereign which had been clasped +tightly in a hot little hand for a mile and a half's walk. The little +boy said, "I told Mother about it and she gave me that for fighting +the Germans." + +Our Associations have unearthed piles of gold, one village association +alone getting in L750 in gold ($3,750). Old stockings have come +out and one agricultural laborer brought nine sovereigns to one of +our Secretaries one night, and asked her to invest it to help the +soldiers. She said, "Why did you bring it to me?" and he said, +"Because its secreter than the Post Office." And the Association +has the advantage that all its affairs are confidential, and though +figures and amounts are known, no single detail need be. + +The schemes are two and apart from schools, the minimum weekly +subscription is 12 cents. There is a Bank Book scheme and a Stamp +scheme in which the member holds a card which takes thirty-one 12-cent +stamps, and when filled up is handed in to the Secretary and a War +Savings Certificate is received. + +The financial advantage to the members of forming an Association is +quite easy to understand. Every week the takings are invested by the +Secretary (using a special slip given by the National Committee) in +War Savings Certificates, so that when members finish subscribing +for a certificate, instead of getting one dated the day they finished +paying for it, as it would be if they saved by themselves, the +Secretary has a store of earlier dated certificates on hand, and the +member receives one of these. + +This works out quite fairly if one rule is observed--never give any +one a Certificate dated earlier than the first week they started +paying for it. + +The people of England needed a great deal of education in war saving. +We had to fight the strongly held conviction that of all sins the most +despicable is "meanness," and that too much saving may seem mean. + +No Englishman will ever really admit he has any money, and he was +inclined to question your right to talk about the possibility of his +having some--and your right to tell him what to do with it, supposing +he had any. Some of them were a little suspicious that it was the +workers we were talking to most--it was not--and some of them were not +quite sure they wanted their employers to know how much they saved. +That is entirely obviated by the men running their own associations. +Other people told you the people in their District never did, +could, or would save and were spending their big wages in the most +extravagant way--that pianos and fur coats appealed far more than +war savings certificates. The official people in the towns when we +approached them about conferences said much the same in some cases, +but, yes, of course, you could come and have a conference and the +Mayor would preside and you could try. And you did, and in six months +they had dozens of associations and thousands of members and had sold +some thousands of certificates. We sell about one and a half million +certificates a week and have sold about 140 millions since March, +1916. The appeal that won them was not only the practical appeal of +the value of the money after the war for themselves, to buy a house, +to provide for old age, to educate the children. The strongest appeal +was the patriotic one. Save your money to save your country. Throw +your silver bullets at the enemy. We have not been content to say only +"save," we have tried to educate our people on finance and economics. +We have tried to show them that no country can go on in a struggle +like this unless it conserves its resources--not even the richest +countries. We have tried to appeal to the spirit behind all these +things and our Chairman in one of his admirable speeches said: + +"It is upon these simple human feelings of loyalty, comradeship and +patriotism that the great War Savings Movement is founded. Because of +the strength of this foundation I feel convinced that we shall succeed +in the great national work we are setting out to perform. However +difficult our task may prove, however serious the times ahead, this +spirit will carry us safely and triumphantly through everything, and +in the end we shall find ourselves not weakened but strengthened +on account of these same difficulties which we shall most surely +overcome." + +The problem before us is the problem of finding ten times the amount +of money we did before the war for National purposes. We are spending +over $30,000,000 a day. By our taxations, which includes an 80 per +cent tax on excess profits, we are raising over 25 per cent of our +total expenditure. We have met some other part of our expenditure in +the three years of war by using our gold reserve very heavily; a great +deal of it in payments in America, where you now possess more than a +third of the gold of the entire world. We have also used a portion of +our securities, our capital wealth and past savings, and we have had +to borrow heavily. Our National Debt is now L4,000,000,000. It was +L700,000,000 at the outbreak of war. L1,000,000,000 has been lent to +our Allies and the Dominions. + +Numbers of people have an impression that Governments can find money. +They can, to a certain extent, but only in a very limited way, without +great harm. There is in this creation an addition to the buying power +of the community, but if everybody goes on spending no addition to +the productive power, so it only creates high prices and hardship. The +inflation of currency caused by it is a risk and an evil. The sound +way is to get the money by taxation, from resources and in real +voluntary loans. + +America's burden is very much the same as our own, and the need +here also of voluntary saving and lending to the extent of more than +half the expenditure is clear. America, like ourselves, is very +wisely trying to democratise its war loans. Nothing is wiser or +sounder or more calculated to make progress, and the changes after +the war which will come, sound and steady than widely-spread, +democratically-subscribed loans. These vast debts will have to be +paid by the ability, productiveness and work of all, so it is in the +highest degree desirable that the money and interest to be paid back +should go out to every class of the community--and not only to small +sections. It is well to remember, too, that the country that goes +to the peace table financially sound is in a position to make better +terms. + +[Illustration: ONE OF THE POSTERS RECENTLY ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL WAR +SAVINGS COMMITTEE] + +But the purely financial side of war savings is not the most important +one. We talk in terms of money but the reality is not money but goods +and services. The problem before our Governments and the problem +that cannot be left to our children (though the debts incurred in +securing the credits may be) is the problem of finding every day over +$30,000,000 worth of material and labour for the struggle. War savings +among the people is not only essential to secure the money needed--it +is far more essential from the point of view of securing the cutting +down of the consumption of goods and labour by our peoples. + +Economists in peace time argue over what is termed "luxury" +expenditure, the wasteful expenditure of peace. War expenditure may +be correctly termed wasteful to a very great extent, and no country +can carry both of these expenditures and remain solvent. Luxury +expenditure should be entirely eliminated and the material and labour +which was absorbed by it should go into the war. If this could be +done completely, little damage would be done to the nation's economic +position. The thing to be clearly realized is that all the productive +effort of the nation is needed for three things--the carrying on of +the war--the production of necessaries and the manufacture of goods +for export. Every civilian who uses material and labour unnecessarily +makes these tasks harder and goes into the markets as an unfair +competitor of the Government. Every man and woman who saves five +dollars and lends it to their country give their country what is far +more important than the five dollars. They transfer to the Government +the five dollars worth of material and labour they could have used up +if they had spent it on themselves and that is its real value. This +means the needful purchases of the State are substituted for, instead +of added to, the purchases of the civilian. + +Further, the influence of economy in preventing undue inflation of +currency and consequent high prices should be realized. A certain +amount of high prices in war is inevitable but if civilians buy +extravagantly, competition becomes intense and prices rise beyond all +need. The supplies are limited--in our case that is greatly added +to by the submarine menace--and the demands of the Government are +enormous. The competition between the Government and the people grows +more and more intense. Prices go still higher. The Government pays +more than it should and so do the people. Higher wages are demanded +with consequent higher prices, and so you get a vicious circle that +gets more and more dangerous. If the civilian will relieve this +pressure by demanding less, and cutting down his expenditure, prices +will become more reasonable and the cost of the war less. + +The chief difficulty in time of war is to make people realize the need +of economy when they have, as our people have, more money than ever +before, when enormous sums of money pour out ceaselessly to the people +from the Government. They have to realize the fundamental difference +between peace prosperity and war prosperity. Peace prosperity comes +from the creation of wealth. War prosperity comes from the dissipation +of wealth--the use of all resources--the pledging of credits. It is +just as if we, as individuals, to meet a personal crisis, took all our +personal savings and borrowed all we could and proceeded to spend it. +The wise man or woman will save all of it they can and realize that +every unnecessary dollar spent helps the enemy. No civilian in a +struggle of this kind has any moral right to more than necessary +things. We want every man and woman to have all they need for their +efficiency. We would not say for one moment that every one can save, +and money spent on clothing and feeding the children and keeping the +home comfortable is well spent, but nothing should be wasted. + +The standard in this matter should be set by the rich, on whom rests +the greatest responsibility, moral and social. It is impossible to +expect workers to save if they see luxury and extravagance everywhere +round them. One cannot too strongly say that. + +The civilians who work hard to produce, who have done heavy toil in +munitions and industry, and receive good wages and then go out and +spend it lavishly might just as well have slacked at their work. The +ultimate effect is the same. They have undone the good they did. It is +as if soldiers having won a trench let the Germans come back into it. + +People of small means often feel that all they can save is so small +that it cannot really help and wonder if the effort to save is worth +while, but if every person in America saved 2 cents a day, it would +amount to $730,000,000 in a year, and that would find a great deal of +munitions. + +Finding the money by saving finds everything, releases men for the +army, finds labour and money for munitions, finds labour for ships and +relieves the demands on tonnage, finds supplies. It is the fundamental +service of the civilian, and no good citizen wants luxuries while +soldiers and sailors need clothes and guns and ships and munitions. + +Everybody, man, woman, and child, can join the great financial army +and march behind our men, and women have done with us and can do +everywhere a great work in this. Women are on our National Committee +and doing a great deal of its organization. Our men in the trenches, +in the air, at sea, endure for us what we would have said before the +war was humanly unendurable. They pay for our freedom with a great +price--and we send them out to pay it--in death, disablement, +suffering and sacrifice. To fail in our duty behind them would be the +great betrayal. + +Our treasures are very small things compared with our men. Shall we +give them and not our money? + +[Illustration: REVERSE OF BEFORE YOU SPEND] + +[Illustration] + +A BOOKMARK, ISSUED BY N.W.S.C. + +[Illustration: THINK BEFORE YOU SPEND] + +[Illustration: REVERSE OF HOW 15/6] + +ANOTHER BOOKMARK + + + + +FOOD PRODUCTION AND CONSERVATION + + + "The whole country ought to realise that we are a beleaguered + city." + + --The President of the Board of Agriculture. + + + "If you have any belief in the cause for which thousands of + your fellow-countrymen have laid down their lives, you will + scrape and scrape and scrape, you will go in old clothes, + and old boots, and old ties until such a mass of treasure be + garnered into the coffers of the Government as to secure + at the end of all this tangle of misery a real and lasting + settlement for Europe." + + --The President of the Board of Education. + + + + + +CHAPTER X + +FOOD PRODUCTION AND CONSERVATION + + +In this great struggle the food question assumes greater and greater +importance. + +The production of food has been affected by the raising of great +armies--more than twenty million men are in arms in Europe--by the +feeding of armies, for which we must, of necessity, provide food in +excess of what these men would need in civil life. The ability to +get the food has been made difficult for us by the submarine warfare. +Thousands of tons of wheat lie in Australia, but we cannot afford +ships to bring it. Tea has been very short in England, though again +there are thousands of tons waiting in India. The most urgent need of +the Allies is for ships and more ships. There has been great loss of +tonnage and the needs of the Army and Navy absorb the service of vast +numbers of the available ships. We have moved 13,000,000 men since +war broke out, and the supplies and munitions they have needed, to our +many fronts. Ceaselessly we move the wounded. We have to bring into +Britain half our food. That we have done this, has been due to the +British Navy and the Reserves--the patrols and the mine sweepers--the +Fringes of the Fleet--and not least, the merchant seaman. About +6,000 merchantmen have been killed by the enemy, some with diabolical +cruelty. These men are torpedoed and come into port, and go for +another ship at once. On the ship on which I crossed there were seamen +who had been torpedoed three times In its submarine warfare the enemy +has broken every international and human law--has used "frightfulness" +to its fullest extent, and the answer of our merchant seamen is to go +to sea again as soon as the ship is ready, and the older men, who had +retired, return to sea. The seaman of our country know the enemy. It +was our Seamen's Union that refused to carry the Peace Delegates to +Stockholm, and it is they and our fishermen who, in the Reserves, man +the patrols and mine sweepers, and who, on our little drifters and +trawlers, have fought the enemy's big destroyers--fought till they +went down, refusing to surrender. + +It is not strange that the best-liked poster in our Food Crusade, +and the one people want everywhere, is a simple drawing of a merchant +seaman, and under it the words, "We risk our lives to bring you food. +It is up to you not to waste it." + +The countries that can succeed best in solving the food question are +the countries that will win, and the food problem will not cease, any +more than many others, when peace is declared. + +Very early in the war, existing organizations, such as the National +Food Reform Association, and newly created ones, the National Food +Economy League and the Patriotic Food League of Scotland, did a great +deal of active work on food saving. They aimed at instructing in +the scientific principles of the economical use of food, and issued +admirable leaflets and Handbooks for Housewives and Cookery Books. +A series of Exhibitions, often described as "Patriotic Housekeeping +Exhibitions" were held in different parts of the country, organized +generally by women's societies. One of the