WOMEN AND THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2480, 5 June 1915, Page 11

WOMEN AND THE WAR

THEIR POWERFUL INFLUENCE. Terrible as the present war may seom in so many ways it has certainly revealed tha latent characteristics or British men and women, of which we are justly proud, 6tates a writer in an English paper. One of tho greatest revelations is the admirable devotion of women in the hour of their country's need. They have been the mainspring or tho numberless beneficent organisations for tho welfare of sailors and soldiers and of their dependents at home, and their self-sacrificing efforts in all directions have been beyond praise. On all sides it is admitted that the women of the nation deserve our highest gratitude for the many services they have and are rendering in this supreme crisis in our history. A few days ago wo saw a generous, }et withal just, tribute by a distinguished British general, who said:—"l was clcan against the franchise for women before the war, but if a woman was to ask me now to support that movement I should not be able to find it in my conscience to refuse. The women's work out here has been magnificent. I don't mean merely their courage ant! devotion; I mean their dis- ! cipline, their common-sense, their organi i isation. Take the matron-in-chief of i the army. She's perfectly splendid, 6'he's wonderful, she's—she's—well— • she's a soldier." Fit for Franchise ■ fhat was his highest praise and the lady's apotheosis. He went on to say, "If she was made quarter-mastcr- ! general she'd work it, she'd run the i whole Army, and she'd never get flustered, never make a mistake. T!:e i woman's a genius. We couldn't get on : without her. And yet if she went ' away I'm pretty certain another woman would be found to fill her place.