WOMAN'S WORLD

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3099, 1 June 1917, Page 3

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Continued from page 2.)

WOMEN'S LABOUR

AND THE NATION'S NEEDS. At the annual meeting of the Victoria League, held yesterday, Mrs. Corliss, a vice-president, gave an interesting account of some of the work in which women have been engaged since the outbreak of wax. Glimpses of the way in which tho 'people tried to meet the. emergencies of the moment, the consternation and bewilderment that overtook them, and the loss of money which befell many, were briefly sketched. Mrs. Corliss told her audience of the aloofness with which the earnest appeals of the women of Britain to take part in tho war were met by tho Government, and how finally women won their cause. Tho

first experiment in munition-making by women was made in a old foundry on the banks of the Thames, one hundred picked women being engaged to make fuses. These women came from praotically every rank in life, some of them being altogether unaccustomed to hard physical work. Their hands were cut and braised and torn, their eyes, their heads, and theirywhole bodies aohed with an overpowering weariness, and yet they clung grimly to their work, determined .never to give in, cost what it might. When remonstrated with by some friends they said: "We realised that the whole future of women in England depended upon our work, and. wo had to go through with it." They proved the power of women to take their share in the war, and to do work that was hitherto believed to bo beyond their abilities, and later every one of those hundred women was drafted off to be forewomen in other factories where there were women munitioners, their own crporienoe to bo used for the benefit of the novices. To-day there were somowhere about three million of women engaged in making munitions in the factories at Home. "Bc-

hind the lines," said Mrs. Corliss, there is as much hcroifiiu being shown, by women and by men, too, as there is m the battle lines themselves." The work of the Women s Emergency Corps was touched upon, and the effoctivo way in which they organised tho labour of women. Women on the land was a vital matter, and tho Emergency Corps fitted out women for tho first experiment. They wore- taken from the stage, tho shop, tho slums, from all classes. Pale-faced, fragile looking, it eeemed somewhat of a forlorn hope to send such to do rough hard farm work, but tho experiment succeeded beyond their utmost expectations, and the effect that the work had upon the physique of tho women was 6imply marvellous. Now there are very large numbers doing farm work of all descriptions, and the Government is making most urgent appeal for more. In fact, now they were being organised into a National Servico Land Army, and were under military discipline, just as soldiors were, and also wore uniform. Furthermore, there were agricultural colleges in England, to which women were sent for training, and these were afterwards placed in. charge of gangs of working women, directing their work and seeing that everything was dono properly. . Mrs. Corliss said she would Tery much liko to 6eo something done in New Zealand to utilise the services of women for agricultural work. It was the employers who wero holding back, not the women, for there wore many belonging to the National Eesorvo who on joining had written upon their registration cards "ready to do anything." It would be a great thing for tho country if there wero agricultural colleges started here, at which women couid be trained, and she did not Bee why it could not be done just as much as at Homo. Co-operative farming in England had proved very successful, and many women had gone in for it.