early ones I organized +in Salisbury. Later, the Public Trustee was chairman of an Official +Committee, which organized large Exhibitions in London and throughout +the country. These Exhibitions had stalls showing food values with +specimens, had exhibits of the most economical cooking stoves and +arrangements, and exhibited every manner of time and labour saving +device. They had wonderful exhibits of clothes for children made from +old clothes of grown-ups, of marvellous dresses and little jerseys and +caps and scarfs made from legs of old stockings. There were charming +dresses and underclothing made of the very simplest materials and +decorated artistically with stitching and embroidery. These were made +by school girls of seven and upwards for themselves, and the Glasgow +School of Art's work, done in schools there, was perfectly beautiful. +The cost was shown and it was incredibly small. All sorts of things +for the household in simple carpentry and upholstery, using up boxes +and wood, were shown, and old tins were converted into all sorts of +useful household things. Facts as to waste were made as striking as +possible by demonstration. Every exhibition had a War Savings Stall +and Certificates were often sold at these in large numbers, the Queen +buying the first sold at the first London Exhibition. + +The great feature of the Exhibitions was Food Saving and Conservation. +Demonstrations in cooking and in hay-box cooking, were given and these +were attended by thousands of women, Miss Petty, "The Pudding Lady," +being a specially attractive demonstrator. She was called "The Pudding +Lady," first by little children in London in the East End, where she +used to go into the homes, and show them how to cook on their own +fires, and with their own meagre possessions. When she came there was +pudding, so her title came as a result. + +We always included exhibits and posters on the care of the babies +and the children. Lectures on vegetable and potato growing, bee and +poultry keeping, etc., were also given. + +There were competitions in connection with the Exhibitions--prizes +were offered for the best cake--for the best war bread--for the best +dinners for a family at a small cost--for the best weekly budgets of +different small incomes--for the best blouse and dress made at a +small cost, etc., and these were extremely popular. The prizes were +generally War Savings Certificates or labour-saving devices. + +From the Governmental point of view the Food work is in two great +divisions: Food Production, which is worked by the Food Production +Department of the Board of Agriculture, of which the Women's Branch is +doing the work of placing women on the land. It not only works on the +production of more food but it organizes the conservation of food, +such as fruit bottling, and preserving fruit, and vegetable and fruit +drying, etc. + +A very great deal has been done in demonstrating how to conserve +fruit and vegetables all over the country and this has been done to an +extent hitherto quite unreached. Co-operative work has been done and +most interesting experiments made. The glass bottles necessary have +been secured by the Department, and are sold by them to those doing +the conservation at a fixed price. Last summer the Sugar Commission +also arranged to sell sufficient sugar for making preserves to those +people who grow their own fruit. This they succeeded in doing to a +very large extent--which was a most valuable conservation. + +The Ministry of Food is the other great body dealing with all food +problems of supply, price, regulations, and propaganda. + +Lord Rhondda is our Food Controller. Our first Controller was Lord +Devonport. Food control is the most unpopular work in any country and +a Food Controller deserves the help, sympathy and support of every +good citizen. No Food Controller, no matter how able, and no matter +how great and comprehensive his powers are, can do his work without +the co-operation of the people. + +Lord Rhondda's powers are very great as to control of supplier prices +and regulations. The price of the four pound loaf (and it must be four +pounds) is fixed by our Government at 18 cents and the loss is borne +by the Government. + +The prices of meat, beans, cheese, tea, sugar, milk, and the profits +on other articles are regulated by the Ministry. When Lord Devonport +was Food Controller we had courses at lunch and dinner limited--a +policy most people felt to be stupid as it meant a run on staple +foods--and it was abandoned by Lord Rhondda. We had meatless days, +which also have been stopped. We found it difficult to do, and +impossible to regulate. We had many potatoless days last spring--by +regulation in the restaurants--perforce by most of us in towns where +they were almost impossible to get, but this year we have the biggest +potato crop we have had. + +In restaurants and hotels now supplies are regulated. No one can have +more than two ounces of bread at any meal, and the amount of flour and +sugar supplied is strictly rationed to the hotels, according to the +number served. Not more than five ounces of meat (before cooking) can +be served at any meal. These regulations are strictly enforced, and +the duty of seeing all the regulations are carried out, and all the +work done, devolves upon the Local Food Control Committees which have +been set up all over the country under the Ministry, by the local +authorities. On every such Committee there must be women. They fix +prices for milk, etc., and initiate prosecutions for infringements of +the laws regulating food. + +No white flour is sold or used in Britain. The mills are all +controlled by the Government and all flour is now war grade, which +means it is made of about 70 per cent white flour and other grains, +rye, corn (which we call maize), barley, rice-flour, etc., are added. +We expect to mill potato flour this year. Oatmeal has a fixed price, +9 cents a pound, in Scotland, 10 cents in England. No fancy pastries, +no icing on cakes and no fancy bread may be made. Only two shapes of +loaf are allowed--the tin loaf and the Coburg. Cakes must only have 15 +per cent sugar and 30 per cent war grade flour. Buns and scones and +biscuits have regulations as to making, also. + +Butter is very scarce and margarine supplies not always big enough, +and we have tea and sugar and margerine queues in our big towns--women +standing in long rows waiting. It is an intolerable waste of time--and +yet it seems difficult to get it managed otherwise. + +The woman in the home in our country with high prices, want of +supplies, and her desire to economise has had a busy and full time, +but our people are quite well fed. Naturally enough, considering the +hard work we are all doing, our people are really using more, not less +food, but waste is being fought very well. + +Waste is a punishable offence and if you throw away bread or any good +food, you will be proceeded against, as many have been, and fined 40/- +to L100. No bread must be sold that is not twelve hours baked. New +bread is extravagant in cutting and people eat more. It is interesting +to note that in one period of the Napoleonic wars we did the same +thing and ate no new bread. + +Food hoarding is an offence and the food is commandeered and the +hoarder punished. Several people have been fined L50 and upwards. + +The work of the Army in economizing food has been a great work. +Rations have been cut down and much more carefully dealt with. The use +of waste products has become a science. All the fats are saved--even +the fats in water used in washing dishes are trapped and saved. The +fats are used to make glycerine, and last year the Army saved enough +waste fat to make glycerine for 18,000,000 shells. Fats and scraps for +pigs, and bones, etc., are all sold and one-third of the money goes +back to the men's messing funds to buy additional foods and every camp +tries to beat the other in its care and efficiency and the women cooks +are doing admirably in this work. + +Officers of the Navy and Army are only permitted to spend a certain +amount on meals in restaurants and hotels--3/6 for lunch and 5/6 for +dinner and 1/6 for tea. + +The other side of the Food Campaign is the propaganda and educative +work. Lord Rhondda has two women Co-Directors with him--Mrs. C.S. Peel +and Mrs. M. Pember Reeves--in the Ministry of Food, and they help in +the whole work and very specially with the educational and propaganda +work, and with the work of communal feeding. + +A number of communal kitchens have been established with great +success--many being in London. At these thousands of meals are +prepared--soups and stews, fish, and meats, and puddings, every +variety of dishes, and the purchasers come to the kitchens and bring +plates and jugs to carry away the food. Soups are sold from 2 to +4 cents for a jugful, and other things in proportion. These are +established under official recognition, the Municipalities in most +cases providing the initial cost. The prices paid cover the cost of +food and cooking, and the service is practically all voluntary. + +The first propaganda work was, as I have said, done by the War Savings +Committees, and our big task was to try to make our people realize how +undesirable it is to have to resort to compulsory rationing. We +are rationed on sugar and we do not want to adopt more compulsory +rationing than is necessary. Compulsory rationing, in some people's +minds, seems to ensure supplies. It does not and where, under +voluntary rationing, people go round and find other food and get along +with the supplies there are, under compulsory rationing there would +always be a tendency to demand their ration and to make trouble about +the lack of any one commodity in it. + +Compulsory rationing to be workable must be a simple scheme, and no +overhead ration of bread, for example, is just. The needs of workers +vary and so do the needs of individuals, and bread is the staple food +of our poorer classes. They have less variety of foods and need more +bread than the better-off people. Compulsory rationing may have to +come, but most of us are determined it will not come till it is really +unavoidable and we are appealing to our people to prevent that, and +masses of them are economizing and saving in a manner worthy of the +greatest praise. + +The rationing we appealed to our people to get down to, was three +pounds of flour per head in the week, 21/2 lbs. of meat and 1/2 lb. sugar. + +The King's Pledge, which we had signed by those willing to do this, +all over the country, pledged people to cut down their consumption +of grain by one-quarter in the household, and the King's Proclamation +urged this, and economies in grain and horse feeding. + +An old Proclamation of the 18th century appealed to our people to cut +down their consumption of their grains by one-third and was almost +identical in form, and copies signed by Edmund Burke and other famous +people were shown in our Thrift Exhibitions in Buckinghamshire. + +We arranged meetings for the maids of households in big groups to +explain the need and meaning of economy in food with great success. +Every head of a household knows that the maids can make or mar one's +efforts to save food, and we have found many of ours admirable, and +willing to do wonders in the way of economy and saving. + +If compulsory rationing in more than sugar comes as it may, the +basis of rationing will, we believe, be worked out with as much +consideration as possible of the needs of the workers. + +Our Co-operative movement is, in a simple way rationing its buyers, by +regulating supplies, and it is in voluntary work of that kind, which +is going on extensively, and in the people's own efforts and economies +that our great hope lies. + +The Ministry of Food arranges meetings and sends speakers to +associations and bodies of every kind. The schools are very +extensively used for demonstrations to which the parents are invited. +The children are talked to and write essays on food and general saving +and in these, one little girl of seven told us, "If you don't throw +away your crusts, you will beat the Kaiser," and another small boy +said, "Boys should give up sliding for the war, as it wears out their +boots," and another said, "We should not go to picture houses so +much--once a week is quite often enough." One little child who had +been coached at school returned home to see a baby sister of two throw +away a big crust and said, "If Lord Rhondda was here, wouldn't he give +you a row." So the root of the matter seems to be in the youth of our +country and the sweetness and willingness of their sacrifices is very +fragrant. They sing about saving bread and saving pennies, and to +hear a choir of Welsh children sing these songs, with a vigour and +enjoyment that is infectious, is quite delightful. + +Most of our big girls' schools have given up buying sweets, and when +they get gifts of them send them to the prisoners and the soldiers. We +have, of course, restricted our manufacture of sweets very much. + +Our school children have, in addition, worked enormous numbers of +school gardens and grown tons of potatoes and vegetables. + +Our distilleries are taken over by the Government for spirits for +munitions and our beer is cut down very greatly. Travelling kitchens +go out from the Ministry of Food also and do demonstrations in +villages and country districts on cooking and conservation. The +Ministry issues leaflets of recipes and instructions in cooking and +has a special Win the War Cookery Book. Articles are also published on +food values and quite a number of people begin to understand something +about calories, even though they are rather vague about what it all +means. + +Naturally most of the Food speaking and work is done by women though +food control and saving is men's and women's work. + +This year we saved grain by collecting the horse chestnuts, a work +that was done by the school children. These are crushed and the oil +used for munitions and it was reckoned we could save tens of thousands +of tons of grain by doing this. + +A wonderful work in the use of waste materials has been the work of +the Glove Waistcoat Society, to which American women have kindly sent +old gloves. Old gloves are cleaned, the fingers are cut off, the other +big pieces stitched together and cut into waistcoats and backed by +linenette. These are sold to the soldiers and sailors for wear under +their tunics and are most beautifully light and windproof. The fingers +of kid gloves are made into glue, of wash leather gloves into rubbers +for household use. The big pieces of linenette over are made into dust +sheets and the small scraps go to stuff mattresses for a Babies' Home. +The buttons are carded and sold and the making up provides work for +distressed elderly women. It needs no funds--it is self-supporting--it +only needs old gloves. + +In preventing waste and in food production and conservation, our +people have learned much, and a very great deal of admirable work is +being done. + + + + +THE WOMEN'S ARMY AUXILIARY CORPS + + "Now every signaller was a fine Waac, + And a very fine Waac was she--e." + + "Soldier and Sailor, too." