"A WOMEN'S WAR."

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 205, 1 September 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

"A WOMEN'S WAR."

WHEN THE MEN RETURN? PROBLEMS LIKELY TO ARISE. Lady Randolph Churchill, niothei )f Colonel Winston Churchill, has given to tho New York Times her views on women as affected by the war. She regards it as The Women's War. "Women do not serve their country in the firing line,"' she admits, "but from the beginning of tune and combat I think that their patriotic services have been as important as those of men,' - she adds. "' In a very • large degree, Lady Churchill went on " it is a women's war That is, everything which womankind holds dear is among the issues being fought out in it. Jt is a war of decent social progress against social retrogression: it is a war off civilisation against brutality. Can any one who thinks ot Nurso Cavell's grim fate in Belgium ask what the war's significance to women is? "With very few exceptions ine women of the Allied nations have thrown themselves into ; :t almost as earnestly as have the men. They have realised their vital interest in it, an interest far more vital even than that of the mother whose son has gone to the front, the wire whoso husband, has (rone to the front, the sister whose brother has gone to the front. They aro in the position of non-combatants who have been upon tho verge of gaining everything which humanity can va'tie, but who suddenly see everything which they already have and all which they were on the point of getting threatened by brutal foreign forces. WHAT DEPENDS ON ALLIED VICTORY. " If the Allies win the war the women of England, and, for that matter, those of every other nation in the world, even those of the United States in a degree, will advance instantly a long step beyond the stage which they had reached before the war began If tho Allies should be defeated the women of the wor'd also would suffer a defeat. They would be thrust backward, losing all which they have won. "They cannot go back from their new viewpoint to the old. They are not willing to tolerate the thought of retracing the great forward steps which they had gained before the war began Such a retrogression seems impossible to them. They have established new habits born of the'r advances. British and French defeat would be a crushing blow. "Personally T am convinced that the women of this generation never will be content to relapse into merely pleasureloving creatures, ( nnd that means a metamorphosis. '"'Nor would the men in the least be content with such a change. Even in the British Government there is a strong appreciation of the competence of women, for the Government in many branches has had women forced upon it, and lias found them competent. Wherever workingwomen have been forced upon the Government they have proved themselves worthy, and wherever social women have co-operated with the Government they have proved themselves definitely worth while. THE BOND OF SYMPATHY. "The so-called 'lower classes' have felt a thrill of sheer amazement at the kindness and sympathy which the gentlewomen have shown for them through their ministrations to the 'common fighting man,' while the women of the 'uppei classes have felt a thrill o/f not less genuine amazement as they have discovered how slight is the real difference between the poor woman's soldier son and their own. "' Women have proved to bg so competent that out of this very competence a problem has arisen. Women already preponderate in Great Britain's population. The loss of men 'n battle has been and wi'l be enormous, and this will add to the preponderance. Many men, when at last they are released from military .service, ' will find tho 'jobs' which occupied them ore the war came, very ably tilled by women. One of the details of tins adniission of women into men's portions has been the fact that they have given greater satisfaction than men ever gave, liecause, they do not drink. "The returning man, therefore, will Ik» puzzled by his status. He will have to be very good indeed if he displaces the woman at his work, and, furthermore, he will have to b.o a sober man. It will raise the standard of British labour splendidly and put many men out of the towns upon the land. There are those who actually believe that tins movement may be of sufficient importance to increase agricultural productiveness so as to lower the cost of living. WILL THERE BE A SEX WAR? "There are those who cynically look forward to a sex war as the natural result of all these .influences, but 1 am not so pessimistic. I believe that matters will readjust themselves upon a new and better basis. "One of the grave problems which will arise after ihc war ends will he that of domestic service. This may immensely amplify English living against the will of Englishmen and of many, many Englishwomen. Domestic service is becoming more and more distasteful to women. Almost all working women prefer labour under tne Government to working in tiie household, and. after the war, they will prefer ordinary factory work at the higher wages which v,' II be iiM'vHable. "What the answer will be who can say- Will domestic service pass into ilie hands of the thousands of men returning from the war slightly'disabled -J ike able-bodied men who by thousand; were engaged in it before the. war now have learned that greater satisfaction comes from labouring at mor.e productive ami more mascuVne pursuits."