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE WOMEN'S ARMY AUXILIARY CORPS + + +The Waacs is the name we all know them by and shall, it seems, +continue to. It will have to go into future dictionaries beside Anzac. + +The deeds of the Anzacs in Gallipoli and France are immortalised in +many records--magnificently in John Masefield's "Gallipoli"--an epic +in its simplicity. The work of the Waacs is the work of support and +substitution and its records only begin to be made. + +The Women's Army Auxiliary Corps is an official creation of this year. +At the Women's Service Demonstration in the Albert Hall in January, +1917, Lord Derby asked for Women for clerical service in the army and +official appeals were issued in February and repeatedly since that +time, and now all over the country we have Recruiting Committees +organizing meetings and securing recruits. They are recruiting at the +rate of 10,000 a month. + +The Waacs had many forerunners in some of our voluntary organizations, +in the Women's Reserve Ambulance, of "The Green Cross Society," +attached to the National Motor Volunteers--the Women's Volunteer +Reserve--the Women's Legion--the Women's Auxiliary Force and the Women +Signallers Territorial Corps. The Women's Signallers Corps had as +Commandant-in-Chief Mrs. E.J. Parker--Lord Kitchener's sister. They +believed women should be trained in every branch of signalling and +that men could be released for the firing line by women taking over +signalling work at fixed stations. Their prediction came true more +than two years later, for today they are in France. They drilled and +trained the women in all the branches of signalling semaphore--flags, +mechanical arms; and in Morse--flags, airline and cable, sounder +(telegraphy), buzzer, wireless, whistle, lamp and heliograph. They +also learned map reading--the most fascinating of accomplishments. +This Corps had the distinction of introducing "wireless" for women +in England in connection with its Headquarters training school. When +one of the Corps later accepted a splendid appointment as wireless +instructor at a wireless telegraph college--the Corps was duly elated. + +[Illustration: W.A.A.C.'s. ON THE MARCH] + +[Illustration: WOMEN OF THE RESERVE AMBULANCE] + +The Women's Reserve Ambulance had the distinction of being the first +ambulance on the scene in the first serious Zeppelin Raid in London +(September, 1915). They came to where the first bombs fell, killing +and wounding, and did the work of rescue, and when another ambulance +arrived later, "Thanks," said the police, "the ladies have done this +job." + +They worked assisting the War Hospital Supply Depots, that wonderful +organization run by Miss MacCaul, they provided orderlies to serve the +meals and act as housemaids, and make the men welcome at Peel House, +one of the Canadian Clubs. Others helped in Hospitals, washing up and +doing other work. + +Others met and moved wounded--others at night took the soldiers to +the Y.M.C.A. huts. The Women's Volunteer Reserve, too, seemed to be +everywhere doing all sorts of useful, helpful things--disciplined, +ready, and trained. The Women's Legion led the way in providing cooks +and waitresses for camps and sent out 1,200 of these inside a year. +The first convalescent camp to have all its cooking and serving done +by women was managed--admirably, too--by the Women's Legion, so +the Waacs had many voluntary forerunners, who are mostly in it and +amalgamated with it now. + +The Waacs are a part of the Army organization--are in His Majesty's +Forces and when a girl joins she is subject to army rules and +regulations. They are working now in large numbers in England and in +France, at all the base towns, and in quiet places, where things that +matter are planned and initiated. + +The girl who goes to France knows she is going to possible danger by +being handed, before she goes, her two identification discs. + +For France, no woman under twenty or over forty is eligible. After +volunteering, they are chosen by Selection Boards and medically +examined. They receive a grant for their uniforms. The workers wear +a khaki coat-frock--a very sensible garment--brown shoes and soft hat +and a great coat. At the end of a year they get a L5 ($25) bonus on +renewing their contracts, and they get a fortnight's leave in a year. + +Their payment is not high--it works out about the same as a soldier's +when everything is paid--and that, with us, is just over 25 cents a +day, so the khaki girl, like the soldier, does not work for the money. + +The whole organization is officered and directed by women. Mrs. +Chalmers Watson, M.D., C.B.E., is the Chief Controller, with +Miss MacQueen as Assistant Chief Controller. Under them are the +Controllers--Area, Recruiting, etc., and the officer in charge +of a unit is called an Administrator, and under her are deputy +administrators and assistant-administrators. They are not given +Military titles and do not hold commissions, but their appointments +are gazetted in the ordinary way. There is always a strong feeling in +England that Military and Naval titles should be strictly reserved. + +The equivalent of a sergeant is a "forewoman," and there are +quartermistresses in charge of stores. Rank is shown as among the men, +by badges, rose and fleur-de-lys. + +Administrators are being trained in large numbers. They have a short +course of drilling, learn to fill up Army forms, make out pay sheets, +how to requisition for rations, catering generally, and how to run a +hostel. They also attend practical lectures on hygiene and sanitation. +When this is done, they go to camp for a fortnight's training under an +administrator in actual charge of a Unit. If they have not done well +in this course, they are not appointed. + +An administrator receives a $100 grant for her uniform and is paid +from $600 to $875 a year out of which $200 is deducted for food. There +is generally one officer to every fifty women. + +The administrator must drill her girls. The W.A.A.C. is proud of its +tone and its discipline. Its officers make the girls feel much is +expected of them, because of the uniform they wear, and the girls have +made a fine response. There are very few rules and as little restraint +as possible. The girls are put on their honour when not under +supervision. The administrator has considerable disciplinary powers, +but they are very little needed. + +It does not seem to be by discipline that the officer succeeds best. +There is a nice story told of an Administrator who had been away from +her unit some days, returning and being met at the station by one of +the rank and file who had come for her bag. + +"I _am_ glad to see you, Ma'am," was the greeting, so emphatic a one +that the Administrator inquired nervously if something were wrong. + +"Oh, no. Seems as if Mother had been away, Ma'am," explained the girl. + +The Administrator can help her girls by sorting them out well, +putting friends and the same kind of girls together; it makes so much +difference. + +The Administrator has not only to handle her own sex--she has to deal +with men officers and quartermasters, and she succeeds in doing that +well, too. + +Our Administrators are naturally women of education and carefully +chosen and there is plenty of opportunity of rising "from the ranks." + +The girls cross over to France on the gray transports, are received +by the women Draft Receiving Officers, and go up the lines to their +assigned posts. + +The women are billeted in some of the base towns in pensions and +summer hotels that have been commandeered, in big houses and in one +case in a beautiful old Chateau where the ghosts of dead-and-gone +ladies of beauty and fashion must wonder what kind of women these +khaki clad girls are. The girls in these make their rooms home-like +with photographs, hangings, and little personal belongings. + +The greater number of girls live in camps, and different types of huts +have been tried. Some of the camps are entirely of wooden huts--large +and roomy. Other camps have the Nissen hut of corrugated iron, lined +with laths wood floored and raised from the ground. These have +been linked together in the cleverest way by covered ways. In the +sleeping huts the beds are iron bedsteads with springs and horse-hair +mattresses. Each bed has four thoroughly good blankets and a pillow. +No sheets are given--there is no labour to wash the thousands of +sheets, and the cotton is needed. Each woman has a wooden locker with +a shelf above, and a chair. Washing and bathing is done in separate +huts, and in every camp hot and cold water is laid on. + +The mess room is a big hut. The girls wait on themselves and the food +is excellent. They receive in rations the same as the soldiers on +lines of communication--four-fifths of a fighting man's ration and +whatever is over is returned and credited, and the extra money is used +for luxuries, games and for entertaining visitors from other camps. + +Here is a typical week's meals and it shows how well they are fed: + + MONDAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, butter, baked mince, jam. + Dinner: Cold beef, potatoes, tomatoes, baked apples, custard. + Tea: Tea, bread, butter, jam. Supper: Welsh rarebit, bread, + butter, jam. + + TUESDAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, butter, boiled ham, + marmalade. Dinner: brown onion stew, potatoes, baked beans, + biscuit pudding. Tea: Tea, bread, butter, jam, cheese. Supper: + Savoury rice, tea, bread. + + WEDNESDAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, butter, veal loaf. Dinner: + Roast mutton, potatoes, marrow, bread pudding. Tea: Tea, + bread, butter, marmalade, jam. Supper: Rissoles, bread, + butter, cheese. + + THURSDAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, butter, fried bacon. Dinner: + Meat pie, potatoes, cabbage, custard and rice. Tea: Tea, + bread, butter, jam. Supper: Soup, bread and jam. + + FRIDAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, butter, rissoles, marmalade. + Dinner: Boiled beef, potatoes and onions, Dundee roll. Tea: + tea, bread, butter, jam, slab cake. Supper: Shepherd's pie, + tea, bread, butter. + + SATURDAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, butter, boiled ham, jam. + Dinner: Thick brown stew, potatoes and cabbage, bread pudding. + Tea: Tea, bread, butter, jam, cheese. Supper: Toad-in-hole, + bread jam. + + SUNDAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, butter, fried bacon. Dinner: + Roast beef, potatoes and cabbage, stewed fruit, custard. Tea: + Tea, bread, butter, jam. Supper: Soup, bread, butter, cheese. + +They are divided into five big classes for work. There are large +numbers of them cooks and waitresses, and many of these cooks come +from the best private houses in England, so the Waacs and the soldiers +fare well. In one camp in the early days sixty women cooks walked in +and sixty men out, released for the fighting lines. The saving in fats +done by the women is very great and their economies admirable and the +women are waitresses in the camps and messes. + +In one base in France when twenty-nine cooks came to take charge in +the early days the commanding officer issued an order that expresses +very well the spirit in which the women are regarded. + + +BASE DEPOT. + + The Officer Commanding Base Depot wishes to draw the attention + of all ranks to the following points in connection with the + Domestic Section of the Women's Auxiliary Army, which is + employed in this depot: + + These women have not come out for the sake of money, as their + pay is that of a private soldier. In nearly every case they + have lost someone dear to them in this war, and they are out + here to try to do their best to make things more comfortable + for the men in regard to their food. + + It, therefore, is up to all ranks to make their lot an easy + and not a hard one during their stay in France. If any man + should so forget himself as to use bad language or at any time + to be rude to them, it is up to any of his comrades standing + by to shut him up, and see that he does not repeat this + offence. + + To the older men I would say: Treat them as you would your own + daughters. To the younger men: Treat them as you would your + own sisters. + + ----, Comdg., Base Depot. + +They are doing the clerical work more and more, and in a few weeks +have become so technical that they know where to send requisitions +concerning 9.2 guns or trench mortars or giant howitzers. There is a +favourite story told against an early Waac that when a demand came for +armoured hose, she sent it to the clothing department, but she knows +better now. + +French girls are also helping in the clerical department, working side +by side with the Waacs. + +Others, the telegraphists and telephonists are in the Signalling Corps +and these are the only ones who wear Army badges. They work under the +Officers Commanding Signals and are so successful that the officers +want thousands more. + +Another small group are called the "Hush Waacs." There are only +about a dozen of them and they have come from the Censor's Office and +between them have a thorough knowledge of all modern languages. They +are decoding signalled and written messages, script of every kind. + +Numbers more are motor car and transport drivers working with A.S.C. + +An intensely interesting piece of work at the front in which the Waacs +now are, and in which French women have worked for a very long time, +and are still working in large numbers, is the great "Salvage" work of +the Army. In the Salvage centre at one ordnance base 30,000 boots are +repaired in a week. They are divided into three classes--those that +can be used again by the men at the front--those for men on the lines +of communication--those for prisoners and coloured labour, and uppers +that are quite useless are cut up into laces. They salve old helmets, +old web and leather equipments, haversacks, rifles, horse shoes, +spurs, and every conceivable kind of battlefield debris. + +The work of repair and of renewal of clothing, which goes over to +England to be dealt with, is a wonder of economy. + +The women are helping in postal work and we handle about three million +letters and packets a day in France for our Army there. + +One other piece of work that falls to trained women gardeners in the +Corps, is the care of the graves in France. There are so many graves +in little clusters, lonely by the roadside, and in great cemeteries. +They mark them clearly and they make them more beautiful with flowers. +No work they have come to do, is done more faithfully than this act of +reverence to our heroic and honoured dead. + +The Y.W.C.A.'s Blue Triangle is going to be the same symbol for the +Waacs as the Red Triangle for the Soldiers. They are building huts +everywhere in France and in England, and the girls like them as much +as the men do. + +In these recreation huts the girls enjoy themselves and there are +evenings when the soldier friends come in, too, and have a good time +with them, for Waacs and the soldiers know each other and meet at all +the Bases and Camps. + +They dance and play games, and act, or sing, or come and talk, and one +visitor tells us of seeing a girl doing machining at the end of a hut +with one soldier turning the handle for her and another helping. + +One evening at a dance some gallant Australian N.C.O.'s arrived +carrying two enormous pans of a famous salad, that was their +specialty, as their contribution to the provisions. So life in the +Waacs is not all work--there is play, too, wisely. Every camp has a +trained V.A.D. worker to look after the girls in case of sickness. +If the case is bad they are sent over to Endell Street Hospital in +London. + +The Navy is going to follow the Army--so our women will be "Soldier +and Sailor too," and we shall have to sing, "Till the girls come +home," as well. + +The Admiralty has decided to employ women on various duties on shore +hitherto done by naval ratings, and to establish a Women's Royal Naval +Service. The women will have a distinctive uniform and the service +will be confined to women employed on definite duties directly +connected with the Royal Navy. It is not intended at present to +include those serving in the Admiralty departments or the Royal +Dockyards or other civil establishments under the Admiralty. There +are thousands of women in these already, as there were in Army pay +offices, etc., before the Waacs were formed. + +Dame Katherine Furse, G.B.E., will be Director of the Women's Royal +Naval Service, and will be responsible under the Second Sea Lord, for +its administration and organization. + +Already we hear they are likely to be known as the "Wrens." And so our +women are inside the organized forces of defence of our Country--the +last line of usefulness and service. + + + + +THE WAR AND MORALS + + + "Evils which have been allowed to flourish for centuries + cannot be destroyed in a day. If the nation really wishes to + be freed from the consequences of prostitution it must deal + with the sources of prostitution by a long series of social, + educational, and economic reforms. The ultimate remedy is the + acceptance of a single standard of morality for men and women, + and the recognition that man is meant to be the master and not + the slave of his body. There are thousands of men both in the + army and out of it who know this, and for whom the streets of + London have no dangers." + + --Dr. HELEN WILSON. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE WAR AND MORALS + + +The unprecedented state of things produced by the war brought in its +train serious anxiety as to moral conditions, not only in regard to +the relation between the sexes but in other ways. The gathering of +every kind of man together in camps creates great problems. Young +boys, who had never been away from home before, who know very +little of the world or of temptations, were often flung in with very +undesirable companions. There were many risks and many hard tests +and the parents who see their young boys go to camp without preparing +them, or warning them, do their boys a great disservice and I have +known of sons who bore in their hearts a feeling of having been badly +treated by their parents, that would never die, for being sent without +a word of counsel into these things. + +It is not only actions--corrupt thoughts are the most evil of all--and +to help to give our boys the greatest possession, moral courage, +founded on knowledge, is our finest gift. + +There were temptations to think less cleanly, to hear things said +without protest and to say them later. There were drinking temptations +and one used to wonder with a sick heart, what mothers would feel if +they could see these young boys of theirs sometimes, so pathetically +young and so foolish. There was also in these great camps of men--let +us realize that quite clearly--great good for the boys and the +men--good that far outweighs the evil. All the good of discipline, +all they gained by their coming together for a great cause, all they +gained in that great comradeship and service for each other, and in +their self-sacrifice for their country and the world. The wonder +and beauty of what it is, and means some of our own men have told +us--among them one who died, Donald Hankey, and has left us a rich +treasure in his works. And we all know it in our own men--that abiding +spirit that is the vision without which the people perish. + +But there are and were evils to fight and men and women to help. The +huts and canteens and guesthouses are great agencies for good--as well +as for comfort. Loneliness, and nowhere to go, and no one to talk to, +are conditions that make for mischief. + +Then there were the girls at the outbreak of the war, excited by all +that was happening, not yet busy as they nearly all are now, feeling +that the greatest thing was to know the soldiers and talk and walk +with them, and flocking around camps and barracks, being foolish and +risking worse. + +The National Union of Women Workers decided to take action about this +and drew up a scheme which they submitted to the Chief Commissioner +of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Edward Henry, K.C.V.O. This scheme was +for women of experience and knowledge of girls to patrol in the camps +and barrack areas, and talk to girls who were behaving foolishly, and +try to influence them for good. It was felt and it turned out to be +quite accurate that the mere presence of these women would make girls +and men behave better. Sir Edward Henry approved of the idea and +arranged that each Patrol should have a card signed by him to be +carried while on duty, authorizing the Patrols to seek and get the +assistance of the Police, if necessary, and the Patrols wore an armlet +with badge and number. + +Their work in London proved so successful that the Home Office +recommended the adoption of the scheme in provincial centres, where +the Chief Constables authorized them and later the War Office asked +for more Patrols in some of the camp areas and spoke very highly of +their work. + +A woman Patrol is generally a woman who is busy in her own home or +profession all day, but who gives some hours one or two evenings a +week to this work. + +They have done the work faithfully and well, and have exceeded in +their success all anticipations. There are about 3,000 Patrols in the +Kingdom; of these eighty-five are engaged in special work in London +and paid by the Commissioner of Police. Two are engaged in work at +Woolwich Arsenal. Two are Park Keepers appointed by the Board of Works +and are working in Kensington Gardens, and their names were submitted +to the King before appointment. They have the power of arrest. + +A subsidy has been granted to the Women's Patrol Committee for the +training of Women Patrols of L400 a year. In many big towns admirable +work has been done. + +In Edinburgh the Patrol Committee was asked by H.M. Office of Works to +help the men park keepers in keeping order in the King's Park. + +This they have done with great success. Dublin has just taken over two +women Patrols as paid workers. + +The Military, Admiralty, Police, and Civil Authorities have all united +in praising their work and any one can realize how much patience and +tact and knowledge it calls for, and what it means to have had it done +for over three years. The patrols have not been content only to talk +to the girls, though it is wonderful what that alone can do. They have +succeeded in getting them to come to clubs and they have worked +in connection with the mixed clubs of which we have several very +successful ones. A mixed club is very useful and helpful, but it must +be well run by a good committee of men and women, and you need people +of judgment and knowledge and tactful firmness in charge of it, if it +is to be the best kind of club. + +We have found an admirable thing is to have evenings for men friends +in the Girls' Clubs when the girls can invite their men friends in, +and have music and games and entertainment. + +When Patrols were started, there was a very strong feeling that there +ought to be women police, a much needed change in our country. We had +none when war broke out, but in September, 1914, Miss Darner Dawson +founded the Women Police Service. When members joined they were +trained in drill, first aid, practical instructions in Police Duties, +gained by actual work in streets, parks, etc. They studied special +acts relating to women and children and civil and criminal law and the +procedure and rules of evidence in Police Courts. + +Their first work was done in Grantham where, in November, 1914, +the Women's Central Committee of Grantham elected a Women Police +Subcommittee to provide a fund for the payment of two Police Women to +work with the Chief Constable. In February the following letter was +written about their work: + + "To the Chief Officer, Women Police,--I understand that there + is some idea of removing the two members of the Women Police + now stationed here. I trust that this is not the case. The + services of the two ladies in question have proved of great + value. They have removed sources of trouble to the troops in a + manner that the Military Police could not attempt. Moreover, I + have no doubt whatever that the work of these two ladies in an + official capacity is a great safeguard to the moral welfare of + young girls in the town. + + (Signed) "F. HAMMERSLEY, M.G., Commanding 11th Division, Grantham." + +and in November, 1915, they were made official Police by the City +Council. In July, 1916, the Police Miscellaneous Provisions Act was +passed, which encouraged the employment of Policewomen by stating that +pay of the police "shall be deemed to include the pay of any women who +may be employed by a Police Authority," etc. + +Now there are thirty-four Policewomen in our Boroughs, but their +position is still anomalous and unsatisfactory, as they do not come +under the Police Act for purposes of discipline, pay, pensions, and +compensation, but this will come. Meantime the Women Police Service +goes on doing its admirable work of training and providing Volunteer +and Semi-official police (supported by women's funds), in addition to +those appointed by local authorities in Boroughs. + +These semi-official police women are able to do a great deal, if the +Chief Constable is friendly, and, naturally, they are appointed where +he is so. They are often made Probation Officers and are used for +children's and girl's and women's cases. Their work leads more and +more to the official appointments and in this work as in so many +of our successes, we women have achieved the results by having the +voluntary organizations and training ourselves first and proving our +fitness. + +From my own experience, it is impossible to speak too highly of the +kindness and willingness of many Chief Constables to do everything to +teach and help the women. + +The Women Police Service naturally insists on a high standard of +training and this has been of great value. + +A big development of women police work has been in the Munition +factories where now about 700 women are employed in this capacity in +England, Scotland and Wales. + +The report of the Women's Police Service gives the following +interesting account. + +"In 1916 the Department Explosives Supply of the Ministry of Munitions +applied to Sir Edward Henry for a force of Women Police to act as +guards for certain of H.M. Factories. Sir Edward Henry sent for the +two chief officers of the Women Police Service, and informed them that +it was his intention to recommend them to the Ministry of Munitions +for the supplying of the Women Police required. They thanked the +Commissioner for his expression of trust in their capabilities, and in +July an agreement was drawn up between the Minister of Munitions +and the Chief Officer and Chief Superintendent of the Women Police +Service, who were appointed to act as the Minister's representatives +for the 'training, supplying and controlling' of the Force required. +The duties of the Policewomen were to include checking the entry of +women into the factory, examining passports, searching for contraband, +namely, matches, cigarettes and alcohol; dealing with complaints of +petty offences; patrolling the neighbourhood for the protection of +women going home from work; accompanying the women to and fro in the +workmen's trains to the neighbouring towns where they lodge; appearing +in necessary cases at the Police Court, and assisting the magistrates +in dealing with such cases, if required to. The Force for each factory +was to consist of an inspector, sergeants and constables. Women to +be trained for this work were at once enrolled by the Women Police +Service and trained under a Staff of Officers. + +"Since the inauguration of factory-police work for women in July, +1916, a marked success has attended the organisation, which has +resulted in almost daily applications for Policewomen for factories +situated in every part of the United Kingdom. We are not able to give +a list of these factories nor to mention their names in our report +of the work carried on by them, but we may say that at the present +time we are supplying H.M. Factories, National Filling Factories +and Private Controlled Factories. We are sure that our patrons and +subscribers will feel as proud as we are of the intrepid Policewomen +who for the past fourteen months have been carrying out these duties, +which, we believe, no women have hitherto dreamt of undertaking, and +which have called forth qualities of tact, discretion, cool courage +and endurance that would compare well with any of those whom we call +heroes in the fight at the front. We would call attention to one +factory from which both the military and male Police Guard has +been withdrawn. The factory employs several thousand women in the +manufacture and disposal of some of the most dangerous explosives +demanded by the war. When an air raid is in progress the operatives +are cleared from the factory and the sheds and magazines are left +to the sole charge of the Firemen and Policewomen, who take up the +respective posts allotted to them. The Policewomen who guard the +various magazines know that they hold their lives in their hands. +We are proud to report that not one woman has failed at her post or +shirked her duty in the hour of danger. The duties assigned to the +Policewomen and their officers in these factories have increased +considerably in scope during the past year. In one factory the force +of Policewomen numbers 160 under one Chief Inspector, two Inspectors +and twelve Sergeants, all of whom have been sworn in and take entire +charge of all police cases dealing with women. They arrest, convey the +prisoners to the Women Police Charge Station, keep their own charge +sheets and other official documents, lock the prisoner in the cells, +keep guard over her, convey her to the Court House for trial, and if +convicted convey her to the prison. A short time ago the Inspector of +Policewomen in one of H.M. Factories was instructed by the authorities +to send a Policewoman to a distant town to fetch a woman prisoner, +an old offender. The Policewoman was armed with a warrant, railway +vouchers and handcuffs. The prisoner was handed over to the +Policewoman by the Policeman, and the Policewoman and her charge +returned without trouble. The prisoner expressed her relief and +gratitude at being escorted by a Policewoman, and behaved well +throughout the journey. The Policewoman reported that she was given +every courtesy and assistance by both police and railway officials. + +[Illustration: POLICE WOMEN] + +"We believe this constitutes the first time in history that women +guards have been entrusted with the care and custody of their +fellow-women when charged with breaking the law." + +Other pieces of important and difficult work have been undertaken by +women. + +There have been, unfortunately, cases in which the soldier's wife, +left at home, has behaved badly and been unfaithful. Men often write +from the trenches to the Chief Constable to ask if charges made +to them in letters about their wives are true. Naturally the Chief +Constable asks the women to investigate these charges. Sometimes the +charges are quite unfounded, simply spiteful and malicious and the +woman and Chief Constable write and say so. + +In other cases the husband knows of unfaithfulness and writes to the +Army Pay Office asking to have the allowance stopped to his wife. +The Army Pay Office never acts on any such letter without securing a +report from the Chief Constable, and again the woman is needed, +and there is frequently the question of the children as well. Their +allowance, of course, never ceases but they may go to some relative or +be disposed of in some way. + +These cases are infinitesimal in number. + +After the outbreak of the war there were many scares. Every one in our +country knows now how a myth is established. We have left the stage +behind where people told you they knew, from a friend, who knew a +friend who knew some one else who saw it, who was in the War Office, +etc., etc., etc.--that England was invaded--that the Navy was all +down--or the German Navy was all down--that we were going to do this, +that, or the other impossible thing. + +Dame Rumour had a joyous time in the early days of the war and +we suffered from the people who were not only quite certain that +everything was wrong morally, but told us that the illegitimate birth +rate was going to be enormous. Their accusations against our ordinary +girls were monstrous. There was some excitement and foolishness, but +anybody who was really working and dealing with it as the Patrol were, +knew the accusations were ridiculous. The illegitimate birth rate of +our country is lower than before, which is the best reply to, and +the vindication of the men of our armies and our girls against, these +absurd attacks. + +Another scare was about the drinking of women. Soldiers' wives were +attacked in this connection and the same kind of wild accusation +made, so much so that a committee was appointed to go into the whole +question (1915), presided over by Mrs. Creighton, President of the +National Union of Women Workers. + +In my experience a great deal of this talk was caused by the fact that +many women, who had never done social work, and who knew nothing of +real conditions, started to go among the people and were shocked and +overwhelmed by what were unfortunately normal wrong conditions, and +lost all sense of perspective. Some women did drink--true--but I found +they were generally the women who always had done it, and who perhaps +in some cases, having more money of their own and no husbands to deal +with, drank a little more. + +The findings of the Committee showed this clearly and they made some +recommendations, especially recommending that the Central Board for +the Control of the Liquor Traffic proceeded to do on its creation, +restriction of hours of sale. Our restrictions make the sale of liquor +legal only from 12 noon to 2.30 and from 6.30 to 8.30 or 9 P.M. Our +convictions for drunkenness for women have fallen very low and for +men, too. There is very much less drinking in our country and things +are very much improved. + +These attacks on soldiers' wives were naturally much resented as their +work in the homes and industries, with their men away, and all their +difficulties, has not always been easy. We find there is a little more +difficulty with the boys. They miss the fathers' discipline and there +has been some trouble through that, but such magnificent agencies as +the Boy Scouts, who have helped us everywhere in the war, do great +good. + +The problem of dealing with the prevention of immorality has been +a big one. The Women Patrols and the Women Police have been used in +London in Waterloo Road (which had a bad reputation) and in parks, +etc. The G.R. Volunteer Corps of men who meet the soldier arriving in +London at the stations do a very good work. + +In the Army and Navy excellent leaflets and booklets were issued +dealing with the question in a very straightforward and admirable way. + +The Council for Moral and Social Hygiene and the National Council for +Combating Venereal Diseases has been doing a great work. The latter, +which is a body set up as a result of the Government Commission on +Venereal Diseases, had done a great deal of educational work and has +set up an organization over the country. The Commission recommended +much fuller facilities for free treatment for those suffering from +these diseases in every town and district. + +A Criminal Law Amendment Bill has been brought in and it improves +our existing law in many ways and strengthens it. There has been much +controversy about certain of its provisions, some dealing with power +to send young girls to homes. There is a very strong feeling among +many of our social workers that Rescue Work in our country altogether +needs overhauling and change, and new experiments are being tried. + +Wars have almost invariably in the past meant an enormous increase in +venereal diseases on the return of the army in the civil population. +Armies lose large numbers of men by them, and every person must feel +it is their plain duty to leave no means untried and no measures +unused that could help. + +The woman who lives by her immoral earnings is, like the man who is +immoral and uncontrolled, a serious danger and menace to her country +and to generations yet unborn. + +The problems that arise from the existence of these two groups are +the business of all men and women. The problems are those of providing +decent and wholesome recreation and surroundings, of helping men and +women to meet under right conditions, of giving the right kind of +information and guidance to the soldier and the girl, of realizing +what drink does in this traffic, and the fundamental task of working +to create better social, economic and moral conditions. + +There is no need nor is it desirable to have masses of people +suffer unnecessary misery by a knowledge of the exact nature of this +disease--which leads sometimes to morbidity and often to a frenzied +desire to do something at once, before they really know anything about +the question and what has been done. + +There are three questions that ought to be answered in the affirmative +before any legislation or preventive treatment is decided on. + +Will the proposed action apply equally to men and to women, to rich +and to poor? + +Will it tend to increase and not undermine the powers of self-control? + +Will it improve morals in the nation and elevate them? + +Repressive measures by themselves achieve nothing. Preventive measures +of every practical and sound kind we want, but most of all we need +to inculcate the truth that "Self-reverence, self-knowledge, +self-control, These three alone lead man to sovereign power." + +It is not enough to prevent and teach. We should be willing to help +up, to save, to love, and we should never be self-righteous in our +help. + +Who among us has the right to cast the first stone? + + + + +WHAT THE WAR HAS DONE FOR WOMEN + + + "Give her of the fruits of her lands and let her own words + praise her in the gates." + + --PROV., Chap 31. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +WHAT THE WAR HAS DONE FOR WOMEN + + +The war has done already, with us, such great things for women, so +many of them so naturally accepted now, that it is almost difficult to +get back in thought, and realize where we stood when it broke out. + +General Smuts, in one of his speeches, said, "Under stress of great +difficulty practically everything breaks down ultimately, and the only +things that survive are really the simple human feelings of loyalty +and comradeship to your fellows, and patriotism, which can stand any +strain and bear you through all difficulty and privation. We soldiers +know the extraordinary value of these simple feelings, how far they go +and what strain they can bear, and how, ultimately, they support the +whole weight of civilization." + +In this war our men, in their dealings with us, have got down more and +more to simple fundamental truths and facts--loyalty and comradeship, +founded on our common patriotism. We have got nearer and nearer to the +ideal so many of us long for, equal right to serve and help. The great +fundamental establishment of political rights for women has come with +us. When war broke out, women's suffrage was winning all the time a +greater and greater mass of adherents, a majority of the House was +pledged to vote for it and had been for years, the Trade Unions and +Labour Party stood solid for it, but the motive to act seemed lacking. + +War came, and every political party in our country laid aside +political agitation. No party meetings have been held since August, +1914. Suffragists and anti-suffragists did the same. The great body of +constitutional suffragists kept their organization intact but used +it for "sustaining the vital energies of the nation." Relief Work, +Hospital Work and Supplies, Child Welfare, Comforts, Workrooms, help +for professional women, work for Belgian refugees, work in canteens +and huts, work for the Soldiers and Sailors Families' Association, +Schools for Mothers, Girls' Clubs--into everything the Suffrage +societies fling themselves with ardour, zeal and ability. No women +knew better how to organize, no women better how to educate and win +help. They formed an admirable Women's Interests Committee, and looked +after all women's interests excellently. + +When the Government issued its first appeal for women volunteers for +munitions and land, etc., it asked the Suffrage societies to circulate +them and to help them to secure the needed labour from women. + +As the war went on it became clearer and clearer that the men of +the country saw more and more vividly why suffragists had asked for +votes--and more and more were impressed with the value of their work. +At meetings to do propaganda for Government appeals, when women spoke +on the needs of the country, men everywhere, although it had nothing +to do with the appeal, and had never been mentioned, declared their +conversion to Women's Suffrage in the War. + +Women pointed out that they did not want Women's Suffrage as a +reward--but as a simple right. They had not worked for a reward, but +for their country, as any citizen would, but, in our country, the +great converting power is practical proof of value and they had that +overwhelmingly in our work. The Press came out practically solidly for +Women's Suffrage. The work of women was praised in every paper and +one declared, "It cannot be tolerable that we should return to the +old struggle about admitting them to the franchise." Eminent +Anti-Suffragists, inside and outside of the House of Commons, frankly +admitted their conversion. Mr. Asquith, the old enemy of Women's +Suffrage, said in a memorable speech: "They presented to me not only +a reasonable, but, I think, from their point of view, an unanswerable +case.... They say that when the war comes to an end, and when the +process of industrial reconstruction has to be set on foot, have not +the women a special claim to be heard on the many questions which will +arise directly affecting their interests, and possibly meaning for +them large displacement of labour? I cannot think that the House will +deny that, and, I say quite frankly, that I cannot deny that claim." +It was clear the whole question of franchise would need to be gone +into--the soldiers' vote was lost to him under our system when he was +away, and the sailors' redistribution was long overdue, an election, +as things were, would be absolutely unrepresentative. So after several +attempts to deal with the problem in sections, a Committee was set +up under the Speaker of the House of Commons to go into the whole +question of Franchise reform and registration. + +The Committee was composed of five Peers and twenty-seven members of +the House of Commons, and started its work in October, 1916, and in +its report, April, 1917, it recommended, by a majority, that a measure +of enfranchisement should be given to women. + +The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and the Consultative +Committee, which had been formed in 1916 by the N.U.W.S.S., of +representatives of all constitutional societies, presented various +memorials, notably an admirable memorandum of women's work and opinion +in favour, prepared by the National Union for the Speakers' Conference +during its sittings. After its recommendations while the bill was +being drafted, Mrs. Henry Fawcett, LL.D., the President of the +N.U.W.S.S., headed a deputation received by the Premier, Mr. Lloyd +George, who has always been a supporter of Women's Suffrage. This was +certainly one of the most representative and interesting deputations +that ever went to Downing Street. It numbered over fifty and every +woman in it represented a great section of industrial and war +workers--Miss Mary MacArthur, the Trade Union Leader was there, and +Miss Margaret Bondfield, Mrs. Flora Annie Steele, the authoress; Lady +Forbes Robertson, for actresses; Miss Adelaide Anderson, our +Chief Women Factory Inspector; Mrs. Oliver Strachey, Parliamentary +Honourable Secretary of the National Union, whose work has been +tireless and invaluable in the House; a woman munition worker, a woman +conductor, a railway woman worker, a woman chemist, a woman from a +bank, a clerk, a shipyard worker, a nurse, a V.A.D., an eminent +woman Doctor, a peeress in Lady Cowdray, who has done so much for the +British Women's Hospitals and so many other war objects, and women +representatives of every calling in the nation at peace and war. Mrs. +Pankhurst, who has been very active in war work, was also present on +the Premier's invitation, and Mrs. Fawcett brought a Welshwoman who +made her plea in her own language, the Premier's own, too, and the one +he loves to hear. In his reply, he assured them the bill would contain +a measure of enfranchisement for women as drafted, and he was quite +sure the House would carry it. + +The recommendations of the Speakers' Conference were an agreed +compromise, and the Representation of the People Bill, as it was +called on its introduction, has gone through very much on the lines +of the recommendations. It arranges for postal or proxy votes for +the soldier, the sailor and the merchant seaman, it simplifies the +qualifications for men, it retains the University vote for men and +extends it to women, and it enfranchises women of thirty years of age +on a residence qualification, and all wives of voters of the same age. +It disfranchises, for the time, the conscientious objector who will do +no national service. The age at which our men vote is twenty-one. The +higher age of the women was a compromise, which was accepted by all +women's societies and by labour women, though it was not the terms +they stood for--equality. + +If we had it on the same terms as men, we should very greatly +outnumber the men. There were over a million more women than men +before the war and a new electorate greater than all the men's numbers +brought in at once was not considered wise. To press for it would have +wrecked our chances. + +This measure enfranchises six million women, and about ten million men +are now voters, so we have a very fair proportion. + +The women's clause was carried, with only thirty-five dissentients and +later only seventeen voted against it. + +In this same bill, with practically no discussion, an amendment was +carried enfranchising the wives of local government electors. + +It is difficult to adequately express the confidence, the desire, and +the willingness to co-operate, that there is now between our men and +women. + +We know, too, that the great woman's movement of our country, which +has worked to this end for fifty years and numbered our greatest women +among its adherents, has had much to do with the ability of our women +to take the great part they have in this crisis. If women had not +toiled and opened education and opportunities to women, and preached +the necessity of full service, we could not have done it. + +One great thing the war has done for our women is to draw us all +closely together--in common sorrows, hopes and fears, we find how much +we are one and in so much of our work women of every rank of life +are together. We had that union before in many ways, but never so +completely as now. _Punch_ has a delightful picture that summed up +how we are mixed in soldier's canteens, and huts and buffets, and +Hospitals, which show a little Londoner saying to a meek member of the +aristocracy "washing up," "Nar, then, Lady Halexandra, 'urry up with +them plaites," and we have an amusing little play of the same kind. +The society girl who washes down the Hospital steps, and washes up for +hours, and carries meals up and down stairs in her work, week after +week, and month after month, and year after year, in our Hospitals, +knows what work is now, and the soldier who is served, and the +soldier's sister and wife, learns something, too, about her that is +worth learning. + +We have also learned a great deal in our welfare work, and the welfare +supervisors and the workers both have benefited, and the heads of +the innumerable hostels, which we have built everywhere for our +girls--dozens in our new Government-built munition cities, have been +of very real help and service to the girls. A tactful, sensible, +educated woman has a great deal to give that helps the younger girl, +and can look after and advise her as to health, work, leisure and +amusements in a way that leaves real lasting benefit. + +In the munition works, well educated women, women with plenty of +money, women who never worked before, work year after year beside the +working girl. Just at first some of the working girls were not quite +sure of her, but it is all right long, long ago, and they mutually +admire each other. The well-off woman works her hours and takes her +pay, and takes it very proudly. I have been told many times by these +women who, for the first time know the joy of earning money, "I never +felt so proud in my life as when I got my first week's money." And the +men in the factories learn a lot, too. "Women have been too much kept +back," was the comment of a foreman in a shell factory to the Chief +Woman Factory Inspector on a visit she was paying to it. The skilled +men, teaching the women, have learned a great deal about them, too, +and have helped the women in so many ways. Men have been amazed at the +ability and power and capacity for work of the women and are, on the +whole, very willing to say so and express their admiration. + +One munition girl writes: "The timekeeper, quite a gorgeous gentleman +in uniform, gave us quite a welcome.... The charge-hand of the +Welder's shop helped us to start, and stayed with us most of Friday. +He was most kind, and showed us the best way to tackle each job, did +one for us, and then watched us doing it." + +Another says, "Our foreman is a dear old man, so kind and full of fun. +The men welders are awfully good to us." + +In considering the practical facts of new opportunities for women, one +thing is clear. Masses of our women took their new work as "temporary +war workers," but as the war has gone on, it has become clearer and +clearer that, in many cases, these tasks are going to be permanently +open to women. One reason is that many of the men will never return to +take up their work again--another, that many of them will never return +to what they did before. + +They have been living in the open-air, doing such different things, +such big vistas have opened out that they will never be content to +go back to some of their tasks. There is the other fact that we, +like every other country, will need to repair and renovate so much, +will need to create new and more industries, will need to add to our +productiveness to pay off our burdens of debt, and to carry out our +schemes of reconstruction, so women will still be needed. Our women, +in still greater numbers, will not be able to marry, and the best +thing for any nation and any set of women is to do work, and there +will be plenty of room for all the work our women can do. Many will go +back to home work, of course; there are large numbers who are working +in our country, only while their husbands are away, and when they +return will find their work in their homes again. + +We are offering special training opportunities to the young widow of +the soldier or officer. + +In special branches of work our opportunities are very much greater +and better. Medicine is one of the professions in which women have +very specially made good. Better training opportunities have opened, +more funds have been raised to enable women of small means to get +medical education, and the Queen herself gave a portion of a gift of +money she received, for this purpose. Most medical appointments are +open to them now and they have been urged by the great medical bodies +to enter for training in still greater numbers in the different +Universities, and have done so. + +More research is being done by them in every department. In +professions such as accountancy, architecture, analytical chemistry, +more and more women are entering. In the banking world women have done +very satisfactory work, and one London bank manager, asked to say what +he thought of prospects after the war, says he is very strongly of +opinion it will continue to be a profession for women after the war. +This manager thinks the question of higher administrative posts being +open to women will depend entirely on themselves and their work, and +what they prove capable of achieving and holding, they will certainly +have. + +In the war, one profession, in particular, has come nearer to finding +its rightful place than ever before--the teaching profession. Their +salaries which, in too many cases, were disgracefully low, have been +raised. The woman teacher has shown her capacity in new fields of +work in the boys' schools, but it is in another sense that their +profession, both men and women, but very specially the women, have +achieved a very real gain in the war. + +The teachers of the country have done a very great deal of war work +of every kind. The National Register of 1915 was largely done by their +labour. The War Savings Associations and Committees owe a great debt +to teachers and inspectors, who are the backbone of the movement, +headmistresses are asked constantly to help in securing trained women, +taught to work in Hospitals on their holidays, on land, in organizing +supplies and comforts in canteens and clubs, and more and more are put +on official Committees in their towns and districts. + +It means the teacher is finding the status and position the teachers +in their profession ought to have in their communities, and the war +has done a great deal towards achieving that desirable end, though +there is still a good deal to be done. + +In the Government Service there has undoubtedly been great +opportunities for women, especially those of organizing, executive and +secretarial ability--and in many cases the payment in higher posts +is identical for men and women, and higher posts, if they have the +ability, are freely given to women and the whole position of women +in our Civil Service is improved. In the very highest posts, such as +those of Insurance and Feeble-minded Commissioners, etc., women before +the war received the same salaries as men. + +The organizing ability and the common sense way in which our women +in voluntary organization, quite rapidly, themselves decided what +organizations were unnecessary and merely duplicating others, and +refused to help them, so that they died out quite quickly, roused +admiration, and the war has educated vast numbers of women in +organization and executive ability. Women who never in their lives +organized anything, and never kept an account properly, are doing +all kinds of useful work. One nice middle-aged lady whose War Savings +Association accounts were being kept wrongly, or rather were not +really being kept at all, when told they must be done fully and +correctly by one of our National Committee representatives, said, "Oh, +but you see, I never did anything but crochet before the war"; but we +have succeeded in making even the crochet ladies keep accounts and do +wonderful things. + +In the great world of mechanics and engineering, women are doing +a wonderful amount of work and, there is no doubt, will remain in +certain departments after the war. One danger there is in the women's +attitude--so many of our women have learned one branch of work very +quickly, that there probably will be a tendency to believe that +anything can be learned as easily. There are only certain departments +of mechanics that can be learned in a few months' time, and women will +probably go on doing these. Such work as theirs in optical munitions, +has shown their very special aptitude for it and in law-making, +etc., they will be used more and more. Women have successfully done +tool-setting and can go on with that. The training for civil and +mechanical engineering is long, but there will be, if women are +keen and will train, plenty of opportunity for them in peace-time +occupations in civil, mechanical or electrical branches in connection +with municipal, sanitary and household questions and in laundries, +farms, etc. The women architects and these women could very well +co-operate closely. + +Women clerks and secretaries will remain largely after the war. +Fewer men will want these posts as we are convinced there will be big +movements among our men to more active work, to the land and to the +Dominions overseas. + +Women on the land will in numbers stay there, and there is a distinct +movement among women with capital to go in for farming, market +gardening, bee-keeping, poultry-keeping, etc., still more. + +The war has made more of our fathers and mothers realize the right +of their daughters to education and training, and there are very few +parents in our country now, who think a girl needs to know nothing +very practical, and has no need to go in for a profession. Our women's +colleges have more students than ever and the war has done great +things in breaking down these old conventional ideas. The war, in +fact, has shaken the very foundations of the old Victorian beliefs in +the limited sphere of women to atoms. Our sphere is now very much more +what every human being's sphere is and ought to be--the place and work +in which our capacity, ability or genius finds its fullest vent--and +there is no need to worry about restricting women or anyone else to +particular spheres--if they cannot do it, they cannot fill the sphere, +and that test decides. The dear old Victorian dugouts grow fewer and +fewer in number, but we never must forget that the great powers of +women have not come in a night, miraculously, in the war. They are the +result of long years of patient work before, and we women, who have +had these great opportunities, must see to it that we nobly carry on +the traditions of teaching and training and qualifying ourselves for +service, bequeathed to us from older generations. + +One thing, too, despite the war tasks and strain, we have not lost +sight of the fact that the great fundamental tasks of keeping the +house, guarding and seeing to the children must be well done. Just for +a little, some of our tasks of child welfare had fewer workers, but +many of the women realized the value of all these tasks as supreme, +and took up the work freely. Child welfare work in particular the +Suffrage woman organized and worked, Glasgow Suffragists taking on the +visiting of babies, always done there, in a whole ward of the city, +and in other towns they started Day Nurseries. + +Lord Rhondda at the Local Government Board instituted Baby week and +we hope to found a Ministry of Health very soon. So in the War we have +realized even more vividly how great and valuable and important these +tasks of women are. A very great amount of work for child welfare has +been done by our women in the war, and our infant death rate is going +still lower. + +The war has done a great service in drawing women of all the Allied +Nations together--a service whose greatness and magnitude it is not +easy to fully realize. French and English men and women know so much +more of each other now. Our hospitals in France, our Canteens for +French Soldiers, as well as our own, our women and the French women +working side by side in our army clerical departments and ordnance +depots in France, the Belgians and French who are among us in such +large numbers, make us known to each other. In Serbia we have made +many friends and in Italy and Russia and Romania, all links for the +future, and helps to wider knowledge and understanding. It is on +understanding the hopes of the world rest, and we women have a great +part to play in that. + +With America our link has always been very great and all the help, +and gifts, and service America gave us before it entered the war, +have been very precious to us. American women have given Hospitals +and ambulances and everything possible in the way of succour and of +service, and have died with our women in nursing service, as the men +have in our ranks. + +Massachusetts sent a nurse to France, Miss Alice Fitzgerald, in memory +of Edith Cavell, which shows the unity of your feeling and ours +on that tragic execution, and her work under our War Office in +Queen Alexandra's Imperial Army Nursing Service with the British +Expeditionary Force, as well as the work of all the American nurses we +have had helping us, is another link in the great chain. Our own great +Commonwealth of Nations are nearer to each other than ever before. +There were even people among us who thought a little as the enemy did +that our Dominions would not stand by us--stupid and blind people. + +It is their fight as well as ours--the common fight of all free +peoples, and all our united nations stand together, including those +who only a few years ago were fighting us as brave foes. + +We have learned so much in great ways and in small ways, in economies +and in the care of all our resources, too. We women are more careful +in Britain now. We save food, and grow more, and produce more, and +maids and mistresses work together to economize and help. We gather +our waste paper and sell it or give it to the Red Cross for their +funds, give our bottles and our rags, waste no food and save and lend +our money. We could not have been called a thrifty nation before the +war--we are much more thrifty now, in many ways, though there are +still things we could learn. + +In the Women's Army and in so much of our work we are learning +discipline and united service--learning what it means to be proud of +your corps and to feel the uniform you wear or the badge is something +you must be worthy of--and it goes back to being worthy of your own +flag and of the ideals for which we all stand in these days. + +And the young wives who are married and left behind, who bear their +children with their husbands far away in danger, who have had no real +homes yet, but who wait and hope, they are very wonderful in their +courage and pluck--and, most of all, everywhere, our women, like our +men, wisely refuse to be dreary. There are enough secret dark hours, +but in our work we carry on cheerfully, the women know the soldiers' +slogan, "Cheero," and to Britain and to "somewhere on the fronts," the +same message goes and comes. + +Of the great spiritual worths and values, it has brought to women very +much what it has brought to men. All eternal things are more real, all +eternal truths more clearly perceived. When the whole foundations of +life rock under us, in where "there is no change, neither shadow of +turning," the heart rests more surely in these days. + +It has brought us agonies and tears, weariness and pain, self-denial +and great sorrows, but it has brought such riches of self-sacrifice, +such service, such love, has shown us such peaks of revelation and +vision to which the soul and the nation can attain, that we count +ourselves rich, though so much has gone. + +To think of what we might have been if we had refused to bear our +share--to look back on the evils of luxury and selfishness that were +creeping over us, makes us feel that we may have lost some things, +but "what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose +his own soul." And we have saved our soul. The souls of the nations +travail in a new birth through a night of agony and tears. The +purposes being worked out are so great, that it is difficult for us +to see them with our limited human vision, but in great moments of +insight we do see, and having seen, go back to our tasks in the light +of that vision, knowing that though now we fight in dim shadows with +monstrous and awful evils of mankind's creation, the day is coming +nearer and the light will come. + +An age is dying and a new age comes, and what it shall be only the men +and women of the world can answer. + + + + +RECONSTRUCTION + + + "The tumult and the shouting dies-- + The captains and the Kings depart-- + Still stands thine ancient sacrifice, + An humble and a contrite heart. + Lord God of Hosts; be with us yet, + Lest we forget, lest we forget." + + --RUDYARD KIPLING. + + "We shall not cease from mental fight, + Nor shall our sword sleep in our hand, + Till we have built Jerusalem, + In England's green and pleasant land." + + --W. BLAKE. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +RECONSTRUCTION + + +And what is to come after? The first and the last and the greatest +thing to do is to win the war and to get the right settlement. Unless +we finish this struggle with the nations free, there can be no real +reconstruction. The greatest work of reconstruction--the fundamental +work--will be at the peace table. Those who are giving everything +and doing everything to gain victory for the Allies, are the true +reconstructors of the world. + +The first great task of reconstruction is victory and the second is +right peace settlements. + +We cannot say that anything we can do will make future peace certain, +but we can see that just and righteous settlements are made, so that +the foundations are laid that ought to ensure peace in the future. +There is no real peace possible while injustices exist. + +There is no real peace possible while evil and good contend for +mastery, and the spiritual conflicts of man are, and will be, as +terrible as any physical conflicts. While mankind stands where it does +now, it is well that against corruption of spirit and thought, we can +use our bodies as shields. + +The fact that we have had to fight Germany physically, shows clearly +that spiritually and mentally we were unable to make them see truth +and honour, and the meaning of freedom, and that the ideal of peace +made no real appeal to them. + +They built up in their nation great thought forces of aggression, of +belief in militarism, of worship of might, of belief that war paid, +and was in itself good, that there was no conscience higher than the +state. They even worship God as a sort of tribal God whom they call +upon to work with them--not a question as to whether they are on God's +side--no--an assertion that God is on theirs. + +That was their thought--and the thoughts of the other nations were +bent on problems of freedom and growing democracy, of widening +opportunities, of political and commercial interest, were, on the +whole, the vaguely good thoughts of evolving democracies (with notable +exceptions), but not the clear powerful thoughts needed to fight +effectually those of Germany in the fields of intellect and spirit. + +People did not see the full evil of Germany's thought--it was tied up +with so much that was efficient and good and able, and we were only +half articulate as to our own beliefs, and not even thoroughly clear +or agreed about them, and Germany considered us slack and inefficient, +and believed we might even be induced to consent to seeing Europe +overrun and doing nothing. We did not believe, despite warning, that +any nation thought as Germany did and we seemed, in their minds, to be +people to be dominated and swept over. + +One interesting fact to note is that Germany, despite its boasted +knowledge of psychology, did not realise that England possesses a +definite sub-conscious mind which always guides its actions. The +sub-conscious mind of England is a desire for fair play, for justice, +and a very definite sense of freedom. England is the creator of +self-government and its sub-conscious mind, built up for centuries, +is a very definite and real thing. + +The sub-conscious mind of Germany, filled with these dominating ideas +of power and _Weltmacht_ and militarism, goes on, once set free, to +its logical end, and it seems clearer and clearer that there is no +real end to this struggle till we make the mind and soul of Germany +realize its crimes and mistakes, till they are sane again and talk the +A, B, C of civilization. The real reconstruction of the world begins +there. + +That end reached and settlements justly done, we may consider schemes +for a League of Nations and practical possibilities of work in +international organizations to prevent disputes leading to war. + +The work of reconstruction must be international, as well as national, +but the people who do, and will do, the best international work +are the people who do the best national work. The individuals who +are not prepared to spend time and service and effort to make +their own country better and nobler, are going to do nothing for +internationalism that is worth doing. The heart that finds nothing to +love and work for in its neighbour is the heart that has nothing to +bring to the whole world. + +Again, there must be reparation by the enemy. We cannot reconstruct +this world rightly if we do not enforce justice. A nation that has +broken every international and human law is a nation that must be made +to pay for its crimes as far as human justice can secure it. + +Our six thousand murdered merchant seamen, the thousands of passengers +they have killed, the civilians they have bombed, are marshalled +against them, and the horrors of their frightfulness, deliberately +planned and carried out against the peoples they have held in bondage, +their refusal to even feed properly their prisoners and captive +people--are we to be told to reconstruct a world without reparation +for these and their other crimes? + +We shall have a reconstructed world with right foundations, only when +the nations know that justice is throned internationally, and that +every crime is to be judged and punished. There can be no new world +without living faith, without real religion. A cheap and sentimental +humanitarism is no substitute for real faith--philosophies that seem +adequate in ordinary times are poor things when the soul of man +stands stripped of all its trappings and faces death and suffering and +watches agonies. Then the abiding eternal soul knows its own reality +and its oneness with the Divine and eternal, and the sacrifice of +Christ is a real living thing--and in the men's sacrifice they are +very near to Him. + +So the Churches are being tested, too, in this great crisis, and in a +reconstructed world we shall want Churches that carry the message of +Christianity with a clearer and firmer voice, but that is the task of +all believers. We cannot cast the duty of making the Church a living +witness on our priests alone--it is our work, and unless our faith +goes into everything we do, it is no use. People who profess a faith, +and carefully shut it up in a compartment of their lives, so that +it has no real connection with their work, are worse than honest +doubters--because they betray what they profess. + +So reconstruction rests upon great spiritual tasks and values, and +upon the willingness and ability of the nations to carry these out. + +In our country, our political parties are going to be changed and +reconstructed. The Labour Party has already made a big appeal +to "brain and hand workers," and has announced its scheme of +re-organization. + +One definite result of the war in the minds of the people of our +country is the definite mental discarding of state socialism of the +bureaucratic kind as a conceivable system of government. We have seen +bureaucracy at work to a great extent, and shall undoubtedly have +to continue control in many ways after peace comes, but we do not +like it. Socialism will have to go on to new lines of thought and +development if it wishes to achieve anything--and the most interesting +thought and schemes are on the lines of Guild Socialism. + +How the great Liberal and Unionist Parties will emerge, we cannot +say--but this we know, they will be different. We have a new +electorate, more men and the women, and the opinion and needs of the +women will undoubtedly affect our political reconstruction. Most of +us, in the war, have entirely ceased to care for party; even the most +fierce of partisans have changed, and the "party appeal," in itself, +will be of little account in our country. + +I feel sure we shall scrutinize measures and men and programmes more +carefully, and the work of educating our women will be part of the +women's great tasks in reconstruction. + +Our ability to reconstruct and renew rests fundamentally upon our +financial condition--even the power to make the best peace terms rests +upon it. Crippled countries cannot stand out for the best terms, so +finance is all-important. + +The democratic nature of our loans is all-important, too. We have had +people suggesting that these loans would be repudiated--a suggestion +that is not only absurd, but is humorous when one realizes that about +ten million of our people have invested in them. To get a House of +Commons elected that would repudiate these loans would be a difficult +task. + +The widespread nature of the loans is sound for the people and the +Government, and will help us not only to win the war, but, what is +still more important, "to win the peace." We have in this struggle +paid more and better wages to our people than ever before, conditions +have been improved, masses of our people have led a fuller existence +than ever before. We want to make these and still better conditions +permanent. We cannot do that by a military victory only--we can only +do it by finishing financially sound, and the man or woman who saves +now and invests is one of our soundest reconstructors. + +In the readjustments in industry that must come there will be +temporary displacements, and the money invested will be invaluable +to those affected. In our great task of reorganizing industries, of +renovating and repairing, of building up new works and adding to our +productiveness, finance is all-important. We shall need large sums for +the development of our industry, for the transferring of war work back +to peace pursuits, for the opening up of new industries and work, for +the development of trade abroad and the selfish using up of resources +that could be conserved, makes the work harder--might even, if +extravagantly large, cripple us seriously at the end of this struggle. + +The sacrifices of our men can achieve military victory, but weakness +and self-indulgence at home can take the fruits of their victories +away. + +Those who are working and saving in our War Savings Movement are so +convinced of its value, not only to the state, but to the individual, +and for the character of our people, that they have expressed the very +strongest conviction that it should go on after the War, and it will +probably remain in our reconstruction. + +We have also urged the wisdom of saving for the children's education +and for dots for daughters, so that our young women may have some +money in emergencies, or something of their own on marriage, and both +of these are being done. + +The great problem of education bulks very large in our reconstruction +schemes. A new Education Bill for England and Wales has been prepared +by Mr. Fisher--and his appointment is in itself a sign of our new +attitude. He is Minister of Education and is really an educationist, +having been Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield University when given the +appointment. His Bill puts an end to that stigma on English education, +the half-time system in Lancashire, and raises the age for leaving +school to what it has been in Scotland for some years--sixteen years +of age. It provides greater opportunities for secondary and technical +training and improves education in every way. Its passage, or the +passage of a still better Bill, is essential for any real work in +reconstruction. + +There are other schemes of education being planned and considered, and +women are working with men on the education committee of the Ministry +of Reconstruction. + +The land question is all-important in reconstruction. We have fixed a +minimum price for wheat for five years, as well as minimum wages for +the labourers on land, men and women, and we have schemes and land +for the settlement of soldiers. It is safe to predict that agriculture +will be better looked after than it was before the war, and that we +have learned a valuable lesson on food production, and the value of +being more self-supporting. + +There are people who talk airily and foolishly of "revolutions after +the war"--of great labour troubles, of exorbitant and impossible +demands, of irreconcilable quarrels. These people are themselves the +creators and begettors of trouble, and mischievous in the highest +degree. They belong, though they are much less attractive, to the same +category as the person who tells you that the moral regeneration of +the world is coming from this great war. + +The "revolutionists" have to learn that there is no need to have any +such crises happen, that they can only happen if we are foolish beyond +belief and conception--for we have learned in this war how great and +ample is the common meeting ground of all of us, how impossible it is +for anyone to believe that we, who have fought together, suffered +and lost together, while our men have died together, cannot find in +consideration of claims enough common sense and wisdom to prevent any +such disaster. + +And one wonders where the people are going to be found who are going +to be so unjust to the workers as to provide any reason for such +dangers to be feared, for we know one thing in the war, that in the +trenches, on the sea, behind the trenches and carrying on at home, the +workers have done the greater part--and they, in their turn, know all +others have borne their share. Out of such common knowledge and the +consciousness that the practical work of democracy is to raise its +people more and more, we shall have not revolution, but evolution of +the best kind. And the moral regeneration of the world will come if we +reconstruct the one thing that matters most and that is fundamental +to all--ourselves--and it will not come if we do not. When one +has said everything there is to be said of schemes and hopes of +reconstruction--about the schemes for better homes, and a great +housing scheme is wisely one of the foundation schemes of our +reconstruction, for which plans are now being prepared, about schemes +for the care of children, about schemes for endowment of motherhood, +which are exercising the minds of many of our women, you are back +again to the individual. When you think of education schemes, and +schemes for teaching national service to the young, of work to +teach care and thrift, you are back again to the problem of creating +character. + +When you go into the great world of industry and its problems, of care +of the workers in health and sickness, of securing justice and full +opportunities, of developing and wisely using our resources, again you +return to the individual. + +When you want to make the art and beauty of life accessible to all, +you come back to the question as to the individual's desire for it and +appreciation of it. + +Schemes in theory may be perfect--reconstruction may be planned +without a flaw--but what does that help if we as individuals are blind +and selfish? + +The regeneration of the world cannot come from the sacrifice of our +men alone, or even of some of us at home. The few may save countries +and do great things, but the work of reconstruction rests on +everybody. Nations are made up of individuals, and a nation cannot +hope for moral and social regeneration except through individual +self-denial, self-sacrifice and service. + +It is in our own hearts and our own minds that the great task of +reconstruction must be done. + +The greatest task of reconstruction for most of us is to make all +our actions worthy of our highest self--to bring to the problems that +confront us, not one detached and prejudiced bit of us, but the whole +mind and spirit of ourselves--the best of us always in unity. + +That is life's greatest task, and calls for all we have to give, and +all we are. There lies true reconstruction and the hope of all the +world. + + + + +APPENDIX + + + + +APPENDIX + + +American Women's War Relief Fund, 123 Victoria Street, London, S.W. 1. + +Association of Infant Consultation and Schools for Mothers, 4 +Tavistock Square, London, W.C. 1. + +British Women's Hospital, Bond Street, London, W. 1. + +Glove Waistcoat Society, 75 Chancery Lane, E.C. 4. + +Ministry of Food, Mrs. Pember Reeves, Mrs. C.S. Peel, Grosvenor House, +W. 1. + +National Federation of Women's Workers. + +Women's Trade Union League, 34 Mecklenburgh Square, W.C. 1. + +National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. + +Scottish Women's Hospitals, 62 Oxford Street, W.C. 1. + +Women's Interests Committee, 62 Oxford Street, W.C.I. + +National War Savings Committee, Salisbury Square, E.C. 4. + +National Union of Women Workers (Women Patrols), Parliament Mansions, +Victoria Street, S.W.I. + +Queen Mary's Needlework Guild, St. James Palace, S.W.I. + +National Food Economy League, 3 Woodstock Street, Oxford Street, +W.C.I. + +Prisoners of War, Help Committee, 4 Thurloe Place, Brompton Road, W. + +Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, Devonshire House, W. 1. + +Women's Branch, Food Production Department, Board of Agriculture, 72 +Victoria Street, S.W.I. + +Women's Service Bureau, L.S.W.S., 58 Victoria Street, S.W. 1. + +Women's National Land Service Corps, 50 Upper Baker Street, W. 1. + +Women Police Service, St. Stephens House, Westminster, S.W.I. + +Young Women's Christian Association, 25 George Street, Hanover Square, +W. 1. + +V.A.D., Lady Ampthill, Devonshire House, W. 1. + + * * * * * + +MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS + + + +PUBLICATIONS OF HEALTH OF MUNITION WORKERS' COMMITTEE + + +The following Memoranda have been prepared by the Committee and +issued: + +No. 1--Sunday Labour. + +No. 2--Welfare Supervision. + +No. 3--Industrial Canteens. + +No. 4--Employment of Women. + +No. 5--Hours of Work. + +No. 6--Canteen Construction and Equipment (Appendix to No. 3). + +No. 7--Industrial Fatigue and Its Causes. No. 8--Special Industrial +Diseases. + +No. 9--Ventilation and Lighting of Munition Factories and Workshops. + +No. 10--Sickness and Injury. + +No. 11--Investigation of Workers' Food and Suggestions as to Dietary. +(Report by Leonard E. Hill, F.R.S.) + +No. 12--Statistical Information Concerning Output in Relation to Hours +of Work. (Report by H.M. Vernon, M.D.) + +No. 13--Juvenile Employment. + +No. 14--Washing Facilities and Baths. + +No. 15--The Effect of Industrial Conditions Upon Eyesight. + +No. 16--Medical Certificates for Munition Workers. + +also, Feeding the Munition Worker. + + +Published by H.M. STATIONERY OFFICE, + +London, W.C. + + + + + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + |You have read this book and you will agree with the Publisher | + |that it ought to have an immediate and wide distribution. Will| + |you help him to eliminate wasteful advertising by sending the | + |post card enclosed, giving your opinion of the book to one of | + |your friends. | + \ / + \ / + ---------------------------------------------------------- + | AND | + ---------------------------------------------------------- + / \ + / \ + |Since you have probably seen the imprint of G. Arnold Shaw | + |on a book for the first time, will you spend a few minutes | + |scanning the following pages, to discover what the best | + |critical opinion is upon other recent Shaw publications. They | + |are intended for the discriminating few as our trademark, | + |"Aere Perennius"--"more lasting than brass," indicates. | + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + +BOOKS BY MEMBERS OF THE UNIVERSITY LECTURERS + +A significant proof of the growth of the Association's influence in +recent years is afforded by the fact that our Secretary, Mr. G. Arnold +Shaw, has been enabled to enter the publishing field successfully. We +reverse thus the plan of campaign of the ordinary lecture bureau which +is usually impressed with the possibilities of a man who has won fame +as an author rather than as a lecturer; we discover that a man is a +first rate lecturer and then we proceed to make him an author--also of +the front rank as the reviews quoted below show. + +ART AND ARCHITECTURE + +BY IAN C. HANNAH, F.S.A. + + Some Irish Religious Houses........ .50 + Irish Cathedrals................... .50 + +BY I.B. STOUGHTON HOLBORN + + The Need for Art in Life. (Third Thousand)........... .75 + "One of the greatest little books of the Age."--Boston Transcript. + + Architectures of European Religions, Illustrated.... 2.00 + +AUTOBIOGRAPHY + +The interest of these books depend not merely upon the interesting +personality of the famous lecturer and the equally fascinating +personalities of his two brothers, but also on the exquisite literary +style to which the critics have paid such eloquent testimony. + +BY JOHN COWPER POWYS AND LLEWELLYN POWYS + + Confessions of Two Brothers....... 1.50 + +BY THEODORE FRANCIS POWYS + + The Soliloquy of a Hermit......... 1.00 + This book can be compared to Amiel's Journal in the opinion of a + prominent London publisher. + + + + +ESSAYS AND CRITICISM + + +The essays contained in the following books deal with the best lecture +subjects of our various members; they are specially recommended to +those who wish to pursue further the study outlined in our lecture +courses. + +BY I.B. STOUGHTON HOLBORN + + THE NEED FOR ART IN LIFE........... 75 + + "The thoughtful man who reads it will feel that a new + classic has been added to the world's literature."--BOSTON + TRANSCRIPT. + + +BY JOHN COWPER POWYS + + VISIONS AND REVISIONS, A Book of Literary Devotions 2.00 + + "Seventeen essays remarkable for the omission of all that is + tedious and cumbersome in literary appreciations."--REVIEW + OF REVIEWS. + + + SUSPENDED JUDGMENTS, Essays on Books and Sensations 2.00 + + "Anything written by John Cowper Powys is arresting and thrilling. + This is superlatively true of his essays in literary + criticism."--CINCINNATI ENQUIRER. + + "A book of infinite delight to the book lover, for few present day + writers have the ability in the same measure as Mr. Powys + to express every shade of impression and sensation, and + his ripe judgment will appeal to all."--BOSTON GLOBE. + + + ONE HUNDRED BEST BOOKS, with commentary and an + essay on Books and Reading.............. 75 + + "Of each of the hundred books he gives a brief, sparkling, + thoroughly informative and delightfully interesting + critical view. If book reviewers could do the job as well + as Mr. Powys, the book pages would be the most popular + part of a newspaper."--EVENING TELEGRAM, PHILADELPHIA. + + * * * * * + +FICTION + + +Critics of literature seldom succeed as creative artists and so it +is specially remarkable that the highest authorities give even more +unqualified praise to the fiction of our members than to their +essays. We need not emphasize further our lack of appreciation for +the literary value of "best-sellers"; our aim has not been to produce +topical tracts for the times but novels that will survive. It is more +to us that competent critics should compare Mr. Powys' fiction to that +of Hardy, Dostoievsky and Emily Bronte than that the public should buy +it by the hundred thousand. Those who are not convinced that "you can +place 'Wood and Stone' unhesitatingly at the side of Dostoievsky's +masterpieces" should reflect that this is not the over-enthusiasm of +"America's newest Publisher" but the verdict of a London publisher +who has long held a pre-eminent position; it is therefore peculiarly +satisfactory to point out that our first novel "Wood and Stone" was + +PUBLISHED UNDER THE IMPRINT OF + +WILLIAM HEINEMANN G. ARNOLD SHAW + + [Illustration] [Illustration] + + IN LONDON IN NEW YORK + +FICTION + + BY IAN CAMPBELL HANNAH + QUAKER-BORN, A ROMANCE OF THE GREAT WAR............ 1.35 + + BY I.B. STOUGHTON HOLBORN + THE CHILD OF THE MOAT, A story of 1557 for girls... 1.25 + "Of such absorbing interest and literary merit that it + will doubtless take its place among the classics."--ART + AND ARCHAEOLOGY. + + BY JOHN COWPER POWYS + WOOD AND STONE, A Romance reminiscent of the + great Dostoievsky ................................. 1.75 + + "One of the best novels of the year."--EVENING POST, + NEW YORK. + + "His mastery of language, his knowledge of human + impulses, his interpretation of the forces of nature + and of the power of inanimate objects over human + beings, all pronounce him a writer of no mean rank. + He can express philosophy in terms of narrative + without prostituting his art; he can suggest an + answer without drawing a moral; with a clearer + vision he could stand among the masters in literary + achievement."--BOSTON TRANSCRIPT. + + "Psychologically speaking, it is one of the most remarkable + pieces of fiction ever written."--CHICAGO TRIBUNE. + + RODMOOR, A Romance of the old Thrilling Romantic + Order............1.50 + + "It is so far above the average English and American + fiction that one can well exempt it from the necessity + of following the rules. He has intellect, he has taste, + he has a sure instinct for what is aesthetically fine. + These qualities in themselves make his 'Rodmoor' a + novel of exceptional distinction."--BOSTON TRANSCRIPT. + + "Without exception the most exquisitely written + novel of the year."--ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +HISTORY AND TRAVEL + + BY IAN CAMPBELL HANNAH, M.A., D.C.L., F.S.A. + Eastern Asia, A history 2.50 + Capitals of the Northlands, A Tale of ten cities 2.00 + The Heart of East Anglia (A History of Norwich) 2.00 + The Berwick and Lothian Coast 2.00 + + +POETRY + + BY I.B. STOUGHTON HOLBORN + CHILDREN OF FANCY 2.00 + "A Notable volume of Verse."--Boston Globe. + + BY JOHN COWPER POWYS + WOLF'S-BANE 1.25 + "We hesitate to say how many years it is necessary + to go back in order to find their equals in + sheer poetic originality."--Evening Post, New York. + MANDRAGORA 1.25 + + +THE WAR + + BY IAN CAMPBELL HANNAH + ARMS AND THE MAP 1.25 + + BY JOHN COWPER POWYS + THE WAR AND CULTURE .60 + "More weighty than many of the more pretentious + treatises on the subject."--The Nation. + +Any of the above books sent post-free on receipt of price by + +[Illustration: (G. ARNOLD SHAW PUBLISHER, NEW YORK)] + + * * * * * + +RECOMMENDED BY THE A.L.A. BOOKLIST + +SPECIALLY SUITABLE FOR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES + +ARMS AND THE MAP + +A STUDY IN NATIONALITIES AND FRONTIERS + +BY IAN CAMPBELL HANNAH, M.A., D.C.L. + +12mo, 256 pages, $1.25 net + +This work, which has had a large sale in England, will be invaluable +when the terms of peace begin to be seriously discussed. Every +European people is reviewed and the evolution of the different +nationalities is carefully explained. Particular reference is made +to the so-called "Irredentist" lands, whose people want to be under +a different flag from that under which they live. + +The colonizing methods of all the nations are dealt with, and +especially the place in the sun that Germany hasn't got. + + NEW YORK TIMES says: "Such a volume as this will undoubtedly + be of value in presenting ... facts of great importance in a + brief and interesting fashion." + + BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE says: "It is hard to find a man who + presents his arguments so broad-mindedly as Dr. Hannah. His + spirit is that of a catholic scholar striving earnestly to + find the truth and present it sympathetically." + + PHILADELPHIA NORTH AMERICAN says: "It is in no sense history, + but rather a preparatory effort to mark broadly the outlines + of any future peace settlement that would have even a fighting + chance of permanency. Only in perusing a critical study of + this character can the vast problems of post-bellum imminence + be fully apprehended." + + PHILADELPHIA PRESS says: "His work is immensely readable and + particularly interesting at this time and will throw much + fresh light on the situation." + +OTHER BOOKS BY IAN C. HANNAH + + Eastern Asia, A History $2.50 + Capitals of the Northlands (A tale of ten cities) 2.00 + The Berwick and Lothian Coast (in the County Coast Series) 2.00 + The Heart of East Anglia (A History of Norwich) 2.00 + Some Irish Religious Houses (Reprinted from the + _Archaeological Journal_) 50c + Irish Cathedrals (Reprinted from the _Archaeological Journal_) 50c + +G. ARNOLD SHAW PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY LECTURERS ASSOCIATION + + * * * * * + +GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL NEW YORK + + * * * * * + +RECOMMENDED BY THE A.L.A. BOOKLIST + +ADOPTED FOR REQUIRED READING BY THE PITTSBURGH TEACHERS READING CIRCLE + +VISIONS AND REVISIONS + +A BOOK OF LITERARY DEVOTIONS + +BY JOHN COWPER POWYS + +8vo, 298 pp. Half White Cloth with Blue Fabriano Paper Sides, $2.00 +net + +This volume of essays on Great Writers by the well-known lecturer +was the first of a series of three books with the same purpose as the +author's brilliant lectures; namely, to enable one to discriminate +between the great and the mediocre in ancient and modern literature: +the other two books being "One Hundred Best Books" and "Suspended +Judgments." + +Within a year of its publication, four editions of "Visions and +Revisions" were printed--an extraordinary record considering that +it was only the second book issued by a new publisher. The value of +the book to the student and its interest for the general reader are +guaranteed by the international fame of the author as an interpreter +of great literature and by the enthusiastic reviews it received from +the American Press. + + REVIEW OF REVIEWS, New York: "Seventeen essays ... remarkable + for the omission of all that is tedious and cumbersome + in literary appreciations, such as pedantry, muckraking, + theorizing, and, in particular, constructive criticism." + + BOOK NEWS MONTHLY, Philadelphia: "Not one line in the entire + book that is not tense with thought and feeling. With + all readers who crave mental stimulation ... 'Visions and + Revisions' is sure of a great and enthusiastic appreciation." + + THE NATION AND THE EVENING POST, New York: "Their imagery is + bright, clear and frequently picturesque. The rhythm falls + with a pleasing cadence on the ear." + + BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE: "A volume of singularly acute and + readable literary criticism." + + CHICAGO HERALD: "An essayist at once scholarly, human and + charming is John Cowper Powys.... Almost every page carries + some arresting thought, quaintly appealing phrase, or picture + spelling passage." + + REEDY'S MIRROR, St. Louis: "Powys keeps you wide awake in the + reading because he's thinking and writing from the standpoint + of life, not of theory or system. Powys has a system but it is + hardly a system. It is a sort of surrender to the revelation + each writer has to make." + + KANSAS CITY STAR: "John Cowper Powys' essays are wonderfully + illuminating.... Mr. Powys writes in at least a semblance of + the Grand Style." + +"Visions and Revisions" contains the following essays:-- + + Rabelais Dickens Thomas Hardy + Dante Goethe Walter Pater + Shakespeare Matthew Arnold Dostoievsky + El Greco Shelley Edgar Allan Poe + Milton Keats Walt Whitman + Charles Lamb Nietzsche Conclusion + +G. ARNOLD SHAW PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY LECTURERS ASSOCIATION + +GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL NEW YORK + + * * * * * + +SUSPENDED JUDGMENTS + +ESSAYS ON BOOKS AND SENSATIONS + +BY JOHN COWPER POWYS + +8vo. about 400 pages. Half cloth with blue Fabriano paper sides $2.00 +net + +_The Book News Monthly_ said of "Visions and Revisions": + +"Not one line in the entire book that is not tense with thought and +feeling." + +The author of "Visions and Revisions" says of this new book of essays: + +"In 'Suspended Judgments' I have sought to express with more +deliberation and in a less spasmodic manner than in 'Visions,' the +various after-thoughts and reactions both intellectual and sensational +which have been produced in me, in recent years, by the re-reading of +my favorite writers. I have tried to capture what might be called the +'psychic residuum' of earlier fleeting impressions and I have tried +to turn this emotional aftermath into a permanent contribution--at any +rate for those of similar temperament--to the psychology of literary +appreciation. + +"To the purely critical essays in this volume I have added a certain +number of others dealing with what, in popular parlance, are called +'general topics,' but what in reality are always--in the most extreme +sense of that word--personal to the mind reacting from them. I have +called the book 'Suspended Judgments' because while one lives, one +grows, and while one grows, one waits and expects." + +SUSPENDED JUDGMENTS CONTAINS THESE ESSAYS: + +THE ART OF DISCRIMINATION IN LITERATURE + + MONTAIGNE EMILY BRONTE + PASCAL JOSEPH CONRAD + VOLTAIRE HENRY JAMES + ROUSSEAU OSCAR WILDE + BALZAC AUBREY BEARDSLEY + VICTOR HUGO + DE MAUPASSANT FRIENDS + ANATOLE FRANCE RELIGION + PAUL VERLAINE LOVE + REMY DE GOURMONT CITIES + WILLIAM BLAKE MORALITY + BYRON EDUCATION + +G. ARNOLD SHAW PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY LECTURERS ASSOCIATION + + GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL NEW YORK + + * * * * * + + +ONE HUNDRED BEST BOOKS + +WITH COMMENTARY AND AN ESSAY ON + +BOOKS AND READING + +BY JOHN COWPER POWYS + + +This list is designed to supply the need of persons who wish to +acquire a general knowledge of such books in world-literature as are +at once exciting and thrilling to the ordinary mind and written in the +style of the masters. It recognizes the fact that modern people are +most interested in modern books; but it recognizes also that such +books, to be worthy of this interest, must uphold the classical +tradition of manner and form. + +80 Pages 12mo. 75 Cents + +[Illustration: (G. ARNOLD SHAW PUBLISHER. NEW YORK)] + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMEN AND WAR WORK*** + + +******* This file should be named 14676.txt or 14676.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/6/7/14676 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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